The Europeanization of territoriality and its limits: the territorial dimension of EU cohesion policy and its varying implementation

ABSTRACT

In the framework of the territorial dimension of EU cohesion policy, the European Commission has been offering the establishment of functional regions. The response at the member state level has been very diverse, though. Whereas some states have established ‘new regions’, others have been reluctant to do so. The article argues that states and/or regions may veto the Europeanization process on the grounds of protecting their territoriality. More specifically, it avers that the more money is allocated in the member state and the less the cities are dominated by the regions, the higher the chance of differential empowerment of cities.

KEYWORDS:

• Europeanization of territoriality
• territorial agenda
• territorial dimension of EU cohesion policy
• functional regions
• reterritorialization of the state

Acknowledgements

Parts of this text are based on the author's habilitation thesis (‘The Europeanisation of territoriality and its manifestations in EU member states’) defended in 2020 at Masaryk University in Brno.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Of course, I should mention the so-called Metropolregionen. However, these regions have been in existence since the 1990s and they are not an outcome of the Europeanisation processes that this article is about.

Additional information

Funding

The paper was written as part of the research project ‘Perspektivy evropské integrace v kontextu globální politiky IV' (MUNI/A/1240/2021) Perspektivy evropské integrace v kontextu globální politiky IV | Fakulta sociálních studií MU.