Beyond Lisbon: Soft European Spatial Planning

Abstract

The EU territorial cohesion policy under the Lisbon Treaty implies strategic spatial planning, but the European Commission does not seem to be taking major initiatives in this matter. Cohesion policy as such is being challenged for not doing enough to enhance Europe's competitiveness and, while sustaining transfers to new Member States, there are proposals to “renationalize” the process. This goes to the heart of multi-level governance in the EU, an important vehicle of Europeanization. Assuming that this threat can be averted, spatial planners are still facing fundamental questions as to the nature of the European construct, in particular, the territoriality of nation-states and of the EU, and thus the very meaning of space. Is it a “hard” object to be marked, administered and defended or is space rather a “soft” category to be negotiated from case to case? A case is made for regarding soft spaces as shifting configurations within which real but shifting processes are taking place. These soft spaces require soft planning. The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region provides an example. Building on it, the paper concludes with reflections on what soft spatial planning would mean in the pursuit of territorial cohesion under the Lisbon Treaty.