Legal Accessibility

Legal accessibility among the V4 countries

Since its establishment in 1991 and mainly during the last few years, V4 became a regional brand known world-wide. At the same time, regardless of the efforts made by the V4 Fund, the cooperation hardly influences the population’s daily life: it is not simpler to work, to live, to study, to do business, to get married, etc. in other V4 countries.

During recent years, several initiatives have been taken in Europe with a view to diminishing or even eliminating the legal-administrative barriers still existing among the European countries. In this respect, the major project was the Cross-Border Review implemented by the DG Regio in 2015-2016. The project ended with a Communication of the European Commission (titled: Boosting Growth and Cohesion in EU Border Regions) published in September 2017 which will give a new impetus to the efforts in this field, where good examples exist at regional level, too. The most advanced regional cooperation can be detected at the Benelux cooperation and the Nordic Council. At the same time, at Visegrad Group no similar initiatives exist while internal mobility and cohesion should be strengthened.

The Nordic States set up the Free Movement Council in 2014 which every year identifies several legal obstacles hampering internal cohesion and selects some of them to be eliminated by the member countries, systematically. This model does not only strengthen regional cohesion by easing the regional mobility of workers, students, entrepreneurs and goods but, in parallel, provides concrete content for regional identity and regional brand building.

Similarly to the Benelux and Nordic cooperation, the project partners aim at laying the basis for permanent intergovernmental mechanisms enabling V4 governments to detect and eliminate those legal-administrative barriers hampering or making difficult to work, to study, to do business, to get married, to purchase goods, etc. in either countries of the V4 cooperation.

For this purpose, the partners will elaborate a study on the model of the Nordic Council (based on a study visit in Copenhagen and the available documents and literature), a proposal on the V4 Mobility Council (methodological, structural and operational factors) and an information and cooperation handbook (a guide on the set up of the proposed V4 level platform). The project objectives and results will be popularised through two conferences, an on-line campaign and a printed brochure. The European decision makers will be informed on the new initiative by an English summary of the project.

Project partners:

• Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives (LP, Hungary),
• University of Szeged (HU),
• Central European Service for Cross-border Initiatives Carpathia(SK)
• Masaryk University Faculty of Science – Department of Geography (CZ),
• University of Warsaw – Centre for European Regional and Local Studies (PL).

Time frames:

from 1st February, 2018 to 31st July, 2019

Indicators:

• Study-tour to Copenhagen, to the secretariat of the Nordic Council (5 persons)
• Study on the obstacle removal system of the Nordic Council (1 study)
• Proposal on the obstacle removal system of the Visegrad countries: the V4 Mobility Council (1 study)
• Information and cooperation handbook on the creation of the V4 Mobility Council (1 handbook)
• English summary on the project (1 short study)
• Kick-off conference (1 conference, 40 participants)
• Closing conference (1 conference, 40 participants)
• Partners’ technical meetings (2 meetings)
• Project website
• Social media campaign

The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.