The GRAAL – Governance and Regional Atlantic Area Lighthouse, an Interreg Atlantic Area project focused on enhancing governance in the Atlantic regions by capitalising on the results of past and current EU-funded projects, was presented at the European level, under the European Week of Regions and Cities 2025, reinforcing the opportunity to strengthen the importance of European cooperation and regional development. The focus will be particularly on five thematic areas: energy, ocean pollution, climate and risks, nature protection, and sustainable tourism.
António Cunha, Chair of the Managing Authority of the Interreg Atlantic Area, compared the project’s relevance to the role of a lighthouse, “a solid structure capable of lasting for many years,” and argued on the importance of suggesting key recommendations to a better governance: “We think of the GRAAL project as a bastion for the future, an investment that will put us all to work to harvest results as early as post-27”.
Oana-Andreea Dordain, Deputy Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission, emphasised the “quite impressive” number of 11 partners and 12 associated partners representing the Atlantic regions in the project. The representative considered an opportunity to gather territories that are not at the same stage of development, reminding “we reach more together than alone”.
Monique Ras-de-Moncuit, GRAAL’s Project Coordinator, and in the representation of the lead partner Cerema, explained that the first activities will be to work on a database to monitor the outcomes of around 120 projects financed by European programmes, mainly the Interreg Atlantic Area. At the same time, by 2026, two pilots will be developed in Spain and Portugal, taking place in policy labs formats. Local stakeholders will be invited to give their point of view on the implementation of European strategies, presenting new solutions for better governance.
Climate adaptation and disaster risk prevention
The launch event also served to display concrete examples aligned with GRAAL’s thematic area on climate adaptation and disaster risk prevention. The case of Aquatic Environment Management and Flood Risk Prevention in Douarnenez Communauté, Brittany (France), and AGEO project, REGIOSTARS finalist under the Green Europe category, were displayed as a reference to follow.
