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In 2020 we celebrate 30 years of Interreg. On this occasion, we asked representatives of the Interreg South Baltic Programme projects, regional authorities, as well as local people and activists to share their experiences about the Interreg funds and the cross-border cooperation.
Finn Vedel Pedersen, the Development Consultant at the Municipality of Slagelse, Denmark, shares his experience from the perspective of the project's partner in CoBiUM project.
Let’s talk about Interreg!
My name is Finn Pedersen, and I work in the Municipality of Slagelse. The Municipality of Slagelse is joining the Interreg project CoBiUM which stands for Cargo Bikes in Urban Mobility. The aim is to investigate if it is possible to replace vehicles with cargo bikes.
In the Municipality of Slagelse, we find this an interesting opportunity. We experience some challenges, among other things with CO2 emission from vehicles, but also challenges with congestion and parking in our Municipality. Another thing is that we would like to investigate if it can have a positive effect on our health in the Municipality if we replace vehicles with cargo bikes.
We chose to participate in the Interreg project, among other things because other countries are also participating, which gives us the opportunity to retrieve experience from other places in our neighbour countries, Poland, Germany, and Sweden. Among other things, this is to see how they handle a situation like this and if they have other ways of approaching the challenge, for example with regards to the infrastructure when using cargo bikes.
In the future, we would like to focus on some of the same issues, namely CO2 emission across borders, but also to place health on the agenda and investigate how we can promote health. So that is some of the subjects that would be interesting for the Municipality of Slagelse to join with other European corporations with other countries.
* Testimonials translated and edited by Kirstine Hedegaard Thomassen.
** The video was produced in cooperation with Interact Programme, Viborg office, Denmark.