Transforming spatial planning policy in Mediterranean countries: Europeanization and domestic change

Abstract

The article explores the impact of European Union (EU) planning policies on southern Europe, by comparing the experiences of the Mediterranean member states (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). It is argued that the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) and the other EU-led planning instruments have generated important changes in the domestic patterns of south European spatial planning systems. These transformations are not the product of a forced compliance to EU models but the outcome of complex socialization and learning processes enabling domestic actors to experience new ideas and practices and to adapt their methods and strategies accordingly. In this sense, they can be read as a process of cultural innovation within southern European planning traditions that promotes European integration by accommodating national diversity.

Notes

1. The ‘Municipal Director Plans’ (PDMs) constituted from the early 1980s the main regulatory instrument for planning in Portugal, aiming in particular at establishing the basic principles and rules for land-use change. The PDMs are binding statutory documents, typical of a physical planning approach (CEC, 2000b, pp. 19, 52–54).

2. In the Spanish case, more in transnational cooperation than at the national level, where it is still at an early stage.