Description
Euregio Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino is the European region uniting the three territories of Tyrol, South Tyrol and Trentino, which share first and foremost a common history, but also many other geographical, economic and cultural aspects. The aim is to establish solid ties, to live united in diversity, to put cohesion first by overcoming national borders: just like a small Europe within Europe and to do this the Euregio relies on transnational cooperation.
The projects and initiatives implemented go beyond borders and aim to improve the quality of life of citizens, to promote the European integration process and to break down borders. The challenges of the future are many, and the Euregio's challenge is to tackle them together and in a shared way. To find common solutions to issues such as mobility, training and education, climate change, the future of young people.
The Euregio was officially founded in 2011 - the Constitutive Act, the Convention and the Statute were signed on 14 June 2011 in Castel Thun in Trentino by the then presidents Günter Platter (Tyrol), Luis Durnwalder (South Tyrol) and Lorenzo Dellai (Trentino) - but the legal framework to enable its start-up was approved in 2006 when, with European Community Regulation No. 1082 of 5 July of that year, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union raised interregional cooperation to a higher institutional level.
Thanks to the possibility of establishing a so-called EGTC (European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation), interregional cooperation gets a significant improvement and an increase in possibilities, as the EGTC is granted its own legal personality. Whereas previously, cooperation was mostly based on an informal level and without a legal basis, the EGTC instrument now makes it possible to create groupings with their own legal personality.
In 2011, the Land Tyrol and the two autonomous provinces of Bolzano and Trento availed themselves of the possibility of setting up an EGTC and transformed the already existing cooperation, for which the three territories had worked together in the past but without institutionalisation, into the legal form of the EGTC with its seat in Bolzano. The chairmanship is taken in turn for a two-year period by one of the three territories.
From October 2021 until October 2023, the rotating presidency of the Euregio will be held by the Autonomous Province of Trento. President Maurizio Fugatti presented his programme at the beginning of 2022. The central themes of the Trentino Presidency's action are to be that of young people and the further development of the Euregio's institutional architecture to make it even closer to the citizens. The slogan chosen for the Trentino presidency is in fact 'Euregio is young': because the Euregio is a young institution, being just over 10 years old; because the intention is to make young people the protagonists of the Euregio; because the reform of the Euregio's constituent acts is young; and because, finally, the Euregio's activities will intersect with the European Year of Youth in 2022.
