The Tri-National Prespa Park in Albania, Greece and Macedonia (FYROM): Using Environment to Define the New Boundaries of the European Union

Jean Gardin (1)

1 LADYSS - Laboratoire Dynamiques Sociales et Recomposition des Espaces

This paper is based on a study of the natural park created in 2000 on the territory of Albania, Greece and Macedonia (FYROM). Since then, the Prespa Park has always been presented as a successful model of cross-border cooperation in a region characterized at that time by its high level of instability. The creation of the park appeared both as a possibility to test re-drawn neighbours' relationships as well as rural and environmental management in a remote and problematic border zone of the European Union. A dialectic relation links those two aspects and needs to be analysed. On one hand, in the context of the reduction of support aid brought on by the Common Agricultural Policy in an enlarged union, the EU's local development programmes based on environmental management may be simply a lesser evil. On the other hand, the EU integration process is a high stake issue for national authorities, and the Prespa Park may be considered as a first step toward a more efficient use of EU tools in rural matters. The meeting of stakeholders of different levels around a negotiation table in order to give life to a cross-border natural park is one thing. The revitalisation of a common territory torn to pieces is something else. Does the formal recognition of a common natural heritage make sense in social, economic and politic life on the borders?

Mots clés: Greece; Albania; EU's local development programs; Prespa Park; Natural Park FYROM; Cross-border cooperation; Macedonia

Domaines: Etudes de l'environnement; Sociologie

Jean Gardin. The Tri-National Prespa Park in Albania, Greece and Macedonia (FYROM): Using Environment to Define the New Boundaries of the European Union. Borders of the European Union : Strategies of Crossing and Resistance, 2007. ⟨halshs-01170554⟩