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Cross-border and interregional cooperation has developed tremendously within Europe in areas as diverse as the economy, technology, culture, tourism, training, employment and the environment.

The Walloon Region, which attaches great importance to close relations with its neighbours, has become very actively involved in this type of cooperation. INTERREG (cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation), which falls within the scope of the European Structural Funds, aims to promote the economic development of the border regions and to help them take full advantage of European integration.
The Walloon Region receives support from the INTERREG Community initiative to develop and take part in a number of programmes:

• The Meuse-Rhine Euregio includes the province of Liège, Belgian and Dutch Limbourg, the Region of Aachen and the German-speaking Community of Belgium. Its objective is to promote the integration of the population in the border regions. From the very outset, the idea of the partners was to address all the issues for which the borders constitute an obstacle to economic, social and cultural cooperation. They therefore organized a whole range of events, for example the International Jazz Festival in Liège, where special support is given to less well-known musicians from the Euregio, a trilingual leaflet giving an overview of cross-border activities organized for young people, teacher exchanges between Dutch, Walloon and German primary schools aimed at providing teaching in the language of neighbouring regions, and so on.
  

• Wallonia, Lorraine and Luxembourg have joined forces to respond more effectively to the decline in the iron and steel industry and to create new jobs in the Lorraine départements of Meuse, Meurthe and Moselle, in the Moselle, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and in the Belgian province of Luxembourg. The Walloon Region is responsible for managing this programme, i.e. it represents these regions before the European institutions and authorities.
  

• The Walloon Region plays the same management role in the important France-Wallonie-Flandre programme. This programme covers a territory comprising Wallonia, the provinces of East and West Flanders, the region of Nord-Pas de Calais, the region of Champagne-Ardennes and the region of Picardy.
  The purpose of the operational programme is to bring the people of the regions together, to promote the development of cross-border services (health, transport, training, the economy, the ICT, etc.) and to encourage the sustainable development and joint promotion of the cross-border territories (environment, territorial and rural development, exploiting the tourist and cultural potential).
  

• Finally, there is the large European Region of Saar-Lor-Lux, which is a blend of Latin and Germanic culture. The main objective of this initiative is to share the benefits of development and to improve the well-being of over 11 million citizens living in these regions, i.e. 3% of the total population of the Europe of the Fifteen.