LEADER transnational cooperation: more than the sum of its parts

LEADER transnational cooperation (TNC) encourages and supports Local Action Groups (LAGs) to undertake joint actions, in cooperation with partners in another region, Member State or even in a non-EU country. TNC enhances the efforts of local actors to improve the potential of their areas, while also encouraging an open-minded attitude among partners.

Introduced in LEADER II (1994-1999), TNC is now part and parcel of the overall budget for the implementation of Local Development Strategies (LDS). This was designed to ensure that LAGs have capacity for cooperation (which can also happen via other EU funds, such as Interreg).

What makes a TNC project more than the sum of its parts? What do LAGs achieve through cooperation that they would not if they worked on their own? Three ‘champions of cooperation’ share their experiences and reflections.

LEADER projects transform the local potential of a territory into structured, long-term development. TNC takes this one step further, allowing partners in different Member States to adopt a similar, coordinated approach based on shared values. Territories are strengthened, both individually and collectively.

Krista Antila, International Affairs Manager at LAG Active North Satakunta in Finland, is well placed to talk about this. She has been involved in the TNC project 5StarNature since its beginning in 2018, when six LAGs from Finland, Estonia, Italy and Spain decided to invest in the unique potential of European rural areas as high-quality destinations for sustainable nature tourism.

The project, which won an ELARD Cooperation Award in 2024, is now in its third iteration, involving nine LAGs from five countries (Austria has now joined). 5StarNature partners developed tourist trails, packages, new services and infrastructure based on the same values but adapted to their specific contexts, generating new revenue streams for local businesses and encouraging rural entrepreneurship.

For Krista, TNC enabled mutual learning and shared improvement. LAGs could see the potential of other partners’ areas better ‘from the outside’ – offering an invaluable fresh perspective and helping each other identify new opportunities and solutions. "Sometimes it’s extremely useful to go out of your own box and to see your situation from another point of view: this helps to identify, innovate and develop new things," she said. Cooperation also made the project implementation less burdensome:

When a project is rooted in the local identity of a territory, cross-border cooperation can feel more ‘natural’ than the border itself.

Boergondische Buren was born out of a shared cultural history: that of 'being Burgundian and farmers', across the Dutch-Flemish border. This TNC project (again rewarded at ELARD’s event in 2024) was run by the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) Linieland van Waas en Hulst and also responded to strong local demand from farmers, producers and entrepreneurs, interested in the practical benefits of cross-border cooperation.

For the project coordinator Careen Verwilligen and EGTC director Vincent De Keer, Boergondische Buren aimed to respond to a simple but powerful need: bringing people, products and stories together across the border, and turning that shared heritage into new opportunities for the region.

The project invested in activities that are sustainable beyond the funding period (2019-2023): a database of farms and regional products, networking activities among local producers and with the local tourist offer, and a handbook for farmers to navigate the different rules applying to marketing and sales across the border (which, it was hoped, could also encourage relevant institutions to harmonise those rules). It also built the Niemandsland Viewpoint, a watchtower that reminds visitors and residents of the shared history of the ‘Burgundy neighbours’ and signposts visitors to agricultural entrepreneurs.

The project created a lot of ownership and engagement from local stakeholders, which made cooperation much easier and "helped the border fade a bit more in practice". The project also became an incubator for new initiatives and even created new tourism activities in the region.

If LEADER offers local solutions to global challenges, with TNC, those solutions are shared among partners – and scaled up.

A challenge shared across many rural areas is depopulation, particularly among younger people. Their involvement in local policymaking is a key area for improvement: if young people’s perspectives are made clear to decision-makers, local policies (and eventually rural areas) can better respond to their specific needs. But the big question is – how to do that?

Ju&Me offered a clear answer. Started in 2019 as a LEADER project in two German LEADER regions, the project adopted a ‘reverse mentoring approach’ where young participants (mentors) and adult decision-makers (mentees) work together on specific topics over several months. ‘Youth proofing’ in practice.

Matthias Wagner, manager of LAG Leipziger Muldenland, was at the driving seat. Youth involvement is a key topic of his LAG’s local development strategy, so it was natural to develop a project that would ensure "decision-making processes are more closely aligned with the needs of young people".

Ju&Me became an inspiration for other German LEADER regions as well as LAGs in other countries, and that interest crystallised in Ju&Me Europe, a TNC project led by the German LAG Leipziger Muldenland and involving LAGs from Germany, Finland, Poland, Luxembourg and France. The transnational dimension of the project focuses on the exchange of experiences and knowledge transfer across partners, who can learn about young people’s needs and youth involvement opportunities in other regions, and can expand their outreach and collaborations with youth clubs, municipalities and other stakeholders.

Transnational cooperation comes in many forms and shapes – small- and large-scale, and between neighbouring countries and across wider geographical distances – with some common ingredients for success: a close link to the LAGs’ strategies, the choice of concrete and common actions around a specific topic, and proper planning. Choosing the right partners and nurturing the relationships are equally important.

Vincent echoes this idea: Boergondische Buren "benefited greatly from having motivated partners on both sides of the border who truly believed in the idea". Krista stresses the joy of cooperation: "The project partners know each other well, which helps in the project work. The atmosphere in the meetings is very friendly, and everyone is in a good mood!"

Humans, after all, are designed to work together.

Some bureaucratic issues, though, can make the TNC journey a bit of a bumpy road – first and foremost, because of the different rules and criteria applying across Member States (or even across regions in the same country).

LAGs engaging in TNC have to deal with different time schedules, funding applications and approval processes across partner countries; project applications need to be rewritten to meet specific requirements at the Member State level and project partners need to do their own financial reporting to each respective LAG. In the case of Boergondische Buren, this resulted in double financial reporting as the ETSC had to ensure each administrative and financial step (from applications to reporting) would fit the rules on both sides of the Belgian-Dutch border.

"While the added value of cooperation is clear, there are currently relatively few incentives to develop such projects", says Vincent, who notes that in their case, the subsidy rate for TNC projects has dropped from 90% in the previous programming period to the current 60-65%, while double administration still remains. While this reduction does not necessarily discourage LAGs from designing TNC projects, a more supportive framework for cooperation would be welcome.

The EU CAP Network offers several tools to support your TNC journey – all collected on a dedicated page and linked at the bottom of this page – which can hopefully make the TNC journey less rough and more rewarding. Hopefully, this helps you enjoy the power of LEADER cooperation as Krista sees it: "the more we get to know and collaborate with each other within Europe, the more united we are in our diversity".