European Collectivity of Alsace

The European Collectivity of Alsace (Collectivité européenne d'Alsace; D'Europäischa Gebiatskärwerschàft Elsàss; Europäische Gebietskörperschaft Elsass ) is a territorial collectivity in the Alsace region of France. On 1 January 2021, the departments of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin merged into a territorial collectivity but remained part of the region Grand Est. The creation of this new entity was voted by the French Parliament on 25 July 2019 and Law 2019-816 delimiting its powers was promulgated on 2 August 2019.

Alsatian voters had already voted in favour of the creation of a single territorial collectivity in a referendum in 2013; however, in the less populous of the two departments, Haut-Rhin, a majority of voters had rejected the proposal.

History
The original Region of Alsace, created in 1956, ceased to exist on 1 January 2016 when the French parliament voted to merge some administrative regions, reducing their number from 22 to 18.

Status
Alsace has an intermediary status: its competencies are those of a department, plus some of the competencies of a region. Alsace is therefore less autonomous than Corsica or the overseas departments and regions.

Languages
While French is the sole official language of the country according to Article 2 of the Constitution of France, Law 2019-816 contains provisions to promote regional languages at school. The collectivity will also be tasked to create a Committee related to the German language in Alsace. This last provision is closely related to Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of the Aachen Treaty.