Bringing Politics Back into Alpine Cooperation

The Alpine states and regions work together in various cooperation bodies to find solutions to common problems, to mobilise resources for joint activities and to raise the voice of the Alpine Space at the international level. This requires processes of providing resources, setting common political priorities and aligning political objectives. At the same time, the process of political negotiation and decision-making remains closely linked to national and regional constituencies, while it is largely absent at the cross-border level. The deficits arising from the divergence between politics and cooperation affect the effectiveness of cooperation, particularly in terms of legitimacy, responsiveness, visibility and coherence. Using the examples of the working community ARGE ALP and the EU Strategy for the Alpine Space (EUSALP), the paper examines the problems caused by the gap between politics and cooperation, the factors that hinder cross-border political processes, and the potential to bring politics back into Alpine cooperation.