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) - Sturm, Joachim: Perspectives for trans-border regional Cooperation: The Case of the Upper Rhine Zone / L’entente Rhénane d’archivistes municipaux (Erasm) (english 123 - français 134)
Joachim Sturm Perspectives for trans-border regional Cooperation: The Case of the Upper Rhine Zone International cooperation between municipal archives on the banks of the upper Rhine expanded rapidly with the establishment of the Entente Rhenane d’Archivistes Municipaux, otherwise called ERASM, in 1983. Transformed into a legally recognised association in 1987, this bringing together of municipal archivists has almost one hundred members at the present moment, the majority being French (84), followed by German groups (16), further behind, Swiss (3) and Luxembourg (3). The French preponderance is due to the substantial number of municipal and local archives in the Alsace and Lorraine regions with only a correspondingly more limited number of local archives in the adjacent foreign regions. The internationality of ERASM is already visible in its constitution and its particular legal character. Registered in the list of associations of the French court in Strasbourg, the constitutive General Assembly, on 27 January 1987, chose to adopt the local civil law of Alsace, which is based there on the civil code of the former German Empire prior to 1918. Following the rules of diplomacy, the constitution, of which the French version is the authoritative one, has also been drawn up in German. The members of the association meet twice a year, usually in the spring and the autumn in one of the towns whose archivist is a member, in turn as far as possible in France, Germany and Switzerland. To understand the working, the aims and the impact of ERASM, it is necessary to set out the history of its organisation and the basis upon which it has been able to shape itself. The entente whose name ERASM was only settled in 1986 was founded in two steps between 1983 and 1987. The initiative for the first phase, that of a grouping together according to already existing but hazy outlines and perspectives, was a decision of several archivists, in post for many years and united, both by respect for each other and friendship, built up over the years, to meet thenceforth a much larger number of colleages on one side or another of the frontier with the aim of enlivening the administration of archives within the region. The time proved much more propitious since it coincided with the beginnings of the process of administrative decentralisation in France which strengthened movement in regions and districts. The spirit of change inspired by this administrative reform and accompanied by a growing awareness of the need to preserve the cultural heritage, favoured the creation of archive services and the recruitment of archivists at municipal level, which was further stimulated by the University of Upper Alsace 123
