Joint International Conference on Long-term Experiments ...

2. THE BIHOR-HAJDÚ-BIHAR EUROREGION– A CROSS-BORDER DEVELOPMENT
MODEL
2.1. Geographical, human and economic complementarities
An illustrative example for all we have noted above, which meets all the necessary
conditions and elements for cross-border cooperation, is the Bihor - Hajdú-Bihar
Euroregion. This is the newest cross-border Euroregional structure 2 and it is situated in
the North-Western part of Romania, in the Romanian-Hungarian cross-border area (fig.
1).
Fig.1. The Bihor-Hajdú-Bihar Euroregion
The Bihor – Hajdú-Bihar
Euroregion overlaps on three
essential geographical units, which
are the West Plain, the West Hills
and the Apuseni Mountains (on the
Romanian side) while only the plain
is characteristic to the Hajdú-Bihar
County.
The maximum altitude of the
Euroregion reaches almost 2 000 m
(Cucurbăta Mare Peak, 1 849 m)
while the minimum altitude does not
surpass 100 m (Hortobágyi Region).
The studied Euroregion also has a plentiful hydrological network (Barcău, Crişul
Repede, Crişul Negru, Crişul Alb, Tisa, Körös, Keleti and Hortobágy) and important
natural resources.
Similar to other cross-border cooperation structures (Ilieş Al., 2004) formed by
including the state frontier, the Bihor-Hajdú-Bihar Euroregion shares some of their
general characteristics (such as the ones regarding organisation and working mode) but
also has a few specific features, which we will present as follows.
The Bihor-Hajdú-Bihar Euroregion represents an open cross-border association,
which does not possess its own juridical personality (art.4 from Euroregion Statute).
Within the cooperation process, the parts have identical rights and obligations. Through
the present cooperation, the parts have expressed their accord that their actions be based
on mutual trust, spirit of collaboration and good neighbouring relations (art.5 from
Euroregion Statute).
From a structural point of view, the Bihor-Hajdú-Bihar Euroregion is an
association of administrative-territorial units of the same rank (Bihor county and Hajdú-
Bihar county), on one hand, and other individual or in association inferior rank units,
(Bihor’s Frontier Localities Association and Hajdú-Bihar’s Frontier Localities
2 Romania and Hungary also participate together to the following euroregions of the
cross-border type: the Carpathian Euroregion (alongside Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine,
with a 148 095 km² surface and over 15 mil. inhabitants; actually, the Bihor-Hajdú-
Bihar Euroregion was created within this macro-region) and the Danube-Cris-Mures-
Tisa Euroregion (alongside Serbia; this euroregional structure extends over 77 243 km²
and has about 6 mil. inhabitants).
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