ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Territorial Governance across borders – the Example of the Greater Region

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 04 | GOVERNANCE

Speakers

Dr Beate Caesar (University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU))Prof. Karina Pallagst (University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU))

Description

Spatial planning, understood as “measures [taken] to develop models of a desirable, ideal state of the space and to create the conditions for its realization” (Turowski, 2005, p. 894) traditionally stops at the national border, its scope of action and the competences of spatial planners are legally bound to a nation state and its planning system. However, more and more cross-border functional soft spaces have developed across national borders. Furthermore, exercising political decisions with territorial implications in the vicinity of national borders often influences the neighbouring country’s territory. Cross-border cooperation and territorial cohesion are actively promoted and supported by the European Union (EU) (e.g., by financial incentives offered by the Interreg programme). To contribute to the EU’s objectives and be more efficient it is necessary to apply a place-based approach of territorial governance as defined by Van Well and Schmitt (2015, 211f.) to functional places that span across national borders. The increasing need to harmonize and coordinate spatial development in border areas is particularly relevant against the backdrop of increasing interdependencies in the above mentioned cross-border functional areas. Several cross-border regions, e.g., the Greater Region SaarLorLux +, have attempted to supplement and coordinate national policies and programmes of neighbouring countries with cross-border spatial development concepts to contribute to a more efficient spatial development (cf. Bechtold et al., 2020). Cross-border cooperation in the domain of spatial development encompasses a multitude of stakeholders and institutions from various policy sectors and territorial specificities. A complex and ambitious project – even more so than a similar process within a single nation state – it needs to be coordinated through territorial governance. Thus, this difficult task is both time-consuming and costly (Caesar and Pallagst, 2018, p. 24; Nienaber, 2018, p. 175). It is likely that different national planning cultures clash during the coordination and development of policy processes (cf. Caesar and Evrard, 2020). In addition to explicit elements, like individual spatial planning systems and legal regulations, planning cultures comprise many implicit elements such as societal values that are difficult to grasp and address but strongly influence spatial planning practice and territorial governance across borders.
This contribution highlights territorial governance in the context of cross-border spatial development. Firstly, the concept of territorial governance is contextualised in the cross-border setting based on scientific literature. Particularly, the European Union’s (EU) conceptual understanding of functional areas, cross-border interdependencies and the place-based approach are illuminating the need for spatial planning and territorial governance across-borders. This is accompanied by examples from the Greater Region SaarLorLux +. This cross-border region, also known as Großregion/ Grande Region encompasses territories of France, Belgium and Germany as well as the country of Luxembourg. Secondly, the authors dig deeper into the reasons for and characteristics of territorial governance when applied in a cross-border context. These remarks are proved with examples of the Greater Region that started its coordination attempts several years ago and recently finalized a spatial development concept. The last section concludes with a definition of territorial governance across borders and discusses its significance and challenges to come up with ideas to overcome them at the end.

References

Bechtold, J., Caesar, B., Christmann, N., Evrard, E., Hamez, G., Heinen, S., Marsal, F., Pallagst, K., Reichert-Schick, A., and Teller, J. (2020) 'Les défis d’un aménagement transfrontalier du territoire dans la Grande Région: Pistes de recherche', in J-M. Defays and G. Hamez (eds.) Réalités, perceptions et représentations des frontières de l’Union Européennes, Louvain-la-Neuve: pp.159-182.
Caesar, B. and Evrard, E. (2020) 'Planungskulturelle Vielfalt in Grenzräumen - Theoretische und methodische Ansätze zur grenzüberschreitenden Raumplanung', in F. Weber, C. Wille, B. Caesar and J. Hollstegge (eds.) Geographien der Grenzen, Räume – Ordnungen – Verflechtungen, Wiesbaden: Springer, pp.95-116.
Caesar, B. and Pallagst, K. (2018) 'Spatial Development Concepts – A Cross-Border Planning Instrument with a Future? Experiences from the German Borderlands', Borders in Perspective - UniGR-CBS TI, Cross-border Territorial Development – Challenges and Opportunities, 1, pp.9-20.
Nienaber, B. (2018) 'Grenzen als überwindbares Phänomen in der Raumplanung?' in M. Heintel, R. Musil and N. Weixlbaumer (eds.) Grenzen, Theoretische, konzeptionelle und praxisbezogene Fragestellungen zu Grenzen und deren Überschneidungen, Wiesbaden: Springer, pp.161-179.
Turowski. G. (2005) 'Raumplanung (Gesamtplanung) ', in ARL (ed.) Handbuch der Raumordung, Hannover: Selbstverlag der ARL, pp.893-898.
Well, L. van and Schmitt, P. (2015) 'Understanding territorial governance: conceptual and practical implications'. Europa Regional, 21.2013(4), pp.209-221.