Drawing out the Elements of Territorial Cohesion: Re-scaling EU Spatial Governance

Summary:

This article analyses the relationship between law and policy on territorial cohesion. In turn it explores the inter-relationship between new forms of governance and spatial developments within the European Union (EU).

The article first reflects on the origins of spatial planning in its emergence from the European Spatial Development Perspective 1999 (ESDP). Followed by a consideration of the second strand of territorial cohesion, acknowledging its incorporation within the framework of existing cohesion policy and the intervention of the structural funds. The article then reviews the current formulations of territorial cohesion. It suggest that the expenditure associated with cohesion policy in general and territorial cohesion in particular demonstrates that that the EU is more than a ‘just’ regulatory.

The article concludes by arguing that the extent of the money being spent on new and innovative spatial scales has the potential to create a fourth level of the EU, introducing greater scope for governance to embed positive integration within the EU over and above the primarily legislative regulatory project.