ABSTRACT
During the last decades Europe has gone through several changes. The collapse
of the Soviet Union, the fall of the ‘Iron Curtain’, and the strengthening role of
the European Union have brought dramatic changes to developments in
different spheres of political and human interaction. One indication of these
changes is the changing role of the regions. The view that the nation-state is too
small for the big problems and too big for the small problems has led to a
growing awareness of the power and potential influence of regions within the
European Union (Wagstaff 1994). In the border regions of the European Union
the number of Euregios1 has risen dramatically during the 1990s. These
transnational regional bodies have become one major player in the constantly
globalizing field of regions. They are, together with other regions, competing for
investments and labour force, but simultaneously with the competition they are
playing an important part in the border and enlargement policies of the
European Union.
