The Enticement of the ESDP: Motivating (Future) Planners to Engage with EU Policies

The impact of European policies strongly depends on their interpretation and application by domestic actors. This is especially true in fields such as European spatial planning and development, which are characterised by informal agreements and fragmented competences. Consequently, EU policies only gain importance if domestic actors consider...

Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion: Interim report

Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion - Applied Research - Scientific Annex

The main objective of this research activity is to provide territorial analysis on the impacts of European Structural and Investment Funds’ financial instruments in the 2007-2013 programming period and where data allows in the 2014-2020 programming period. The main outcome should be evidence on what the increasing shift to using financial...

Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion - Applied Research - Synthesis Report

The main objective of this research activity is to provide territorial analysis on the impacts of European Structural and Investment Funds’ financial instruments in the 2007-2013 programming period and where data allows in the 2014-2020 programming period. The main outcome should be evidence on what the increasing shift to using financial...

Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion - Applied Research -Final Report

The main objective of this research activity is to provide territorial analysis on the impacts of European Structural and Investment Funds’ financial instruments in the 2007-2013 programming period and where data allows in the 2014-2020 programming period. The main outcome should be evidence on what the increasing shift to using financial...

Financial Instruments and Territorial Cohesion: (Revised) Inception Report

The main objective of this research activity is to provide territorial analysis on the impacts of European Structural and Investment Funds’ financial instruments in the 2007-2013 programming period and where data allows in the 2014-2020 programming period. The main outcome should be evidence on what the increasing shift to using financial...

A historical institutionalist account of European spatial planning

This paper explains the limited success of the European Spatial Development Perspective pointing to fault lines in the institutional architecture of European integration and the view that the EU has no business in national spatial planning. So, along with the experts at the Commission, the EU has been sidelined. Spending departments at both...

Introduction: historical institutionalist perspectives on European spatial planning

In a context where European integration is put into question, under the weight of external (migration, safety issues, economic) and centrifugal forces (Brexit, growing Euroscepticism), European spatial planning has been somewhat sidelined in the debates on the European Union’s goals, cohesion and future. This special issue aims to contribute...

A Historical Institutionalist Framework for European Spatial Planning

Sorensen invokes historical institutionalism as a theoretical framework. This paper does so revisiting the making of the European SpatialDevelopment Perspective of 1990s vintage and the subsequent Territorial Agenda of the European Union. The context is EU Cohesion policy. Firstthe paper presents the theoretical framework. Then it explains why...

Not to Split Hairs: EU Territorial Cohesion a Contradiction in Terms

Amongst various territorial cohesion 'storylines', 'Coherent EU Policy' is its unique selling point. State territories as frames are unsuitable for spatial relations and functional areas crisscrossing state boundaries. However, if they were considered in earnest, states would become concerned. If this were to happen –which so far it has not and...

Territory: An Unknown Quantity in Debates on Territorial Cohesion

There are complaints about territorial cohesion being a vague concept, but in relevant debates territory, too, figures as an unknown quantity. Thus, is it the fixed property of any state, region or local administrative unit, or is it a malleable social construct; rather than being filled with bounded territories, does space overall contain a...

Cohesion Policy Contributing to Territorial Cohesion: Future Scenarios

The Barca Report advocates for developmental policies to be ‘place-based’: integrated as far as they affect ‘places’. The debate on territorial cohesion is equally concerned with integrating relevant policies and actions. This requires well-established democratic institutions and adequate responses to the demands of technical systems and of...

Territorial cohesion post - 2013: To whomsoever it may concern

Conceived as a motion for resolution, the paper considers territorial cohesion now being on the statute book, the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion, Barca making the case for integrated, place-based strategies, the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the future of Cohesion policy. The recommendations reaffirm that ‘geography matters’,...

The institutionalisation of European spatial planning

This book questions whether and how European spatial planning is becoming institutionalised. Since the first steps towards creating spatial planning at the European level were taken some twenty years ago, it seems appropriate to look back at what has been achieved over this period. Notable achievements have been the adoption of the European...

A global economic integration zone in Central Europe? Vienna-Bratislava-Györ as a laboratory for EU territorial cohesion policy

Central Europe is facing dramatic changes and huge challenges since the 40 years closed borders opened up. As part of central Europe the Vienna-Bratislava-Gyor area that straddles Austria, Hungary and Slovakia, faces new opportunities for co-operation and integration. The book gives a fascinating view of the practice of European policy making on...