An Analysis On The Governance Of Cross-border Cooperation In The EU

Through 50 years'unremitting efforts, the European Union has become the largest regional integrated organization at the highest level of development in the world. Its model of cross-border cooperation as an innovation in the development of regional integration has made notable effect in accelerating socio-economic development of border areas, promoting the balanced development and socio-economic cohesion within European Union, and advancing the European integrated process. Cross-border cooperation is an inter-regional cooperation on both sides of each border between different countries in the European Union, which involves cross-border and cross-border cooperation in many aspects such as systems, economy, laws, culture and education. The EU cross-border cooperation has been able to overcome many difficulties and gain success, mainly because of its special structure as well as its corresponding special mechanism of governance. Starting from the understanding of the EU cross-border cooperation, this paper systematically analyses the specific operation of multi-level governance theory in cross-border cooperation, and deepens our understanding and awareness of the multi-level governance system. There are four sections in this paper:The first section mainly introduces the development of the EU cross-border cooperation and its content. Through reviewing and comprehending of the development, changes and types of cross-border cooperation in nearly 50 years, we could fully understand its practice process. On one hand, the EU provides fund support for cross-border cooperation by means of Interreg project; on the other hand, not only the local governments but also various formal and informal organizations at the regional and local government level, have actively participated in it, thereby all this help the EU to overcome various obstacles and unfavorable factors, and promote the cross-border cooperation smoothly.The second section mainly focuses on the analysis of the governance mechanism in the cross-border cooperation. On the basis of analyzing the EU governance theory, we could deepen our understanding of the EU governance particularity. It is a special multi-level governance mechanism formed by supra-national, national, sub-national actors for the joint participation and power-sharing. Then we can have a better understanding and awareness about multi-level governance theory in three aspects of development of the multi-level governance theory, the characteristics and the structure of multi-level governance. Euroregion Upper Rhine as an example of the cross-border cooperation, gives us a better opportunity to understand the specific operation of multi-level governance theory in cross-border cooperation.Part III summarizes the governance effectiveness of multi-level governance theory applied in the cross-border cooperation. The cross-border cooperation has to face border issues, and the border is the dividing line between the territories of sovereign state, so all this will form'boundary effect'. The coordinated mechanism of multi-level governance effectively overcomes many obstacles of'boundary effect', and promotes the development of cross-boundary cooperation smoothly.Part IV concretely analyzes the governance plight of cross-border cooperation. Through the analysis above, this paper will discuss the supra-national limitation of multi-level governance, the dual nature of participation at the sub-national level and the incompatibility of governance at all levels in order to comprehend the plight of governance.With the constant development of the European integrated process, the EU multi-level governance tends to improve gradually. However, multi-level governance theory still will face different difficulties in the development of its practice; from the perspective of cross-boundary cooperation, we will acquire the detailed and thorough understanding of the EU governance, aggregate the effectiveness of the EU governance and go deep into the plight of the EU governance, which enabled us to obtain a more rational understanding about the EU integrated process and its prospect.