‘Zeitenwende’ as announced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in relation to Ukraine suggests the retrenchment of ‘territorialism’. I discuss this with a focus on Poland. Western Ukraine has after all been Eastern Poland until becoming part of the Ukrainian SSR in 1939. Enlarged with Crimea, the same SSR declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 at a time when Poland was aiming to join the EU and NATO. Now, Poland is a conduit of assistance, military or otherwise to Ukraine. In due course she may need to reconsider her aspiration, as good as fulfilled now, for being a consolidated nation-state. The alternative in 1919 was something like the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of old. That model may become relevant once more. If so, then this would be like my alternative – neo-medievalism – to a territorialism under which nation-states are the exclusive building blocks of the international order. Neo-medievalism stands for political action, including defence, no longer being the exclusive province of the territorial nation-state. If so, then thinking about the state as if it were the owner on behalf of the nation of its territory needs to adapt.

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This paper is about my path from studying Dutch to European planning. Looking at the latter made me identify a ‘territorialism’ that subdivides land into supposedly self-contained units as a basic organising principle. Where the EU is concerned, territorialism is problematic: relations, spatial or otherwise, between EU members states take the back stage. A strong, maybe even a federal EU might help but is not on the cards. So, European planning cannot take a leaf out of the book of Dutch planners. At least as far as the twentieth century has been concerned, the latter have pointed the way to a well-ordered Netherlands. But in the EU, member state should not plan as if each were a law unto itself. They should accept that, like in the Middle Ages, borders are not watertight but that there are criss-crossing governance arrangements, functional or otherwise. Nor could European spatial planning, if it existed, be about making one overall scheme, like the one Dutch planners once did for their own country. Instead, we see multiple, overlapping schemes hanging like a cloud over the land. Which only goes to show that not everything can be contained within the territories of each EU member state. The paper ends a consideration of how to create awareness of this, and how to critique territorialism in teaching.@en

This commentary chapter puts EUropean disintegration in the centre of argumentation, referring to it as ‘integration mark 2’. It speaks about the long-term European integration process, borders, and limits of territoriality; while valuing each chapter of the themed Part A of the edited volume. Readers, be they familiar with Andreas Faludi’s work or not, will enjoy reading this commentary. However, his comments do not conclude the Part about ‘Territorial Governance Aspects in the EU’s Cohesion Policy’ but instead open new pathways.@en

We hold these truths to be self-evident that government derives its powers from the people. See here a version of the famous words of the US Declaration of Independence, agreed by a Continental Congress that assembled delegates from across the American colonies. Today, the complexities of selecting delegates would have received a lot of attention. Called upon to articulate and defend the interests of their constituencies, cross-border and overarching issues may end up getting short shrift. Voters and their concerns come first. However, to safeguard, as the Declaration of Independence has it, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the moment may have arrived for a ‘Declaration of Interdependence’, with implications for what I call the production of democratic legitimacy. Should elections continue privileging resident voters? ...@en

This chapter is about spatial planning at scales up to that of the Europe Union (EU), more in particular the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) of the 1990s, the closest to a regional design for the EU territory. Contrary to what one might expect, it was, however, not of the EU but of its member states. The latter wanted to get a handle on EU policies relevant to the development of their territories. Their concern was to prevent such policies where they hit the ground to be at cross-purposes with each other and, more generally speaking, to bend EU policies to suit their preferences. In this way, although not of the EU, the ESDP was about EU matters. However, rather than formulating a truly joint vision, member states each looked primarily after their own interests. So, with polycentric development the only recommendation with potential resonance in terms of regional design at the EU scale, when adopted in 1999 as a spatial strategy, the ESDP fell short of expectations. To rebalance the situation more in favor of an EU-led, truly joint approach, an EU shared competence for “territorial cohesion” was introduced. However, by the time this came to pass-2009-the emphasis had shifted away from one overall strategy to initiatives of various types and at various scales. These multiple initiatives, when taken together, form a “cloud” of often overlapping schemes, which seems symptomatic for the very nature of the EU as a diffuse construct.

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Drawing on territorial ideas prevalent in the Medieval period, Andreas Faludi offers readers ways to rethink the current debates surrounding territorialism in the EU. Challenging contemporary European spatial planning, the author examines the ways in which it puts the democratic control of state territories and their development in question. The notion of democracy in an increasingly interconnected world is a key issue in the EU, and as such this book advocates a Europe where national borders are questioned, and ultimately transgressed.@en

By definition sovereign, States find themselves inescapably in a situation of permanent competition. Moreover, given that an inherent quality of sovereignty is to exclude obeying whomever else, nobody, neither individuals nor institutions can arbitrate between them. This being the case, in the international arena power becomes the one and only currency. It seems basic even to each State’s survival: in this endless competition, the sustainability of each depends on the capacity to maintain a sufficient level of power.

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With no direct exposure to ‘The Western Balkans Network on Territorial Governance,’ I take it to be a joint effort concerning a loosely-defined region for which there is no unitary government, nor will there be one. Hence, we are talking about ‘governance’ rather than ‘government’, the former referring to anything that goes beyond or comes in lieu of exercising formal competences, and/or spending the treasures of a government body. To invoke the concept of governance recognizes that the powers and/or resources of government are insufficient, so much so that the latter becomes dependent on the acquiescence of and/or active support from other actors able to fill the gap. Where, as in the Western Balkans, there is not one, but rather a multitude of governmental bodies, collaborative governance is the only option.@en

This symposium presents the results of a roundtable of well-known European spatial planning scholars critically engaging with Andreas Faludi's The Poverty of Territorialism. A Neo-Medieval View of Europe and of European Spatial Planning (2018). The book allows readers to rethink the current debates surrounding territorialism in the context of the European Union, as well as its implications for democracy. In particular, it argues that the open-ended character of the European project requires continuous efforts to (re)conceptualize spatial relations both inside and outside of existing administrative containers, in turn putting the democratic control of state territories and their development in question. Shedding a light on the above, this contribution presents some of the discussion that emerged during the roundtable. Its convenor (Giancarlo Cotella) introduces the aims and scope of the event, before leaving the floor to the critical considerations proposed by one of the participants (Eva Purkarthofer). Finally, the author of the book is given the chance to reply.@en

Orginaltext Faludi 1999 in Reader/Sammelwerk.@en

The exemplary case study by Evers and Tennekes documents the impact of European spatial or territorial policies in the Netherlands. The authors show that there is practically not an inch of Dutch soil unaffected. This type of Europeanisation, also called the ‘downloading’ of European policies, they distinguish from two other meanings of the term: the ‘uploading’ of policies from the national to the European level and what one might call ‘horizontal’ Europeanisation – my words. This refers to mutual learning taking place thanks to increasingly frequent contacts between experts and policy makersleading to the «shared understanding between planners and like-minded professionals in Europe »(Evers, Tennekes, 2016, p. 2). The latter two meanings I discuss as the EUropeanisation, respectively the Europeanisation of planning (Faludi, 2014). In so doing, I take a leaf out of the book of Clark and Jones (2008) distinguishing between ‘EUrope’ – the European Union construct – and ‘Europe,’ being alongstanding, historical and cultural process and its outcome. EUropeanisation of planning stands for its becoming part of the EU ‘policy-making state’ (Richardson, 2012) and its Europeanisation for mutual learning about ideas and practices. In these terms, much of my past work has been on the EUropeanisation of planning. Saying that this has not been particularly successful is an understatement. But the Lisbon Treaty would at least allow the EU to pursue a territorial cohesion policy, in practice strategic spatial planning. Nonetheless, the Commission takes no relevant initiatives. My 2014 paper expressed at least modest faith,though, in the Europeanisation of planning. In the fullness of time, this might prepare the ground for its EUropeanisation, was my hope. Unfortunately, present prospects are poor. European integrationas such is under threat, making the EUropeanisation of planning seem less urgent. Securing the Uniontakes centre stage. The paper starts with Evers and Tennekes on Europeanisation. Then it explains the distinction between the EUropeanisation and Europeanisation of planning, followed by a discussion of the persistent failure of the former. The root cause is the insistence of EU member states on their sovereign control over their territories. The conclusions point out the dark sides of this, what I call territorialism.@en

Taking inspiration from maritime spatial planning, more in particular the Law of the Sea dividing ocean space into zones of graduated control, including areas beyond national jurisdiction (where by definition territorialism does not apply) the paper revisits territories as the building blocks of a political order. From there it proceeds to discussing the power, not to say the delusion of territorial sovereignty, only to revisit neo-medievalism as an alternative ordering principle for the governance of space. Accordingly, though sovereign in theory, stand-along territories are in reality conceptualised as being enmeshed in a web of functional relations, many of which with their own governance arrangements and with many overlaps between them. Which makes imposing an overall order a doubtful enterprise.

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Orginaltext Mastop/Faludi 1997 in Reader/Sammelwerk.@en