Abstract
Recent EU environmental and spatial policies notably strive towards the development paradigm of green growth and economic competitiveness. However, operationalizing spatial policies through growth-driven GDP logics promotes an unequal race towards narrowly defined developmental ‘success’, while perpetuating social, economic and environmental inequalities. Meanwhile, the EU’s territorial cohesion approach has remained a conceptual ‘black box’, its apparent inadequacy for notably mitigating territorial disparities leading to renewed questions about territorial policy’s relevance, delivery and evaluation. In this paper, we add to calls for redesigning territorial cohesion by proposing a turn towards spatial justice for territorial sustainability. Pointing out the need to refocus on regional capabilities and alternative development trajectories, we argue that the ‘right to not catch up’ enables a more locally meaningful and globally sustainable development. Drawing from regional statistics, policy analyses and an empirical case study of three European Territorial Cooperation programs in the heterogeneous Austrian-Czech-Slovak-Hungarian border region, we illustrate how current EU spatial policy approaches evolve in regional practice and why current policy aims fall short for sustainable transformations. Through interrogating development discourses and their alternatives, we contribute to emerging new perspectives on sustainable territorial development at the European as well as at regional levels.
Highlights
Reflecting the cross-sectoral character of sustainable development, the European Commission’s communication on European values in the globalized world recognizes that “[ . . . ] national and social policies are built on shared values such as solidarity and cohesion, equal opportunities and the fight against all forms of discrimination, adequate health and safety in the workplace, universal access to education and healthcare, quality of life and quality in work, sustainable development and the involvement of civil society” [1]
To give an overall impression on the spatial development in the case region, displayed by large scale data, we firstly looked at the regional gross domestic product (GDP) as PPS (Purchasing Power Standards) per inhabitant in percent of the European Union (EU) 28 average (EU 28 = 100%)
Tracing these ideas through literature, we demonstrate the complementarity of emerging concepts of post-growth and spatial justice informed by the capabilities approach to development
Summary
Reflecting the cross-sectoral character of sustainable development, the European Commission’s communication on European values in the globalized world recognizes that “[ . . . ] national and social policies are built on shared values such as solidarity and cohesion, equal opportunities and the fight against all forms of discrimination, adequate health and safety in the workplace, universal access to education and healthcare, quality of life and quality in work, sustainable development and the involvement of civil society” [1]. Stretching across social, economic and ecological aspects of development, the concept of sustainability steadily gained relevance for European territorial policies. Sustainability-related development, as a multidimensional concept, seems to be increasingly replaced by ‘climate change’ as a popular environmental policy term [2] Unlike sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaption processes come along with messages more communicated and understood, while not being in conflict with current economic-growth-driven development measures [2] this perspective runs the risk of missing more holistic approaches to territorial development. As climate concerns have captured public and policy attention, recent environmental policy approaches, such as the “European Green Deal” [7], cannot be seen without their interconnectedness with European cohesion measures and current spatial development processes. Due to the continued adherence to techno-centered approaches on the one hand, and the perpetuation of an economic-growth-driven logic on the other, neither the European Commission’s environmental nor its cohesion policy is likely to truly tackle the entangled challenges ahead
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