What if border obstacles could be managed before they become barriers?
Cross-border cooperation can open new opportunities for people and regions — but differences in legal frameworks, administrative structures and responsibilities can still create obstacles in everyday life. From emergency services and healthcare to mobility and employment, these barriers often require time-consuming workarounds and can depend heavily on individual initiatives.
The pilot explored how cross-border obstacles could be identified, analysed and addressed more systematically across the Austrian–Bavarian and Austrian–South Bohemian border regions.
Bringing together regional stakeholders and competent authorities, it examined the causes and impacts of specific obstacles and identified practical opportunities for action.
The ambition goes beyond resolving individual cases: the pilot explored how to move from ad hoc problem-solving towards a continuous, institutionally anchored approach to managing cross-border obstacles.
The pilot project focused on Upper Austria’s state borders with Bavaria and the Czech Republic. While the approximately 100-kilometer-long border with Bavaria in the northwest, running along the Inn and Danube rivers, is characterized by diverse interconnections and a high level of exchange, the roughly 141-kilometer-long border in the north/northeast with the Czech Republic is a predominantly green border shaped by the Bohemian Forest.
In total, approximately 450,000 people lived in the Upper Austrian districts directly along the border in 2024. In both border regions combined, approximately 734,000 people lived in Bavarian, South Bohemian, and Upper Austrian districts directly along the border in 2024.
General objective: Enhancing the capacity of local and regional authorities to properly manage cross-border obstacles, adequately addressing the civil community’s and local needs.
Specific objective: Gaining of applicable knowledge on how to remove border obstacles in the trilateral cross-border area between Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic.
In Upper Austria, the topic of border obstacles has been tackled for many years, initially stemming from the wish and need to better focus (Interreg-) funding. A main driver was and still is the aim to support those topics, that present the greatest barriers across borders and to bundle various activities in order to make an impact.
To intensify these attempts, the Interreg Bavaria – Austria programme (Managing Authority located at the Government of Upper Austria) worked out the “Border Obstacles-Paper” in 2021, which identified the most urgent border obstacles in the programme area for different border segments. This was a good starting point to go deeper in the discussions on border obstacles in specific topics. In the meantime, there is a need for an update of the outcomes of the border-obstacles-study due to the time that has passed and going one step further concerning stakeholders and networks. But also, the investigation in more streamlined procedures and possible activities of the authorities is required.
Some efforts have also been taken to find out about border obstacles between Austria and the Czech Republic and there is knowledge about the general topics, that represent border obstacles. For example, there is a bilateral rescue service agreement, which can be a starting point. However, so far, there hasn’t been a thorough examination to narrow down the border obstacles with the Czech Republic and no targeted discussion of their removal. So, this is a main driver for this pilot action.
Also, the issue of trilateral obstacles is a recurrent question. This is why the pilot action should investigate, if real trilateral obstacles in the Austria – Germany – Czech Republic border area can be identified.
As the experience from previous years shows, information about the most urgent topics is crucial but it doesn’t remove any barriers. So, there is the need to identify relevant stakeholders and networks to discuss ways how to reduce and overcome border obstacles.
Summing up, the pilot action is needed
This section will be updated following the release of the final pilot report.
This section will be updated following the release of the final pilot report.
This platform has been developed within the BorderLabs CE project, supported by the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme with co-financing from the European Union. Its content, including any analyses, interpretations, opinions, forecasts and recommendations, is the sole responsibility of the authors and the project partnership and does not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme, its programme bodies or the European Union.
This platform has been developed within the BorderLabs CE project, supported by the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme with co-financing from the European Union. Its content, including any analyses, interpretations, opinions, forecasts and recommendations, is the sole responsibility of the authors and the project partnership and does not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE Programme, its programme bodies or the European Union.