Space, Development and Accessibility between Portugal and Spain: The Last Frontier

Abstract

Cross-border Regional development is one of the EU current major concerns. These regions are usually less dy- namic socio-economically and tend to be peripheral areas in each country. In the last thirty years some of these re- gions have benefited from new roads, which have mainly been funded through the European financial program of Transnational Transport Networks, TEN-T. Since the be- ginning of this implementation process and after initial observations on the impacts, some development problems are unexpectedly getting worse. Using socioeconomic data from the Portugal/Spain cross-border area a model able to measure the relation between accessibility and de- velopment in this region is being calibrated. This paper is an initial study on the calibration process for some Por- tuguese municipalities in the border area for the period 1991-2001. This initial study also prepares the setting for a more complete study covering both sides of the border, already including some Spanish data. Do both sides of the old frontier have conditions to overcome their status of ‘less development zones’? This is one of the Europe fron- tiers against future cohesion.