The Euregion, officially called the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, is a transnational cooperation area stretching from Belgian Limburg and the German-speaking part of Belgium to beyond Aachen in Germany, with Maastricht and South Limburg at its heart. The area featured prominently in ITEM’s study last year on the impact of the Internationalisation in Balance Act (WIB) on Dutch border regions such as South Limburg. The WIB, currently under review by the Council of State and set to go to the House of Representatives later this year, aims to limit the internationalisation and use of English in Dutch higher education.
On paper
Among other things, the ITEM researchers looked at how universities in the region – Maastricht University, Hasselt University, the University of Liège, RWTH Aachen University and the Open University in Heerlen – actually engage with the Euregion and how this is reflected in their teaching, language policies and partnerships. For UM, the researchers concluded, the answer is “still not enough”. Take the Transnational University Limburg (tUL), a partnership between UM and Hasselt University, offering several science programmes and a law programme. In practice, it exists largely on paper, explains Pim Mertens, scientific coordinator at ITEM, to Observant. Students either study in Hasselt or in Maastricht. “There’s no real cross-border teaching. Only in the law programme do UM lecturers teach in Hasselt.” The five universities in the Euregion signed a joint declaration on increased cooperation last year, but according to Mertens, this has yet to translate into systematic research or teaching partnerships between the institutions.
The Euregion is also largely absent from education at UM, the researchers found. How can it be integrated into teaching? Mertens says: “In the Bachelor of European Studies, students learn all about how the European Union functions as a whole, but nothing about how it works at the Euregional level, or what goes on in Eupen, the capital of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion. Or consider offering teaching in French and German at the European Law School [the Faculty of Law’s English-language bachelor’s programme]. In Liège, for example, the French-language law programme offers tracks in German, Dutch and English. It’s a smart investment: knowledge of neighbouring languages increases graduates’ chances of finding work in the region, where English doesn’t play a major role. This, in turn, makes it more likely they’ll want to stay in the Euregion after graduating.”
Practice what you preach
This matters, Mertens argues. Beyond the principle of “practice what you preach”, he sees a pragmatic reason to put more focus on the Euregion: “To future-proof UM. In 2013, 60 per cent of all first-year students came from the Euregion; by 2024, that had dropped to 42 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of students from other European countries, like Spain and Italy, is increasing. Looking at the likely future coalition parties – D66, CDA and VVD – universities only really have political support for internationalisation from D66. But all three parties are receptive to the idea of Euregional collaboration. Recruiting students from the Euregion [as UM has resumed for certain programmes this year] is more likely to receive support from the government.” And this will be critical: “The ‘exceptional status’ expected to be included in the new version of the WIB is based on the assumption that UM serves a Euregional, cross-border market.”