Euroregion Šumava-Bayerischer Wald/Unterer Inn-Mühlviertel jako laboratoř změn přeshraničních vztahů způsobených politickými rozhodnutími

The Euroregion Šumava-Bayerischer Wald/Unterer Inn-Mühlviertel is an example of the co-operation entity between “old” and “new” Europe, which was created in the first half of 1990´s. It is an example of a territory in Central Europe, where as a result of political influences major changes of the nature of cross-border relations occured, also depending on the function of the border. Whereas the population on German/Bavarian and Austrian side has been rather stable and unchanged, the most of original (German speaking) inhabitants were forced to leave the Czech part of territory after 1945. The co-operation has been driven by municipalities and the co-operation goals thus reflect their needs. The Austrian and Bavarian members tend to prefer greater integration of this euroregional co-operation with the newly developed European Region Danube – Moldau/Vltava, whereas the Czech members tend to prefer a status quo. This has to be attributed to the lower level of institutional thickness and preparedness to apply multi—level-governance mechanisms on the Czech side. The EU funds present the most important source to finance the cross-border co-operation in Euroregion, it is responsible for the distribution of INTERREG smaller funds. This joint task has helped to create functional cross-border networks, mainly between municipal actors. The basic integrated element of the Euroregion is a spatial integrity, which was artificially divided according to the line of national borders. We can divide integrating aspects into co-ordinated and uncoordinated; these uncoordinated elements can be classified as physical-geographical – natural – aspects and social aspects. These natural aspects create a basic identity of the Euroregion (mountains), despite this integrity has been partially broken by different environmental protection approaches. Social aspects, having their roots in „place“factor and regional hierarchisation, strengthened this identity by creating a joint cross-border transport infrastructure. The cross-border structures have acted as co-ordinated aspects, as they have significantly assisted in intensifying the cross-border co-operation, but there is still a lot to be done