From Valais to Europe: a regional pressure group takes up a stance in the European debate on mountains

This article looks at the international opening of a regional pressure group based in Switzerland, the Groupentent de la population de montagne du Valais romand (French-speaking Valais mountain population group). Three factors explain how this opening came, about in the nineties: debates about Switzerland's membership of the European Economic Area, providing a fertile terrain for cross-border and international cooperation, fear of outsiders taking over the region via the Alpine Convention, which was to become a federating theme, and the organisation of mountain dwellers' interests on a European scale, which acts as a sustainable driving force behind the relations set up. In turn, this international opening was to change the "geography" of the group itself.