Abstract

Within the European Union (EU), border regions represent 40% of its territory, and they are home to a third of the EU’s population. The European Commission refers to border regions as ‘Living labs of European Integration’, where both the effects of free movement and remaining obstacles to integration are most visible. These are largely of legal or administrative nature, caused on both national and EU level. As acknowledged in the Commission’s report on Better Regulation, the Impact Assessment of EU policies has to be improved taking into account the perspective of, amongst others, cross-border areas. This article discusses the need and relevance of Cross-Border Impact Assessment to improve evidence-based policymaking, legislative procedure and implementation for (cross-)border regions through a multilevel governance approach. This special variation of the Territorial Impact Assessment may provide an opportunity for studying potential (cross-)border effects emanating from legislation systematically at the European level.