Territorial cohesion is now officially an aim of the EU. The Lisbon Treaty adds “territorial cohesion” to the earlier aims of economic and social cohesion. This new competence could shape the way that cohesion policy develops for the post-2013 funding period. There were signs at the ESPON seminar in Malmö that the definition of territorial cohesion regions will be an important input into the way that DG Regio operates in future.

The Treaty not only writes “territorial cohesion” into the list of competences of the EU, it adds a new paragraph that goes some way to specifying how the concept will be interpreted. The paragraph written into Article 158 says: “Among the regions concerned, particular attention shall be paid to rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition, and regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps such as the northernmost regions with very low population density and island, cross-border and mountain regions.” So how rural is rural? What is an island region? When is a mountain region not a mountain region? What is the threshold at which de-industrialisation creates an area of industrial transition?

Suddenly, as the short daylight of a Malmö afternoon dwindled, the ESPON research project on Typologies began to look rather significant. A team led by Kai Böhme (Spatial Foresight) has looked at the different typologies used in ESPON 2006. However, it is not only ESPON that generates regional typologies: DG Regio itself, the OECD, the European Environmental Agency, the Committee on Maritime and Peripheral Regions, the Association of European Border Regions and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre all have their own pet ways of grouping regions with similar characteristics.

In all Böhme’s team have looked at 56 existing typologies. They have developed new typologies for each of eight themes. These are:

• Urban / metropolitan regions;
• Rural regions;
• Sparsely populated regions;
• Regions in industrial transition;
• Cross-border regions;
• Mountainous regions;
• Islands; and
• Coastal regions.

Böhme explained at the ESPON seminar, that the emphasis in the final report (due in January) will be on simple typologies. The discussion that followed highlighted the extent to which this project has been “defined from the policy side” – in other words the interest in getting a simple typology comes from DG Regio and the Member States, rather than from the research community. The effect will be to ensure that future ESPON Applied Research projects, looking at all 31 ESPON countries, will produce outputs that will be directly addressing the types of territory identified in the new paragraph in Article 158, which was quoted above.

The problem, as seen through the eyes of DG Regio, was made clear in the discussion in Malmö. Member states and regions are keen to lay claim to the kind of status defined in the new paragraph. In doing so, presumably they anticipate that their chances of accessing territorial cohesion funds after 2013 will be enhanced. DG Regio will be faced with more calls on its funds than it can credibly expect to meet. Thus any stretching of the eligible categories will dilute the likely impact of investments. Similarly, any ambiguity about what is a “mountainous region”, for example, will leave the door open to lobbying and pleas about special cases. A simple common language – a basic typology – is urgently needed, not just for technocratic convenience, but also for the credibility of the fledgling EU competence in “territorial cohesion”.

Implications
So where does this leave UK regions? The answer is “watch this space”, since the Typologies report is not likely to be in the public realm until probably March or April 2010. However, there are some straws in the wind that can be observed from the Interim Report, which is already available on www.espon.eu and in summary version on www.espon.org.uk.

For example, cross-border areas can be divided into internal and external borders, and land borders and maritime borders. One might expect that the UK, with its long coastline, would figure prominently in terms of regions being on the border between one country and another. However, Council Regulation (EC) No.1083/2006 comes into play. According to this there is a maritime border only if the land mass of another country can be reached within a maximum of 150 km. On this basis Britain’s northern and eastern coasts (except south of the Wash) and the Scottish islands are not border regions at all.

On islands, there is already a Eurostat definition. Eurostat uses five criteria. An island must

• have an area of at least one km²;
• be at least one kilometre from the continent;
• have a permanent resident population of at least 50 people;
• have no permanent link with the continent;
• not house an EU capital.

However the Interim Report of the Typlogies project promised to develop a new typology of island regions. This will be based on the number of inhabitants living in island municipalities as a proportion of the total population of the NUTS 3 region. In effect this means that whether or not an island can claim to be part of an island region depends not just on its own nature as an actual island, but on the population size of the mainland region of which it is a part. The report also argued that Malta and Cyprus should be deemed to be islands, despite having capital cities on them: however, Dublin and London rule out the British Isles from being islands. In other words, Being physically cut off from the continent by an expanse of sea such as the North Sea in the case of Scotland, is not accepted as constituting a “severe and permanent natural handicap”, while, for example, large Mediterranean islands like Sicily or Corsica are likely to be deemed to be cases for support as territorial cohesion.

For coastal regions and mountainous regions definitions again look at the share of the NUTS 3 population that is on the coast or mountain. A distinction is drawn, for example, between coastal regions with a low proportion of their population on the coast and those with a high proportion dwelling by the sea.

All this may sound arcane, but at some point it seems likely that definitions will be firmed up, and then used as building blocks for the pursuit of territorial cohesion through EU funds after 2013. UK regions who think they might fit into any of the categories listed in the new Article 158 might want to keep an eye out for the final report of the ESPON Typologies project, once it becomes public next spring.

Press Release “ESPON takes major step on innovative knowledge and practical tools for regions and cities”

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Author:

ESPON UK Contact Point

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

17-Dec-09

Categories:

Espon 

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