Venturing Into Unknown Territory: The Preparation and Formulation of the Second Benelux Structural Outline

Abstract

Inherent in transnational planning are obstacles which cause spatial planners to venture into unknown territory. The scale, the issues and the institutional context are significantly different from planning at the national level or below. What does this mean for the role of spatial plan-making, which is the cornerstone of the planning profession? This paper focuses on the role of plans as part of building transnational governance capacity. It does so on the basis of an in-depth case study of the preparation of the Second Benelux Structural Outline (1994–2000). The research material consists of a series of interviews with directly involved planners and administrators, primary sources such as internal reports of the Benelux Economic Union and direct observations by the researcher who attended several meetings of the planning committee. The paper starts with a short discussion of contemporary planning theory through which the formulation of the plan is analysed. Planning as a communicative process and planning as a programming process are central concepts in this analytical framework. The paper proceeds with an analysis of the making of the Second Benelux Structural Outline. A conclusion is that the plan as a communicative tool was not sufficiently developed during the planning process, in spite of the desirability of such a feature in this stage of building transnational governance capacity. The concluding remarks will focus on the ways in which the communicative dimension of future transnational plans can be improved.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Andreas Faludi, Bas Waterhout and two anonymous referees for their constructive comments.

Notes

1. It entailed a gradual process in which the first legal adaptations were executed in 1970 and full federalization was realized in 1993.

2. An alternative suggestion is a shared railway running from Antwerp and Rotterdam to the German hinterland. At the moment, Flanders and the Netherlands are each working on the implementation of their own plans. The construction of a rail link between Antwerp and the Ruhr area—part of which would have to pass through Dutch territory—is creating diplomatic tension between the Netherlands and Flanders.

3. While making the ESDP it was attempted to develop a ESDP-dictionary. It failed, because it was too complicated (Faludi & Waterhout, 2002).

4. This probably relates to transnational planning as well as planning in general.

5. Albrechts (1999) provides a good example of a planning team—for the preparation of the Regional Structure Plan for Flanders—that actively negotiated its mandate with politicians.