The impact of the dispute over the Turów Mine on Polish-Czech cross-border cooperation

Polish-Czech bilateral relations have flourished in the last years. Cross-border cooperation has helped to eliminate the border effect. It has also been the case of the Euroregion Neisse-Nysa-Nisa. The bilateral dispute over the Polish lignite mine Turów attracted media attention and damaged the above-illustrated picture. The article examines the impact of the dispute over the mine and its settlement on cross-border cooperation and governance. It searches for deficiencies in cross-border governance, potentially leading to the upward shift of the originally local dispute to the international and supranational levels. Observation and interviews with key stakeholders revealed that relations across the border were somewhat disrupted, but the testimonies still show a willingness to cooperate. As the competencies to bring the legal solution were imposed on the central states, we claim that the Euroregion could mitigate the absence of joint actions/communication within the controversy rather than solve the dispute in its complexity. At the same time, the Polish-Czech intergovernmental agreement on the mine includes a unique financial instrument to improve cross-border relations, with the Euroregion playing a managing role.