Engaging in European Spatial Planning: A Central and Eastern European Perspective on the Territorial Cohesion Debate

Abstract

The following paper sets out to determine the differential extent of the engagement of Central and Eastern European (CEE) member states with the European spatial planning (ESP) debate over territorial cohesion. It focuses on the written statements submitted in response to the European Commission “Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion” consultation in 2009. The geographical distribution of the respondents is analysed, before CEE member states’ responses are examined in detail, to explore the diverse interpretations of the concept of “territorial cohesion” among CEE actors. While the data collection for this paper has been restricted empirically to the consultation process, it reflects its findings in consideration of member states’ engagement with the debate as it manifested before and after the Green Paper. The debate over the exact conceptual and operational “framing” of territorial cohesion, launched by the European Commission's Green Paper, constitutes one of the many arenas through which ESP currently evolves, together with the transnational initiatives developed in the framework of the European Territorial Cooperation objective, the European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion (ESPON) and the process that recently led to the publication of the Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020. The paper concludes that the overall level of engagement of CEE actors in ESP is proportionally lower in comparison with that of their northwestern European counterparts. The increasing involvement of some CEE member states within the ESPON 2013 Programme, as well as the activities undertaken by the Hungarian and Polish EU Presidencies in 2011, suggests that this level of CEE engagement is growing albeit differentially.

Acknowledgements

Giancarlo Cotella would like to thank the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (http://www.humboldt-foundation.de) for the financial support of his research activity. The authors also would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for providing us with constructive comments and suggestions. Neil Adams would like to dedicate this article to the memory of Professor Jeremy Alden, an inspiration and a friend.

Notes

We make a distinction between ESP and spatial planning in Europe, the former referring to the various documents, policies and interventions with a territorial focus at the European level and the latter referring to such practices within the member states.

This consideration has been assembled through analysis of project reports and websites, as well as through informal discussions with Hungarian and Polish stakeholders for other ongoing related research.

Projects developed under the ESPON 2013 Programme are divided according to five priorities: Applied Research on Territorial Development, Competitiveness and Cohesion (Priority 1), Targeted Analysis on User Demand (Priority 2); Scientific Platform and Tools (Priority 3); Capitalization, Ownership and Participation (Priority 4); Technical Assistance, Analytical Support and Communication (Priority 5). Priorities 1 and 2 are devoted the highest share of resources and constitute the scientific core of the programme.

Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

The Green Paper preparation process was less transparent than that led to the ESDP or the Territorial Agenda, and it occurred primarily at the Commission level providing little or no clarification as to the meaning of the concept (cf. Evers, 2007; Evers et al., 2009). This may suggest, from a political standpoint, that the Commission may have considered how the inclusion of a definition in a policy document, which has not fully crystallized, could provide opponents with a clear target for criticism (Waterhout, 2011).

It is worth noticing that, following a recent government change, the mentioned guidelines have been abandoned and the engagement of domestic actors with the ESP discourse drastically reduced.

The situation drastically changed after the last Hungarian elections of 2010. During 2011, the newly elected government dismantled the Ministry of Regional Development, depriving VATI of its governmental referent. Regardless, VATI continues to operate in the field of spatial planning and regional development research albeit in a policy of vacuum, having lost its privileged channel of influence on the domestic policy-making process. This evidence suggests how territorial knowledge channels are highly sensitive to institutional influences that they may enable or constrain their creation, transformation and destruction.

Interestingly, the need for a White Paper on the territorial development of the EU is one of the core issues that drove the actions of the recent Polish presidency of the EU. This, together with the need of a stronger role of the European Commission in spatial and territorial matters, has been recently stressed by the official conclusion of the Polish Presidency of the EU (PL Presidency, 2011b).

See Maier (2011), who argues that territorial knowledge communities in many CEE countries do not yet appear to be consolidated sufficiently to play a pivotal role at the supranational level because of their “weak and fragmented” nature (cf. Adams et al., forthcoming for full discussion).

They were Kai Böhme, former Head of the ESPON Coordination Unit, and Philippe Doucet, one of the “fathers” of the ESDP.