Session

Along with the new programme period for Cohesion Policy (2014-2020) a number of new instruments (Integrated development investments, Community led-local development), and programmatic concepts (e.g. the urban agenda) have been introduced in striving for a “smart”, “sustainable” and “inclusive” Europe. The need to integrate these into the hitherto established routines and mechanisms from former programme periods seems to be a challenging task. Also, the question arises to what extent these innovations comply to other recently established changes within the EU spatial policy-making such as the introduction of the “European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation” instrument, “macro-regions” or the promotion of maritime spatial planning. The session welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions dealing with one (or more) of the following questions:

• What kind of re-scaling processes are induced by the new Cohesion Policy or EU spatial policies in general? Which geographical scales are (dis)empowered (e.g. Brusis 2014)?
• What kind of efforts in terms of policy and process alignment (to the Cohesion policy) can be observed in various countries and regions across the EU (e.g. Dąbrowski 2014)? What sort of EUropeanisation is on the move?
• What kinds of new modes of territorial governance are emerging?
• What “territorial shifts” can we observe and what are the inherent challenges, e.g. in view of cross-border cooperation (e.g. Balogh 2014), maritime/land-use planning, (new) macro-regions (e.g. Metzger/Schmitt 2012), functional regions versus hard spaces?
• To what extent can Cohesion Policy contribute to what kind of cohesion? Are new peripheries and centers/cores emerging (e.g. Lang 2011)?