Looking at the project, it would appear those areas earmarked would/have received substantial investment. From a touristic persepective, the co-operation side of it is interesting but the seperate entity thing is complete nonsense which would never get off the ground. I strongly suspect France and Britain were after the money and nothing else. Any such radical move would be vetoed by both countries. It looks like another ridiculous european idea (bit like the Lisbon treaty which had a clause in it telling each member state to take it's quota of illegal immigrants-ergo-people from North Africa currently flooding in to Italy and Malta).
What I would say is that the Daily Express is xenophobic. I buy it occasionally but buying that paper every day of the week would make anyone paranoid towards anyone foreign and it makes me feel uncomfortable. It's doing a good job of growing fear and hatred for minirities by always concentrating on the very radical end of small groups(no sense of perspective). I trust the source you posted which is really interesting, but I wouldn't have trusted the Express source on it's own.