Europeanizing territoriality—towards soft spaces?

This paper explores the coexistence of relational and territorial spaces—soft spaces—through the experiences of EU integration and territorialization. First, we seek a better understanding of EU integration through an engagement with the literature and research on soft spaces. We propose that EU integration is best understood as involving an interplay between territorial and relational understandings and approaches that vary through time, a variation that can be categorized as involving pooled territoriality, supraterritoriality, and nonterritoriality. Second, we seek to add to the current research and literature on soft spaces by focusing upon the changing character of soft spaces and their temporalities. We approach these two dimensions through an exploration of two ex post case studies, the development of which typically shows different stages of softening, hardening, and of differing degrees of Europeanization. With the focus on Europeanization, the paper concludes with three findings: the new spaces of European territoriality are characterized by, first, temporal dynamics, second, their parallel existence with ‘hard’ spaces, and, finally, they can be employed as a political tool. NoneThis is the Author Accepted Manuscript of Allmendinger, P., Chilla, T., and Sielker, F. 2014. The final version is available at http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a130037p

The European Commission’s proposal for a cross-border mechanism (ECBM): Potential implications and perspectives

The European Commission proposed a regulation for a mechanism to resolve legal and administrative obstacles in cross-border regions as part of the legislative package for EU Cohesion Policy 2021-2027. The mechanism is known as ECBM, or European Cross-border Mechanism. The regulation will allow one Member State to apply their legal provision in another Member State for a concretely defined case. This proposal is particularly interesting as it does not give further competence to the European level, but changes how Member States may interact with one another, yet, it raises critiques as regards to its compliance with constitutional, international and European law. This paper outlines the main elements of contention, which are legal justification, state sovereignty, compliance with the subsidiarity and proportionality principle, thematic and territorial scope, voluntariness and the administrative burden. The paper concludes that the assessment of the voluntariness of the regulation will be crucial in examining the regulations compliance with EU principles, and suggest that a more nuanced reading as to which parts of the regulation are voluntary is needed. The legal text will likely change substantially during the legislative procedure, in particular in regard to the thematical scope and the bindingness. This piece summarises the debate currently held in the European Council and the European Parliament in a structured way to an interested readership. Examining the proposed regulation and the arguments for and against it offers the opportunity to review the main arguments that will be raised in any future debate on legal proposals on territorial development initiativesBritish Academy Newton International Fellowship Funder" NF161284 RG 8476

The influence of the Belt and Road Initiative in Europe

This article contributes to the growing body of literature aiming to understand the wide-ranging implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) by displaying the variety of contractual, formal and informal arrangements that China has entered with European states on a bilateral basis. Almost all European states have entered into one or another form of formal cooperation under the disguise of the BRI. In general, Eastern European states tend to have the highest degree of formal cooperation as official BRI-Members, whereas the picture is more diverse in the North-West of Europe. Cooperation ranges from investment-based infrastructure projects, to joint financial investments as well as projects in education or health. This complicated puzzle of arrangements ultimately favours China’s influence and will change Europe’s interconnectedness with China beyond transport connectivity.The authors thank the Faculty of Spatial Planning of TU Dortmund for funding the Miniproject “Towards an Asianisation of European Cooperation and Planning? - Evidence from the Belt and Road Initiative” while Franziska Sielker was Interim Head of the Chair of “International Planning Studies”. This articles partly builds on research undertaken in the context of this Miniproject. The authors further thank the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge for funding a research visit of Elisabeth Kaufmann at the University of Cambridge in March 2020

Transboundary Marine Spatial Planning in European Sea Basins: Experimenting with Collaborative Planning and Governance

Maritime spatial planning (MSP; also referred to as marine spatial planning) has emerged as an important tool for the management of shared sea spaces. The European Union (EU) has advocated the need for a holistic approach to sea management based on integrated and collaborative MSP (Moodie et al 2021). In 2014, the European Parliament and the European Council adopted a directive to provide a framework for MSP (European Parliament and Council, 2014). The 2014 Directive highlights MSP as essential within a transboundary setting to help promote cohesion reduce conflicts, foster blue growth and enhance collaboration between nation states and sea use sectors (Ibid)

Positioning EU Macro-regions – When Sectoral Policies Meet Cohesion Policy

Ten years of macro-regional cooperation and the contemporary post-2020 discussions are the impetus for the authors to question the role and position of macro-regions, and to examine the potential and challenges for their future. In order to position macro-regions in the context of Cohesion policy and sectoral policies we explore the current state of play of macro-regional strategies (MRS) by analysing their implementation processes through a case study analysis, and an analysis of existing studies on the approach and added-value of MRS. This two-fold approach includes an institutional mapping of Priority Area 1a “Waterway Mobilities” of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, as well as conclusions drawn from studies conducted by the Interact programme. The assessment of challenges and potentials positions MRS within the institutional landscape of EU Cohesion policy and sectoral policies, especially with regard to its territorial dimension. The article outlines different options for the future of MRS, which are primarily seen as tools to increase coherence between sectoral policies and regional policies and also among the different layers of the latter.German Academic Exchange Servic

Regional hierarchies of discontent: An accessibility approach

Abstract We argue that so-called geographies of discontent work within regional hierarchies in a spatial continuum, whereas the previous literature has mainly invoked dichotomous divides, such as core-periphery or the North-South. A place’s relation to surrounding communities and regions remains an understudied topic. We analyse the municipal distribution of electoral support for Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD) in the 2014 and 2018 Swedish national general elections. We show that higher accessibility to other large municipalities within the same region, as well as being surrounded by relatively larger neighbouring regions, is associated with further support for SD. The within-region associations are only reliably identified among the urban group.</jats:p

Macro-regional Strategies, Cohesion Policy and Regional Cooperation in the European Union: Towards a Research Agenda

Since 2009, the European Union has developed strategies for the Baltic Sea, Danube, Adriatic-Ionian and Alpine macro-regions. These macro-regional strategies represent a new tool of European Union governance that seeks to combine the community’s territorial cooperation and cohesion policy repertoire with intergovernmental ‘regional cooperation’ involving European Union member and partner countries. By establishing comprehensive governance architectures for cross-sectoral and trans-boundary policy coordination in areas such as transport infrastructure and environmental protection, macro-regional strategies seek to mobilise European Union member and non-member states alike in promoting and harmonising territorial and trans-governmental cooperation. Both the macro-regional strategies and the macro-regions themselves have been met with increasing interest across several disciplines, including geography, regional planning, political science and public administration, triggering questions and debates on issues such as their impacts on existing practices of territorial cooperation and their relation to previously established forms of regional cooperation. Authored by scholars based in the above-mentioned fields of study, this contribution seeks to take stock of research on the subject to date, reflect on conceptual starting points and highlight new directions for future research in the political sciences. </jats:p