Cross border cooperation in low population density regions

The paper is based on the ongoing intermediate evaluations of the three Interreg II A programmes between Sweden and Norway. Two of the three programmes cover extended geographic areas with a low population size. This means that the areas are very sparsely populated with European standards. A circumstance connected with this is that the immediate border region is almost uninhabited. The population centres are in many cases situated quite far from the border, which means that there are great distances between them. The paper intends to focus on the challenges for the evaluation due to these special circumstances of the Interreg II A programmes. The geographic extension, the low population density and the considerable distances between the population centres, distinguish the two northernmost of the programmes from the rest of Europe. This means that the Nordic programmes must adapt methods of implementing the general aims to these special conditions. In these areas, the distinction between