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This article deals with a singular form of intermunicipal cooperation between neighbouring French and German local authorities in the Moselle-Sarre frontier zone which offers a renewed pattern of local governance linked to the European integration process. We focus on the redistribution of the chances of winning power within the border territory and the transformation of the resources of political competition. This sociological analysis of governance relations allows attention to be drawn to the social identity of the different political players in order to understand how a cross-border urban area gets down to work. We stress the importance of a sophisticated articulation of combinations between the politico-administrative model of local government and the renewed modes of local governance, excluding a certain number of potential partners and modifying definitions of general interest, cross-border projects and political relations inside and outside the border zone of cooperation. All these evolutions reflect the often neglected reality of “horizontal” processes of Europeanization.