European Spatial Planning and the EU Territorial Cooperation Agenda 

assignments

After completing the module, students will be able to understand and evaluate: 1) the institutional workings of the EU in relation to spatial development policy; 2) the content of, and debates surrounding, the European spatial policy agenda; 3) the key principles of EU sector policies that have a spatial impact; and 4) how spatial planning actors can engage in EU policy-making, and the role of territorial cooperation initiatives in shaping territorial governance in the EU.

The European Union (EU) does not have a formal competence for spatial planning, yet the supra-national impact on land use within the member states and regions of the EU is undeniable. The increasing interdependence of EU regions implies that decisions taken in another country or at the European level can have considerable implications for the spatial development of individual nation-states. Examples of these interdependencies are the freedoms of the Single European Market, which give EU citizens the right to work and to buy a house in another country, and companies the opportunity to settle anywhere in the EU. This, alongside the globalization of the economy, has clear spatial and environmental implications, such as a considerable growth in transport volumes across the EU.

The EU also has a considerable influence on spatial development through its sector policies, many of which have clear spatial and environmental impacts. Transnational transport connections, such as the Öresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden, or nature protection areas in the Natura 2000 network, are just a few examples of the relevance of EU policy for spatial planning within the Member States. Besides EU policies and initiatives with a direct and indirect impact on spatial planning, there are also initiatives directly aimed at the spatial development of the EU territory and at coordinating the spatial impacts of EU sector policies. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), signed by the Ministers for spatial planning in 1999, and the Territorial Agenda for the European Union (2007) are examples of such intergovernmental initiatives. In addition, EU Structural Funding is available to support cross-border, transnational and inter-regional cooperation, which result in new networks of cities and regions and new forms of territorial governance. The European Commission's Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion (2008) and the inclusion of the objective of 'territorial cohesion' in the recently ratified EU Treaty of Lisbon have given a new impulse to the policy debate on how best to coordinate the spatial impacts of sector policies across different levels of governance.

This module consists of a series of lectures on the following topics:

• The changing context for spatial and environmental policy-making in Europe
• EU institutions and actors and their role in spatial and environmental policy-making
• Theoretical approaches to understanding the institutional framework for European spatial policy and the European integration process
• The European spatial policy agenda and the key concepts and debates underlying this agenda (cohesion, competitiveness and sustainability)
• EU Cohesion Policy and territorial development
• European territorial development and transnational cooperation: INTERREG programmes and projects
• The ESPON programme, the Territorial Agenda of the EU and the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion

New scales of planning, new spaces of action: Towards new forms of territorial governance in Europe?

The textbook for this course is:

Dühr, S.; Colomb, C.; Nadin, V. (2010). European spatial planning and territorial cooperation. London, New York: Routledge.