From longitudes to latitudes: lessons from the Baltic Sea macro-region for postcrisis Europe

ABSTRACT

This contribution sets out to derive lessons from the experience of the Baltic Sea Region to the North–South division that has emerged in the European Union since the sovereign debt crisis. After contextualizing the way in which Europe’s North–South gap has emerged and been addressed in the public policy discourse, the article goes on to observe the lessons from the Baltic Sea region, particularly when it comes to economic recovery and region building. It concludes that pro-European policy makers need to stop taking Europe’s divide at face value and address its origins if they are to counter Euro-skepticism and reconnect institutions to citizens.

KEYWORDS:

• EU governance
• convergence
• Euro-crisis
• regional cooperation
• bureaucratic autonomy

Acknowledgments

This is a strongly revised and updated version of the author’s: “Baltic Sea Lessons to Europe’s North-South divide,” which appeared in Tobias Etzold, Bernd Henningsen, and Christian Opitz’s, “State of the Region Report” Baltic Development Forum, 2014. I thank the editors for allowing me to use the original data and material.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fabrizio Tassinari

Fabrizio Tassinari is a Senior Researcher and Research Coordinator of the Foreign Policy Unit at the Danish Institute for International Studies. Among his primary research topics are Europe’s North–South Divide, European integration, European security, democracy and governance in Europe, and EU enlargement and neighborhood policies toward the Mediterranean.