Ihre Suche

Abstract: „Widespread cross-border activities and relations have moved European integration step by step from what was once the European periphery towards the centre. This Working Paper spotlights the SaarLorLux region and describes cross-border cooperation at grass-roots level, as realized in specific activities in 2024. Relevant data is derived from quantitative surveys at the communal (urban and rural district) level in Saarland, the département Moselle, and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, complemented by in-depth interviews with representatives of these bodies. The results show that decision makers at this level associate Europe closely with open borders, the common currency, and solidarity, and hence widely agree with the thesis that border regions are – despite all obstacles – laboratories of European integration. The sense of a joint borderland and of connection with Europe is correspondingly high, especially in districts directly on the border. The advantages of the border situation are real and present to those who live here, but the Covid pandemic has nevertheless left traces that have not yet been entirely erased. In this light, future cross-border cooperation calls for further positive input at the local level to fill the concept of Europe with life.“

Abstract: „Seit über 20 Jahren sammelt und analysiert die Interregionale Arbeitsmarktbeobachtungsstelle (IBA·OIE) im Auftrag der politischen Verantwortlichen der Großregion vergleichbare und interpretierbare Daten über den Arbeitsmarkt auf dem Gebiet der Großregion und liefert damit die Grundlage für struktur- und arbeitsmarktpolitische Entscheidungen in der Großregion. Durch die lange und kontinuierliche Beobachtung gelingt es, ein deutliches Bild der Pendlerbewegungen und ihrer Profile im Kooperationsraum der Großregion zu zeichnen und diese engen Verflechtungen sichtbar zu machen. Allerdings werden auch die Unterschiede deutlich, die kulturell bedingt, aber auch durch die heterogenen Wirtschaftsstrukturen der Teilregionen gewachsen sind. Als Grundlage dienen zunächst die Daten der europäischen Statistikbehörde Eurostat, die in harmonisierter Form vorliegen und dadurch im grenzüberschreitenden Kontext leicht vergleichbar sind. Für die detaillierteren Indikatoren auf der Ebene der Großregion werden zudem die Daten der jeweiligen statistischen Ämter und anderer Datenproduzenten aus den Teilregionen herangezogen. Aufgrund unterschiedlicher Hintergründe und Erhebungsmethoden bedürfen die Zahlen einer deutlichen Kontextualisierung und meist einer Harmonisierung. Insbesondere die Daten zu den Grenzgängerströmen stammen aus unterschiedlichen Datenquellen, die einer Harmonisierung auf großregionaler Ebene bedürfen.“

Abstract: „This article explores the dynamics of atypical cross-border workers in the Greater Region, that is to say, those who reside in a neighbouring country while maintaining employment in Luxembourg. Before highlighting the housing access inequalities that this residential dynamic entails, the analysis examines housing policies in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg to better understand the disparities that intensify pressure on regional housing markets. Recent and historical data on the profiles of atypical cross-border workers are presented, along with testimonies from former residents of Luxembourg who have left the country. The study sheds light on how border housing markets respond to this growing demand, sometimes to the detriment of long-standing residents. It concludes by emphasising the need for a cross-border housing observatory to co-ordinate data collection and assess emerging inequalities, including land pressures and residential exclusion in border areas, calling for more harmonised governance to address these challenges.“

Abstract: „Der Beitrag untersucht die Ungleichheiten auf dem Wohnungsmarkt in der Großregion Saar-Lor-Lux aufbauend auf die rent gap-Theorie von Neil Smith (1979). Der Beitrag fokussiert dazu auf die rheinland-pfälzische Grenzregion zu Luxemburg. Mithilfe von vorhandenen sekundärstatistischen Daten zeigt der Beitrag, dass sich vom Zentrum Luxemburgs die Immobilieninvestitionen und -preissteigerungen in das nahe und ferne Umland bis nach Rheinland-Pfalz ausbreiten. Betroffen sind dabei insbesondere die Orte, die verkehrstechnisch gut an Luxemburg angeschlossen sind. Der Beitrag interpretiert diese Preissteigerungen in ländlichen und eigentlich peripheren Orten als Ausdruck der Renditelücke zwischen vormaliger und inzwischen realisierter Grundrente. Der Beitrag schlussfolgert, dass die Preissteigerungen das Potenzial für Verdrängungen bisheriger Bewohner:innen bergen. Angesichts dieser sozialen Sprengkraft plädiert der Beitrag dafür, diese Entwicklungen zukünftig stärker zu erforschen, um frühzeitig geeignete sozial- und wohnungspolitische Lösungen zu entwickeln.“

Abstract: „Within the European Union, the Greater Region Saar-Lor-Lux is the region most impacted by cross-border work. Luxembourg is attracting an increasing number of workers from neighboring countries, mainly from France. This article examines how the practice of cross-border work has evolved over the last sixty years and what the territorial issues are. Rarely taken into account over a long period, the historical dimension is indeed necessary to understand the roots of the phenomenon, its structuring and diversification. The degree of permeability of borders and the reasons for crossing them have changed over time. This analysis provides an overview of cross-border work, focusing on Luxembourg as the main country of employment and Lorraine as the main place of residence for cross-border workers. Contextual factors and different processes - historical, economic, social and political - are important and have encouraged the development of cross-border work in the Greater Region: they have contributed to its institutionalization and to the structuring of the phenomenon. Finally, borders are questioned in the light of emerging territorial challenges, such as labour shortages, the ageing of the population and the resulting tensions pertaining to cross-border work.“

Abstract: „With its 267,300 cross-border workers in 2022, the Greater Region of SaarLorLux is often presented as a model of European integration. Borders are becoming less and less perceptible, and are disappearing for commuters travelling from one country to another. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the reappearance of borders that were thought to have been forgotten. It has to be said that many border-related issues have come to the fore in recent years, all the more so because of the many challenges and tensions as well as the growing number of cross-border workers. The question of inequalities is central in this context of a cross-border labour market with strongly interwoven components.“

Abstract: „This article deals with border-crossing and the experiences of “temporal otherness” of residential migrants who move their home from Luxembourg to the German side of the River Moselle. Research on temporal borders is highly influenced by a particular spatio-political relation: the West creating its underdeveloped other and coping with this other by controlling border-crossing, which in turn results in maintaining the idea of the other’s temporal remoteness. The Luxembourgish–German border region offers a complement to this perspective; here, one encounters migrants who move in the opposite temporal direction and appreciate certain forms of “being behind” in their new place of residence. These migrants must cope with divergences, i.e., with the fact that economic and socio-cultural conditions within their new socio-spatial universe, the cross-border region, have evolved differently. This article argues that the analysis of migrants’ memories is illuminating with respect to the question of the moral legitimacy of moving, and thus regarding the conception and everyday construction of cross-border communities. It sheds light on the fact that borderland research—by focusing on national differences and related conceptions of cross-border mobility and exchange—tends to ignore borderlanders’ notions of (regional) unity and related claims for convergence.“

Abstract: „This article proposes to study the depth of border areas not only based on border employment, an indicator very often used to delimit the area where interactions on either side of the border are strongest, but by adding to it the inhabitants’ feeling of proximity to the border. The use of the feeling of proximity adds a more subjective dimension to the spatial definition of the border area, with residents using their own representations to choose whether their location is close to the border. The results obtained show the border area to be a blurred geographical space made up of a core, where trade is intense with the neighbouring country, and fringes marked by greater uncertainty about belonging to the border area and extending well beyond the traditional delimitation. These fringes are nonetheless interesting because they have a specific relationship with the neighbouring country due to their greater distance from the border and the existence of less frequent border practices carried out in different ways.“

Aus der Verlagsangabe: „Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit dem frühneuzeitlichen Grenzverlauf zwischen dem zu den österreichischen Niederlanden gehörenden Herzogtum Luxemburg und dem Erzstift Trier. Am Beispiel eines Grenzstreits aus dem Jahr 1765, zu dem eine Augenscheinkarte, überliefert ist, wird der Frage nachgegangen, was kartographische Quellen über das dörfliche Leben und die lokale Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte aussagen können. Und auch, welche Informationen sich aus historischen Karten über den lokalen Rahmen hinaus herausarbeiten lassen. Die Analyse zeigt auf, welche Folgen die territorialen Konflikte auf das alltägliche Leben in den Dörfern der Region hatten. Denn viele Gemeinden lagen jahrhundertelang im Bereich sich überlagernder und umstrittener Grenzräume. Karten, die im Kontext von territorialen Konflikten angefertigt wurden, erweisen sich hierbei als wahre Fundgrube für die Lokalgeschichte, da sie im Detail außerordentlich präzise Angaben enthalten, die bei Grenzbegehungen ermittelt wurden und in anderen Quellen zumeist unerwähnt bleiben. Die Analyse liefert aber auch Erkenntnisse zur Intensität der administrativen Einbindung peripherer ländlicher Gebiete in den frühneuzeitlichen habsburgischen Staat.“

Abstract: „The article uses the concept of border temporalities to offer a hermeneutic interpretation of an old letter containing a request from a cross-border female migrant from Luxembourg to access French welfare benefits. In doing so, it systematically unravels the way in which time was lived and experienced differently by borderland residents as opposed to French lawmakers. The alternative temporality characterizing the third space of the Luxembourgian–German– French borderlands clashed with the spatio-temporal hierarchy imposed by France in the period after the First World War to exclude the majority of people living abroad from access to social provision. The article concludes its hermeneutic circle with a reflection on how historical research on borders and borderlands is conditioned by the temporality of archives and the temporality of research funding.“