Overcoming Cross-Border Disparities: Planning, Policies and Ideologies in the French-Luxembourg Territory

Regional disparities have been a topic of interest throughout Europe since at least the 1970s. One of the European Community’s and Union’s main promises has been to achieve comparable living conditions for all its members across the continent. This contribution aims to examine regional policies and plans for cross-border collaboration that deal with related inequalities. Against the background of European regional policy activities and outcomes, I will focus on the French-Luxembourgish territory and discuss an ‘International Building Exhibition’ (IBA) as a case study. Inspired by Germany’s century-long experience with temporary planning instruments, government actors on both sides of the border have proposed this project. The goal was to enhance cross-border cooperation between the two countries, and it was tested for two years but did not reach the implementation phase. The IBA faced major constraints rooted not only in the obvious limits of policy import but also in the institutions’ missing willingness to experiment. Persistent economic disparities corresponded with state-led governance attitudes that did not align, eventually leading to termination of the project.