Cross-border cooperation: how EU regions fund neighbours
Cross-border cooperation programmes let EU regions and their neighbours fund shared projects. It is local, slow and one of the EU more human instruments.
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Updated
Jul 12, 2026
Not all EU money is decided in Brussels. Cross-border cooperation programmes push funding decisions down to the regions that share a border, including borders with non-EU neighbours.
How it works
A region on one side and a region on the other agree on shared priorities: clean water, small business, tourism, disaster response. The EU co-funds the projects, and local bodies on both sides run them. The amounts are modest, the effect on the ground is real.
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Why it is different
Most EU funding is top-down. Cross-border cooperation is the opposite, and that is the point. It builds trust between neighbours through small, concrete projects rather than grand strategy.
It sits inside the broader EU neighbourhood funding map .
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