A Europe of ‘Petites Europes’: an evolutionary perspective on transnational cooperation on spatial planning^*

* The term, Petites Europes’ (Little Europe’s) was coined by the French national planning agency DATAR in their 2002 report on future scenarios for the French territory. In the report entitled ‘Aménager la France de 2020’, France was depicted in a polycentric configuration of large groupings of regions. Such ‘little Europe’s’ are seen as laboratories of European integration on a smaller scale and across more homogenous areas than the space of the whole EU, and thus considered to offer opportunities for testing novel policy approaches.

ABSTRACT

Using a historical-institutionalist framework, this paper discusses the emergence and evolution of transnational cooperation initiatives in post-war Europe. A number of critical junctures can be identified at which different goals and approaches were introduced. Due to the path-dependent nature of institutional arrangements, this has resulted in increasingly fuzzy rationales and contradictory objectives for transnational regions in Europe today. The paper concludes with a reflection on the value of historical institutionalism to identify the malleability of such complex policy concepts and the key challenges that transnational regions are facing due to unresolved tensions in their policy design and evolution.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational cooperation
• historical institutionalism
• EU macro-regional
• strategies
• region-building
• INTERREG
• transnational regions

Acknowledgements

The helpful comments by the Special Issue editors and three anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. This paper was prepared while the author was employed at Radboud University, the Netherlands.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Stefanie Dühr is, as of April 2018, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of South Australia. Previously she was Professor of European spatial planning systems at Radboud University, The Netherlands. Stefanie holds a PhD in European spatial planning from the University of the West of England, Bristol (2005), and a ‘Diplom' (Masters) Degree in Applied Geography/Spatial Development from the University of Trier (Germany) (1998). Before joining Radboud University Nijmegen in 2006, Stefanie worked as researcher at the University of the West of England, Bristol (1998–2006), and on secondment to the UK ministry for spatial planning as Contact Point for INTERREG IIIB North West Europe Programme on transnational cooperation on spatial planning (2002–2003). Prior to moving to Britain, she was on placement in the European Commission, DG Regio (1998). Stefanie is the author of the monograph The Visual Language of Spatial Planning (Routledge, 2007) and co-author of European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation (Routledge, 2010).

ORCID

Stefanie Dühr http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7956-7995

Notes

1 Moss, “Governance of Land Use in River Basins.”

2 E.g. Stumm and Robert, ESPON-INTERACT Thematic Study on Spatial Visons and Scenarios; Dühr, Stead, and Zonneveld, “The Europeanization of Spatial Planning Through Territorial Cooperation”; Dubois et al., EU Macro-regions and Macro-regional Strategies; Gänzle and Kern, A ‘Macro-regional’ Europe in the Making.

3 E.g. Jessop, Brenner, and Jones, “Theorizing Sociospatial Relations”; Brenner, “Open Questions on State Rescaling”; Keating, “Rescaling Europe”; Keating, Rescaling the European State.

4 Intergovernmental cooperation between national governments, commonly referred to as ‘sub-regionalism’, usually focuses on pursuing high-level political or economic objectives, with a view to strengthening the position of their members vis-à-vis supranational organizations such as the EU. Examples of intergovernmental cooperation, which have expanded their cooperation agendas to also include spatial development cooperation, are the Benelux Economic Union, established 1994, or the Visegrád Group, established 1991.

5 This may be one explanation why cross-border cooperation and cross-border region-building has also received much more attention in the academic literature than transnational cooperation (see e.g. Perkmann, “Building Governance Institutions Across European Borders”; Perkmann, “Cross-border Regions in Europe”; Blatter, “‘From Spaces of Place’ to ‘Spaces of Flows’?”).

6 In addition to these ‘multi-issue’ cooperation agendas which are being pursued by different types of transnational regions, the increasing influence of the EU through its spatially relevant sector policies have in some cases also resulted in transnational governance structures to address ‘single issue’ cooperation. Examples of such sectoral, ‘single-issue’ cooperation frameworks are the transnational river basin management approach as required under the EU’s Water Framework Directive, or project-based cooperation around European transport corridors (which in some cases, as e.g. with the Rotterdam–Genoa corridor, has meanwhile resulted in more formalized transnational cooperation arrangements (http://egtc-rhine-alpine.eu/)).

7 Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation.

8 Deas and Lord, “From a New Regionalism to an Unusual Regionalism?”; Keating, “Rescaling Europe.”

9 MacLeod and Jones, “Territorial, Scalar, Networked, Connected,” 1185.

10 Deas and Lord, “From a New Regionalism to an Unusual Regionalism?”

11 Paasi, “Resurgence of the ‘Region’ and ‘Regional Identity’.”

12 Gaberell and Debarbieux, “Mapping Regions, Framing Projects.”

13 Ibid., 124.

14 Paasi, “Resurgence of the ‘Region’ and ‘Regional Identity’”; Paasi, “The Region, Identity, and Power.”

15 In the sense of deliberately cutting across the boundaries of political/administrative regions and nation-states.

16 Hall and Taylor, Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms.

17 E.g. Faludi, “Territorial Cohesion, Territorialism, Territoriality, and Soft Planning.”

18 Perkmann, “Building Governance Institutions Across European Borders,” 660.

19 Pollack, “The New Institutionalisms and European Integration.”

20 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 21.

21 Bulmer, “Politics in Time Meets the Politics of Time,” 309–10.

22 Mahoney and Thelen, Explaining Institutional Change.

23 Bulmer, “Politics in Time Meets the Politics of Time”; Capoccia and Kelemen, “The Study of Critical Junctures.”

24 Ibid.; see also Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously.”

25 In the sense of ‘temporal landscape’, by which the institutionalization of politics and policy dimensions are the product of a specific context and moment in time, see Bulmer, “Politics in Time Meets the Politics of Time.”

26 Ibid., 316.

27 This is because while the EU’s multi-annual financial framework is of key importance for EU Cohesion Policy (and thus the ‘INTERREG B programmes’ on transnational territorial cooperation), the evolution of transnational regions has also been influenced by high-level decisions (Treaty reforms) and changes in policy domains other than EU Cohesion Policy proper.

28 The CPMR, established in 1973, is an interest group of today about 150 regions from 28 countries that seeks to ensure that the views and needs of its peripheral and maritime member regions are taken into account in EU policies and national decision-making. The CPMR currently has six geographical commissions, each with its own organizational structure, that express the shared concerns of members and develop their specific agendas for different major sea basins (http://www.crpm.org/).

29 Wise, “From Atlantic Arc to Atlantic Area.”

30 Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation.

31 CSD, European Spatial Development Perspective.

32 Robert et al., Spatial Impacts of Community Policies and Costs of Non-coordination; Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation.

33 CEC, Europe 2000, 3.

34 CEC, Europe 2000+.

35 Robert, Action Areas in the Formulation of the European Spatial Development Perspective.

36 Ibid., 14.

37 Kunzmann, “Spatial Development Perspectives for Europe.”

38 Article 10 of the Regulation on the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of 1988 allowed for ‘innovative actions’ or experimental programmes to be funded. The European Commission used this article to finance a number of pilot actions in the field of spatial planning.

39 CADSES denoted the ‘Central European, Adriatic, Danubian, and South-Eastern European Space’ in the INTERREG IIC and IIIB programmes.

40 Nadin and Shaw, “Transnational Spatial Planning in Europe.”

41 Dühr and Nadin, “Europeanization Through Transnational Territorial Cooperation?” 379.

42 CEC DG Regio, Draft Notice to the Member States.

43 VASAB2010, Towards a Framework for Spatial Development in the Baltic Sea Region.

44 VASAB2010, From Vision to Action.

45 VASAB2010, VASAB2010+; see also the subsequent update of VASAB, Long-Term Perspective.

46 Zonneveld, “Expansive Spatial Planning”; Farthing and Carrière, “Reflections on Policy-Oriented Learning in Transnational Visioning Processes.”

47 Stumm and Robert, ESPON-INTERACT Thematic Study on Spatial Visons and Scenarios; Dühr, Colomb, and Nadin, European Spatial Planning and Territorial Cooperation.

48 It is, however, still being referred to as INTERREG.

49 TAEU, Territorial Agenda of the European Union; TA2020, Territorial Agenda 2020.

50 European Council, Presidency Conclusions of the Lisbon European Council; European Council, Presidency Conclusions of the Gothenburg European Council; CEC, Europe 2020.

51 CEC, Community Strategic Guidelines on Cohesion, 32.

52 CPMR, What Opportunities Do Territorial Cooperation and the Macroregional Strategies Represent for Cohesion Policy after 2013?

53 European Commission Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy.

54 European Commission Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.

55 Samecki, Macro-regional Strategies in the European Union, para 2.1.

56 CEC, European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, 4.

57 Samecki, Macro-regional Strategies in the European Union.

58 CEC, European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.

59 CEC, European Union Strategy for Danube Region.

60 CEC, European Union Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region.

61 CEC, European Union Strategy for the Alpine Region.

62 Schymik, Modellversuch Makroregion.

63 The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM – Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission) was created through the Helsinki Convention of 1992. HELCOM can give recommendations, but not take decisions nor adopt policy or regulations.

64 VASAB is the intergovernmental multilateral co-operation of 11 countries of the Baltic Sea Region on spatial planning and development. VASAB is integrated into the network of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) organizations.

65 Rodríguez-Pose, “Do Institutions Matter for Regional Development?”

66 Gänzle and Kern, A ‘Macro-regional’ Europe in the Making.

67 Joenniemi, The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.

68 CEC, Report from the Commission Concerning the Added Value of Macro-regional Strategies; CEC, Report from the Commission Concerning the Governance of Macro-regional strategies.

69 CEC, Report from the Commission on the Implementation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region; CEC, Report from the Commission Concerning the Added Value of Macro-regional Strategies.

70 Even though this may at the moment still be rhetorical to some extent, as the currently rather broad cooperation agendas of macro-regional strategies include many largely sectoral projects and actions and have arguable not yet successfully achieved greater policy coordination.

71 Barca, An Agenda for a Reformed Cohesion Policy.

72 CEC, Europe 2020.

73 From EUR 1.8 billion for INTERREG IVB to EUR 2.1 billion for INTERREG VB.

74 CEC, First Annual Report on the Implementation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region; CEC, Report from the Commission Concerning the Governance of Macro-regional Strategies.

75 Paasi, “Resurgence of the ‘Region’ and ‘Regional Identity’”; Paasi, “The Region, Identity, and Power.”