European Integration and Spatial Rescaling in the Baltic Region: Soft Spaces, Soft Planning and Soft Security

Abstract

Spatial rescaling arguably represents one of the most significant recent changes in planning. Rescaling processes do not merely imply changes in powers across existing layers of decision-making, but also entail new scales of intervention, new actor constellations and new geometries of governance. A wide range of examples of spatial rescaling can be seen across Europe, varying from local through to regional and international. The emergence of “soft spaces”—regions in which strategy is made between or alongside formal institutions and processes—is one of the phenomena associated with contemporary spatial rescaling. These spaces are often overlapping and characterized by fuzzy geographical boundaries. The formation of soft spaces is often articulated in terms of breaking away from the rigidities associated with the practices and expectations of working within existing political or administrative boundaries but can also be viewed as providing a means of bypassing formal procedures and reducing democratic accountability. Focusing on European territorial cooperation and development strategies in the Baltic region, this paper discusses how they are contributing to spatial rescaling in soft spaces and how the strategies can be seen as a form of soft planning and as a means to promote soft security policy (which could be considered as a wider form of foreign policy).

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to two reviewers for their comments on an earlier (less detailed) version of this paper and also to Garri Raagmaa for his detailed suggestions for improving the manuscript. This paper partly builds on a Policy and Planning Brief that was published in Planning Theory and Practice in 2011 (Stead, 2011).

Notes

1. An underlying rationale for many of these new cooperative arrangements is to provide development with lower direct costs for the state. The extent to which planning with less state involvement is really new is debateable. More than two decades ago, Brindley et al. (1989) were discussing shifts in planning styles to more market-led approaches with less state involvement.

2. Smith and Timmins (2000) contend that achieving security in Europe is not just related to “hard security” measures such as military and defence policy but also related to “soft security” measures that tackle serious cross-border disparities, conflicts or tensions that could affect the stability of the region or even the Union (e.g. large socio-economic disparities, environmental threats, political disputes and ethnic rivalries).

3. Article 21–2 of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Regulation 1080/2006 allows for up to 20% of expenditure to be incurred by partners located in the EU but outside the programme cooperation areas, and up to 10% of expenditure to be incurred by partners located outside the EU.