[Back]

B. Haselsberger:
"Territorial Identities influencing Trans-national Co-operation. The Case of Bratislava and its Austrian hinterland";
Talk: RSA Conference 2008, Prague; 05-27-2008 - 05-29-2008; in: "Regions: the dilemmas of integrations and competition. Book of Abstracts", (2008).

Given the extensive and increasing diversity of the European Union, the concept of "territorial cohesion" as a general policy objective seems increasingly unattainable. However, two factors demonstrate a raising demand for territorial co-operation. Firstly, the existence of (national) borders continues to have negative consequences for the immediately adjacent areas (Zonneveld, 2005). Secondly, today more than 32% of the European population lives in border-regions which comprise 40% of the European territory (Janssen, 2006).
In broad terms, there seem to be two distinct views concerning territorial co-operation processes. The first is, in a figurative sense, a "top-down" perspective and deals primarily with the impact of European territorial policies on Member States. The second is more focussed on the internal co-operation between the different interests and objectives of each local territory, and may be characterised as "bottom-up" driven.

The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) has become an important policy document for spatial development in Europe, despite all criticism and shortcomings, and represents the pinnacle of a growing interest of (trans-national) spatial planning at the European scale (Adams, forthcoming; Faludi & Waterhoud, 2002; Kunzmann, 2006; Shaw & Sykes, 2004). The ESDP as well as other European documents, such as the Territorial Agenda, are tools that have indeed achieved an important position in the Europeanisation process. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that they are also leading to a degree of convergence/harmonisation of spatial planning in Europe from a top down perspective.

However, these top-down-level documents can never fully substitute territorial co-operation between areas at sub-European spatial scales, producing their own visions and strategies across their local borders (Fabbro & Haselsberger, forthcoming).

What hinders this process and European spatial planning in general is the persistence of different planning traditions in European spatial planning (Janin Rivolin & Faludi, 2005). A bottom-up planning process needs therefore to begin by recognising that different nations deal differently with similar spatial planning "issues" (CEC, 1997) in accordance with their own traditions and identities (Nadin & Stead, 2007). Nowadays trans-national co-operation often fails because of a shortfall of political interest, alongside the existence of deep structural deficiencies characterised by historical, linguistic and semantic barriers or, more generally, by cultural and natural diversities. In this sense reciprocal trust, and shared meanings and values become an essential "social capital" for pursuing trans-national co-operation activities. This social capital is vital for influencing political opinions on trans-national working by revealing potential developmental opportunities (Fabbro & Haselsberger, forthcoming).

The Austrian-Slovakian border-area provides an illuminating case of trans-national co-operation activities of a border-region, in particular highlighting some of the difficulties and challenges of regional development in a multi-jurisdictional environment, where different political and economic systems intersect. The fact that these - from a historical point of view - strongly related regions, long separated by the "Iron Curtain", today are once more united within the European Union, provides an interesting and meaningful example for studying trans-national co-operation processes. It is the ambitious aim of this paper to explore agent´s attempts to influence spatial development in these complex environments, and to use that analysis to offer new insights to current debates on spatial governance and territorial identity.

References:
ADAMS, N. (forthcoming) Convergence and policy transfer: an examination of the extent to which approaches to spatial planning have converged within the context of an enlarged EU, in: International Planning Studies.
COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (1999) ESDP European Spatial Development Perspective, Towards Balanced and Sustainable Development of the Territory of the European Union. Luxembourg: CEC.
COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (1997) The EU compendium of spatial planning systems and policies. Regional development studies 28. Luxembourg: CEC.
FABBRO, S.; HASELSBERGER,B. (forthcoming) Spatial Planning Harmonisation as a Condition for Trans-national Cooperation. The Case of the Alpine-Adriatic Area, in: European Planning Studies.
FALUDI, A., WATERHOUT, B. (2002) The making of the European spatial development perspective. No materplan. London: Routledge.
JANIN RIVOLIN, U.; FALUDI, A. (2005) The Hidden Face of European Spatial Planning: Innovations in Governance, in: European Planning Studies, Vol. 13 (2), pp. 195-215.
JANSSEN, G. (2006) Europäische Verbünde für territoriale Zusammenarbeit, Berlin: LIT Verlag.
NADIN, V., STEAD, D. (2007) European models of society, planning systems and planning cultures, Paper presented at the AESOP 2007 Conference "Planning for the Risk Society", Naples.
KUNZMANN, K.R., (2006) Does Europe really need another ESDP? And if Yes, how should such an ESDP+ look like? in: L. PEDRAZZINI, ed al (Eds) The Process of Territorial Cohesion in Europe, pp 93-102, Milano: FrancoAngelo.
SHAW, D., SYKES, O. (2004) The Concept of Polycentricity in European Spatial Planning: Reflections on its Interpretation and Application in the Practice of Spatial Planning, in: International Planning Studies, 9(4), pp. 283-306.
ZONNEVELD, W. (2005) Expansive Spatial Planning: The New European Transnational Spatial Visions, in European Planning Studies, 13(1), pp. 137-155.

trans-national co-operation, planning traditions, territorial identities, social capital