Often, when thinking about coordinating among Interreg cross-border and transnational programmes for common good, we tend to focus on differences setting programmes apart. What are really those observed specificities and limits of cross-border and transnational cooperation? What would change in our perception if we focused on the unique strengths of cross-border and translational cooperation (programmes) and their unique offers? Probably, the issue of “avoiding overlaps” would not be on our agenda.

Separation between cross-border and transnational cooperation is more of an ‘eternal question’ for the Interreg programme community. But of minor relevance to the ones ‘doing the job’, project developers and implementers. They are looking where they can get (financial) support to realise their ideas.

For a more coordinated approach towards shared priorities in the Baltic Sea region in 2021-2027, we must take a territorial instead of a technical-administrative perspective and ask the question ‘How we can use and combine the specificities of both crossborder and transnational cooperation (programmes) to solve a shared problem?’.

Therefore, this meeting aims at:

• Defining what cross-border and transnational cooperation (programmes) are good at;
• Identifying which role both cross-border and transnational cooperation (programmes) can play when their individual assets are combined in solving shared territorial issues;
• Through this paving the way forward to a coordinated approach to shared priorities in the Baltic Sea region in 2021-2027.