Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

2. Session /Séance. Regional (trans-border) Cooperation / Coopération régionale (transfrontaliere) - Brejon de Lavergnée, Marie-Edith: New economic Zones and their Archives / Nouvelles zones économiques et leurs archives (english 77 - français 100)

2. Session/Seance: Brejon de Lavergnée, New economic Zones and their Archives

since Alsace has a particularly interesting law relating to them). All of this falls within the province of a subterfuge justifying participation of one with the other.

SARLORLUX has got round the problem by a legal aid scheme, thanks to assistance from Luxembourg, and its legal status allows it to pay bills for the three partners, its headquarters are therefore in Luxembourg.

DATAR, aware of the problems, has proposed that use be made of the European Group of Economic Interests5, organised in 1985 by a regulation of the EEC, of which regions can become members. This proposed body would be modelled on the GIP (Public Interest Group) with partnership arrangements. The Groups of European Economic Interests would be super-associations, grouping together all associations. But would not such a body, consisting of only one European association be too cumbersome to manage, as long as it thought that whilst Switzerland is in Europe, the Swiss Cantons are not in the European Community. After talking about the funding of joint activities, the stage has been reached to describe those practices, which could perhaps, as an outcome of the system of partnership suggested, be agreed upon for the organisation of archives and be used to breach administrative barriers and defeat political reluctance for innovation. The technical strategy consists of following though basic work already undertaken, whilst relying on the structures and regulatory texts, particular to each region for the development of activities in common since common texts are inadequate for the purpose. It could have been thought that the Treaty of Madrid, adopted on 21 May 1980, dealing with trans-border cooperation by territorial authorities and units might have provided the framework for such a draft law. But it must be ratified by countries in the same words, this is not yet so, especially in the case of France and Spain.

In France, the law of 2 March, 1982 authorised regions to carry out a transfrontier policy, but was not intended to make regular contacts between local communities with a common frontier within the same region possible. On the other hand, the law of 4 February, 1992 is much more flexible, it recognises the ability of French local communities to enter into agreements with foreign local authorities and the possibility of participation by foreign local authorities in bodies linked to French local authorities (particularly public interest groups). National frontiers are no longer an obstacle to the activities of French local communities, which leads to the conclusion the local communities have international competences. This is not so much a

5 Similar groups could be created in all the countries within the European Community. They ought to include at least two members from different countries. Members of a group can be either individuals or bodies corporate. A Group should have a headquarters, a name, one or more administrators. Its aim ought not to be seeking to raise funds but to develop an activity incidental to that of its members thus allowing them to make direct or indirect gains through the pooling of their resources (by having a purchasing unit, a common research and development structure and by making common bids when responding to invitations to tender, etc.). Any profits on the accounts for a year are paid to the accounts of members pro rata to their shareholding as fixed by the constitution. Contributions are not obligatory. This type of group can be the legal formalisation of a partnership between businesses from different member countries.

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