The border municipalities of Vila Real de Santo António and Ayamonte (Spain) participated last week in a working visit to Eurocity Chaves-Verín, a good example of international cooperation between two neighboring cities, initiated at the end of 2007.
The Portuguese delegation was made up of the president and vice president of the municipality of Vila Real, Luís Gomes and José Carlos Barros, respectively, and the president of the Regional Coordination and Development Commission of the Algarve (CCDR) and current president of the Euroregion Alentejo-Algarve- Andalusia, David Santos.
The Spanish delegation was made up of three councilors from the municipality of Ayamonte, responsible for the areas of tourism, local development, services and youth.
After the constitution of the Eurocity Ayamonte – VRSA, on January 9th, this Portuguese-Spanish delegation chose Chaves and Verín to visit, taking into account the fact that these locations are an Iberian reference in cross-border cooperation projects. On the other hand, they represent the first Eurocity in the Northern Euroregion of Portugal-Galicia.
During the working day, the mayors of both countries were received at the headquarters of the Northern Eurocity (former customs office of Feces de Below) by the mayors of Chaves and Verín, João Batista and Juan Manuel Jiménez, respectively, who showed the facilities and explained the reality of this cross-border project.
Afterwards, the technical secretariat of Eurocity Chaves-Verín made a brief presentation of this project created in 2007, listed the initiatives already developed and planned, showed the results achieved and exemplified the barriers to overcome.
In addition to showing the functioning of the Eurocity in loco, work experiences were also shared that can now be replicated and thus benefited by the citizens of Ayamonte and Vila Real de Santo António.
About Eurocity Ayamonte – VRSA
The Eurocity Ayamonte – Vila Real de Santo António is a project that goes beyond institutional cooperation and seeks to strengthen the existing link between the two municipalities, exemplifying a new model of cooperation and promoting economic, social, cultural, tourist and environmental convergence between the two cities.
The agreement goes beyond commercial and cultural exchanges and will allow the inhabitants of VRSA to use the collective facilities of Ayamonte, benefiting from the same conditions as residents of that Spanish location, and vice versa. Thus, the “border effect” is no longer an inconvenience but an opportunity.
For this, the creation of the Eurocidadão card is under study, whose advantages should be extended to traditional commerce, through a set of discounts and promotions granted to cardholders.
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