Federalism and Euro-Regions in Europe： What Have We Learned From Twenty-Five Years of Cross-Border Cooperation in the Euro-region of Galicia-North Portugal？

The present paper is focused on the analysis of the European building processes from the historical perspective of federalism （from ethnic federalism to current federalism） applied to the current framework of Europeanization and cross-border cooperation in Europe. With the objective of reviewing some of its processes and impacts, an analysis structure has been set, being the main purpose to extract conclusions on the long Europeanization process undertaken by the EU institutions. One of these recent processes reached the consolidation of Euroregions as cross-border cooperation institutions within the framework of multilevel governance. For the main purpose of the paper, the following questions are raised： How has contributed the perspective of federalism to the building of cross-border institutions, namely Euroregions？ After three decades of implementation of the formal cooperation in Europe through institutions as the Euroregions, can it be confirmed that the Eurnregions are consolidated as an institutional benchmark within the cross-border cooperation in Europe （CBC-E）？ In order to answer these questions, a review of the historic perspective of ethnic federalism applied to the classical models of formal cooperation is undertaken. From this historical revision, the development of the Euroregion within the EU will be analyzed. Finally, the present paper is focused on the case study of the cross-border space that are the Autonomous Region of Galician and the Regiao Norte de Portugal, as well as its most important cooperative institution, the Euro-region Galicia-North Portugal.