The choice of the nine cases

For a successful comparison, the case selection of the research makes reference to a sampling of nine cases, nine different municipalities located in different cross-border areas of Albania, Bulgaria and FRYOM - NUTS III⁵ or smaller area (see also ANNEX1) - with an intensive CBC activity:

- Municipality of Korca AL (border area AL-GR; AL-FYROM) - Municipality of Gjirokaster AL (border area AL-GR)

- Municipality of Vlore AL (border area AL-GR)

- Municipality of Kyustendil BG (border area BG-FYROM; BG-SRB) - Municipality of Haskovo BG (border area BG-TR; BG-GR) - Municipality of Ruse BG (border area BG-RO)

- Municipality Struga FYROM (border area FYROM-GR)

- Municipality of Bitola FYROM (border area FYROM-AL; FYROM-GR) - Municipality of Kriva Palanka FYROM (border area FYROM-BG; FYROM-SRB)

4 In 2006, the EU through the EGTC (European Groups of Territorial Cooperation) changed this framework recognizing unique European status to cross-border entities. There are no EGTC in South-East Europe yet;

5The NUTS classification (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics) is a hierarchical system for dividing up the economic territory of the EU for the purposes of: 1) The collection, development and harmonization of EU regional statistics; 2) Socio-economic analyses of the regions – NUTS 1: major socio-economic regions – NUTS 2: basic regions for the application of the regional policies – NUTS 3:

small regions for specific diagnoses; 3) Framing of the EU regional policies. For further details:

Figure 2.5 – Case selection: in red the selected municipalities (Arid Ocean map)

The municipalities - 3 Albanian, 3 Bulgarian, 3 Macedonian - are preferred to other types of local institutions (districts/ prefectures/ regions/ etc.) because in South-East Europe they correspond to the only local political level with direct election of the people, and not to a mere statistical and institutional division. This allows the author to investigate the political and ideological factor of the selected cases. Furthermore, regionalisation in the Balkans is still incomplete (Bafoil 2010). The case selection is established on three distinguished steps: the overview of the major intensive cross-border areas and all the Euroregions present in South-East Europe on the basis of the map-census realized by the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR 2011); the screening of the cases of South-East Europe with reference to Gasparini and Perkmann’s classification of the Euroregions (2000; 2003); the selection of the final nine cases based on their geographical position covering the whole territory analyzed by the research.

Thus, firstly on the basis of AEBR’s map (2011), “cross-border cooperation areas/structures” (Figure 2.6), which lists the Euroregions and the cross-border areas with a particular intensive CBC in Europe, the author selects all the twenty-one CBC areas identified in Albania, Bulgaria, and FYROM (the numbers refer to the AEBR’s map numbers):

Reference number

AEBR Map 2011 Name of the Euroregion or CBC Area States involved

11. Adriatic Euroregion AL/ BA/ HR/ IT/ MTN/ SI

12. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Donauländer AT/ BG/ DE/ HR/ HU/ MD/ RO/ SK/

SRB/ UA

14. Euroregion Black Sea AM/ AZ/ BG/ GE/ GR/ MD/ RO/ RU/

TR/ UA 128. Euroregion Middle Danube - Iron Gates +

Euroregion Danube 21

BG/RO/SRB

129. Euroregion Nishava BG/SRB

130. Euroregion Danube – South BG/RO

131. Euroregion Ruse-Giurgiu BG/RO

132. Euroregion Danubius BG/RO

133. Inferior Danube Euroregion BG/RO

137. Euroregion Stara Planina BG/SRB

171. Puglia - Ionian Islands - Epyros - Albania IT/GR/AL

172. Epyros - South-Albania GR/AL

173. West Macedonia - Albania - FYROM GR/AL/MK

174. Central Macedonia - FYROM GR/MK

175. Euroregion Belasica BG/GR/MK

176. Euroregion Morava-Pcinija-Struma BG/MK/SRB

177. Euroregion Strymon - Strouma GR/BG

178. Euroregion Nestos-Mesta GR/BG

179. Euroregion Rhodopi BG/GR

181. Euroregion Polis - TrakiaKent - RAM Trakia GR/TR/BG

182. Euroregion Evros - Maritsa – Meric GR/TR/BG

Table 2.2 – List of Euroregions and Cross-Border Cooperation Areas with a particular intensive CBC (AEBR Map 2011)

Figure 2.6 – Euroregions and Cross-Border Cooperation Areas with a particular intensive CBC (AEBR Map 2011)

Following the first step, the case selection is secondly determined on the basis of Gasparini’s theory which categorizes the Euroregions in three typologies: macro structures, functional networks and contiguity cooperation. The Euroregions are classified on the basis of their geographical dimensions and their cross-border objectives, trade, transport, specific policies, culture, etc. (Gasparini 2003a):

1. The first type of Euroregion aims to provide macro structures or political agreements for cross-border cooperation and to connect the area with its international hinterland, through common transport infrastructures (roads, ports, railways) that could support further economic cooperation. These objectives can be pursued by Euroregional bodies (conferences of presidents, for example) able to take legislative initiatives through agreements and common operational decisions.

2. The second type of Euroregion has as goal the realization of cooperation in functional networks. It is embodied in institutions which help to establish and stabilize economic ties between companies, administrative and cultural institutions, associations, media, etc. A result of such connections, solicited by the institutions of this Euroregion, is the creation of networks of relations based on the object of the exchange: money, information, culture, media, etc.

3. The third type of Euroregion is defined as contiguity cooperation. This is more related to the community, to the establishment of strong cross-border cooperation

in few specialized economic sectors (ex. winter tourism, university area, etc.) and to the intensive involvement of the population.

The research is focused only on the third Euroregional typology - contiguity-cooperation - which has a larger political and cultural reference, more appropriate to the purpose of this study. This last typology of the Euroregions, in fact, actively involves the administrative local power. Perkmann, too, in 2003 classified the Euroregions on the basis of their geographical scope – small and large; cooperation intensity – high and low; type of actors – local and regional. Similarly to what has just been underlined with reference to Gasparini’s classification, the research will omit the large Euroregions, those that Perkmann define as Working Communities, and it focuses on South-East Europe small border areas, where cooperation activities are relatively developed and carried out by local authorities.

Thus, applying Gasparini and Perkmann’s classifications of the Euroregions to the structured cross-border areas listed by the AEBR’s map-census, the new population of the research, after a second screening, counts eighteen cases (the Adriatic Euroregion, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Donauländer, the Euroregion Black Sea are discarded).

Finally, among these eighteen cases, the author selects 9 relevant cases, that cover the entire territory and the corresponding cross-border areas, with the most developed cooperation, of the three countries selected, Albania, Bulgaria, FYROM. The cross-border areas involved are the following: AL-GR; AL-FYROM; GR; FYROM-SRB; FYROM-BG; BG-FYROM-SRB; BG-RO; BG-GR; BG-TR.

The QCA is applied through Multiple cases – Most Similar System Design (MSSD) – because the majority of the border areas selected share the same characteristics and are based on a relatively homogeneous area. The region hosts small states having a low level of interaction (Petrakos 2001) and until recently a mosaic of policies and restrictions to interaction towards each other (European research project EXLINEA 2004). In addition, the 3 selected countries have a centralized form of administrative system, a low level of socio-economic development and ethnic minorities living in border regions that have created frictions in the past and continue in some cases to be a source of tension. The region and its main characteristics will be described in details in chapter III.

The systematic study of the cases, focusing on the disparities, points out the variables which support or prevent a local authority to engage in policy entrepreneurship in terms of CBC and, consequently, to contribute to develop higher socio-economic standards. The initial concept, the policy entrepreneurship, could be extended by adding cases which share some attributes able to further investigate it. How far this type of extension can go depends, first of all, on whether it helps to answer the research question asked, and, secondly, on whether or not the remaining contextual features can be kept reasonably constant, in an MSSD (Pennings, Keman, Kleinnijenhuis 2006).

Following Figure 2.4 we observe that the comparison is structured on five different variables which measure the ability of a specific organizational body to take advantage of cross-border opportunities and thus of their level of policy entrepreneurship. As stated above, for the study of South-East Europe, two more variables (Diversity management and Ideological compatibility) are added to Perkmann’s theory, determining the level of policy entrepreneurship through a precise outcome: the number of cross-border projects implemented by each border local authority, supported by the European Union and by proper initiatives, for the period 2007-2013, the latter corresponding to the last EU programming period. As shown in Figure 2.3, this analytic measurement differs from Perkmann’s operationalization. It appears, in fact, that at the third conceptual level, Perkmann omits a specific operationalization, privileging a qualitative interpretation. However, even the new outcome which has been chosen in this research, takes into account only the numbers of initiated projects, not detailed and real economic/social data, but neither the implementation nor the results of the effect of these cross-border projects. This limitation of the research could foster further studies on the topic. Thus, in order to estimate the CBC policy entrepreneurship of the 9 studied bordering municipalities, the research evaluates the number of CBC projects implemented by the selected municipal authorities. This measurement permits to consider the ability of a municipality in seizing the opportunities offered by the cross-border cooperation. Even if by studying this outcome, the research cannot measure the real improvement of the socio-economic level of a CBC area or the effective results of one of its CBC policies, it can estimate the predisposition of a municipality to work in an ever more dynamic CBC environment. In addition, the CBC projects financed by the

European Union represent the only instrument used by the different local authorities to work on cross-border cooperation in South-East Europe. This is confirmed by their CBC budgets which, in fact, support CBC activities only thanks to the EU funds. As differently from other Western European borderlands, which can count on other donors or invest their own funds, the 9 municipalities of the research declared the EU as unique donor for CBC activities (see variable 2 in chapter IV).

The two new criteria, diversity management and ideological compatibility, added as 4th and 5th independent variables, are the extension to Perkmann’s study for South-East Europe. When Perkmann uses the terms “successful bottom-up mobilisation”, he underlines the will of local actors and the role of the Euroregional bodies to advance the CBC in the area.

Hence, the author links the “successful bottom-up mobilisation of municipalities” to the ideological compatibility of the local leaders and to the international relation frame between the neighbour countries, while the “entrepreneurial secretariat” to an effective diversity management capacity of the border local authority to maximize its chances of development. In this sense, a good model of border local authority in South-East Europe should work for a better CBC to increase the socio-economic environment of its borderland as its priority. This is, in fact, the main difference between the three case-studies analysed by Perkmann – with an already defined and stable socio-economic development – and the cases under current analysis.

These new internal variables, diversity management, ideological compatibility, and the new external factors, the EU membership status and the CBC history, will be further analysed in details, as fundamental points to examine the policy entrepreneurship of these South East cross-border areas with its own historical, socio-economic and cultural context.