ABSTRACT
Much research on Hungarian border regions has focused on their peripheral status, which is due to structural problems, poor infrastructure, and lack of investment. Bela Baranyi describes the development of cross-border cooperation institutions in eastern Hungary as a strategy for overall regional development. Research on the project 'Borderland Situations and Peripherality on the Hungarian-Romanian State Border' was conducted by the Debrecen Department of the Alfold Research Institute and received support from the Hungarian National Research Fund. This chapter performs two surveys in mid-2002 to provide a snapshot of local perceptions of cross-border relations along the Hungarian-Romanian border. At the time of the survey, few settlements were involved in cross-border cooperation projects, even though some progress had been made in the field of cultural exchange programmes and more traditional forms of cross-border activities, as other researchers have pointed out.
