The tourist season has only just begun, yet several guided groups are already making their way through the narrow streets of Saarburg. Around every corner, a new impression awaits: crooked medieval timber-framed houses, imposing Baroque buildings, the waterfall that rushes dramatically through the town centre, and, of course, the castle that towers above it all and gave the town its name. Built in 994 by Count Siegfried of Luxembourg, it is far from the only link to the Grand Duchy. Large parts of what is now the Saarburg-Kell municipality belonged to the Luxembourg rulers for centuries.
For Jürgen Dixius, this deep historical connection is one of the reasons why the Moselfranken region in Germany and Luxembourg’s Miselerland succeeded in becoming Europe’s first transnational LEADER region. The two territories have been working together on cooperative projects since 2006, and for the past decade they have shared a joint LEADER development strategy. Dixius has served as Mayor of the Saarburg-Kell municipality since 2014 and is also Chairman of the Moselfranken LEADER region. Previously, he was Mayor of Saarburg, where he first encountered LEADER as a tool for local participation and community-led development.
We meet him in Saarburg’s historic town hall, alongside Matthias Faß, Manager of the Moselfranken Local Action Group. For both men, national borders have long ceased to be dividing lines; instead, they see a shared space for action and cooperation. “The aim has always been to establish cross-border projects because we regard ourselves as one large region within Europe,” says Dixius. The Moselle region, a cultural landscape where winegrowing sustained communities on both sides of the river for centuries, is now experiencing an unprecedented level of economic integration in an era of open borders. More than 50,000 people commute to Luxembourg every day. At the same time, rising housing costs are encouraging increasing numbers of Luxembourgers to settle across the border. Yet what strengthens economic ties also creates new local pressures: heavier traffic, growing demand for housing and land, and increasing challenges for infrastructure and spatial planning.
Problem solving across borders
Challenges that can hardly be tackled in isolation any longer. And which require joint spatial planning. „Even where the ministries of the federal states are currently working together – for example, on the Upper Moselle Valley development concept – they benefit from the close contact between the Local Action Groups and the knowledge gathered directly on the ground,“ explains Jürgen Dixius. In this way, the bottom-up principle helps to solve problems across borders. As flagship projects, he cites the procurement of a German-Luxembourg fireboat as part of an Interreg project, as well as the shared use of the multi-purpose hall currently under construction in Wincheringen. In the event of a disaster (power cut, flooding), this hall can serve as a gathering point for the public and emergency services on both the German and Luxembourg sides. It is designed so that emergency services can quickly set up their command centre there. It can also function as a crisis control centre for the German-Luxembourg region.
“Cooperation grows through processes,” Matthias Faß sums up. For him, the real challenge often begins once a project officially ends: creating structures that endure, even after funding periods have expired or personnel change. As Regional Manager, he works to ensure that momentum is not lost. “On both sides of the border, cross-border cooperation is clearly seen as adding value.”
Matthias Faß studied social sciences at the University of Trier. Before becoming LEADER Manager in 2018, he worked as a project coordinator supporting the development of active village communities. For him, regional development is fundamentally about bringing together the people who can make things happen.
Bringing people around the table
Together with his Luxembourg counterpart, Thomas Wallrich, he acts as a catalyst for new initiatives. The two regularly create opportunities for dialogue and exchange. “To bring as many people as possible around the same table, you need concrete topics and questions that genuinely concern both sides.”
They connect political decision-makers, but also residents keen to learn from their neighbours. Between 2021 and 2023, LEADER Miselerland and LEADER Moselfranken organised 15 so-called Nopertrips—thematic study visits that enabled more than 400 participants to explore projects and exchange ideas on subjects as diverse as biodiversity, wine production and marketing, tourism, youth engagement and civic participation.
This work is continuing during the current funding period through the project Exchange Without Borders, which also involves the LEADER region of Merzig-Wadern. The initiative supports professional exchange and the development of new networking structures tailored to the needs of the participating regions. Its target groups include young people and youth centres in the border area, teachers, environmental organisations, social-sector stakeholders, municipalities, municipal associations and special-purpose bodies. To coordinate the programme, LEADER has appointed a dedicated project officer for a four-year period. Their office is based in Grevenmacher. LEADER Miselerland acts as the lead partner, while funding is provided jointly by the European Union and the three participating regions.
An important factor behind the success of these partnerships is the administrative agreement concluded between Luxembourg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland for cooperative projects. Under this arrangement, cooperation projects are governed by the funding rules of the lead LEADER region and by the assessment decisions of the relevant Ministry of Agriculture. This prevents projects from being slowed down by unnecessary administrative obstacles.
Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the reintroduction of border controls is seen by many residents of the Greater Region as more than just an inconvenience causing traffic congestion. For them, it represents a challenge to a shared identity that has been built over decades. Anyone who doubts the value of European cooperation only needs to travel through the villages on either side of the Moselle and speak to the people who live there. It quickly becomes clear that working together across borders solves far more problems than it creates.
