Competing discourses of territorial development: tensions between cities and regions as a result of the new regionalism

ABSTRACT

Competition between metropolitan areas and old regions is one of the most visible results of the ‘new regionalism’ policy in the EU. The aim of this paper is to explain the newly emerged tensions between the regions and the cities within the EU in the context of the ‘new regionalism’. The newly introduced ‘Integrated Territorial Investments’ (ITI), a potentially powerful instrument of the cohesion policy of the EU was presented as ‘a flexible mechanism for formulating integrated responses to diverse territorial needs’. However, this flexibility produced a competitive relationship between cities and regions in their chase for money. Based on interviews with sub-state officials, the study focuses on two countries: Czechia and Slovakia. They are both major recipients of EU structural funds and the ITI tool is being implemented in both of them, however with different outcomes. Three variables have been identified as major factors causing the tensions: insufficient administrative capacity, political challenges and lack of shared understanding of priorities of regional development among sub-state actors.

KEYWORDS:

• EU cohesion policy
• new regionalism
• sub-state governance
• 2014–2020

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous referees for their insightful comments. I would also like to thank my colleague, Petra Kuchyňková, for helping me to carry out one of the interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Vratislav Havlík http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2701-7171

Notes

1 This work was supported by the Grant Agency of the Masaryk University under the project Europe in Changing International Environment IV (MUNI/A/0834/2017).

2 Although this factor has been described for the example of Greece, it may also arise in other contexts, wherever any new political team brings new emphases into policy making, thus changing existing approaches to regional policy.

3 Ideal in the sense that they are new member states that receive a high allocation of finance per capita from EU funds and the phenomenon under discussion (a dispute among actors concerned with the set-up for a future period) might therefore resonate much more strongly than in ‘old’ member countries.

4 The interviews were based on the following set of questions, which were specified further: 1) To what extent was ITI implementation in your country a conflict issue? 2) Have you noticed a dispute between regional and local actors concerning ITI implementation? 3) What role did the government/ministries play in the discussion of ITI? 4) Have you noticed an attempt on the part of cities or regions to circumvent the nation state and negotiate a better position for themselves in Brussels?

5 The rivalry between ČSSD and ANO continues despite the fact that in 2014-2017 the parties have been coalition partners in the Czech national government.

6 This was also shown in early 2014, when a caretaker government (one not enjoying parliament’s confidence) led by Jiří Rusnok approved Olomouc urban agglomeration’s participation in an ITI only at its last meeting.

 

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Grant Agency of the Masaryk University [Grant Number MUNI/A/0834/2017].