European spatial planning: Past, present, future

Three stages have been identified in the development of the EU: the launch era; the doldrums era and the renaissance/boom era. Presently though, the EU is in a crisis. These stages serve as a framework for discussing the past, present and future for European spatial planning. Thus, during the launch era there were unsuccessful attempts to make spatial planning/regional policy part of the embryonic European project. During the doldrums era, such initiatives as were taken were channeled through the Council of Europe, leading to the adoption of the Torrelominos Charter on Spatial/Regional Planning, paralleled by continuing but fruitless efforts by the European Parliament to put regional policy on the agenda of the Community. Since the start of the renaissance/boom era, spatial planning has been an, albeit controversial part of the emergent cohesion policy of the European Union. The controversy concerned whether the Union should have a competence in the matter, or whether European spatial planning should be a matter for inter-governmental coordination. There was consensus, however, on the need for what was called a 'spatial planning approach' as formulated in the European Spatial Development Perspective (1999). Once the Lisbon Treaty covering territorial cohesion alongside with economic and social cohesion will be ratified, the competence issue will be settled, but uncertainty concerning the form which EU territorial cohesion policy will take continues. This relates to the future of cohesion policy undergoing fundamental review with a view to the period after 2013, being part of the sole searching which the EU is going through. Will cohesion policy be retained and, if so, what will the role of territorial cohesion policy in a revamped cohesion policy be? Will it barely be tolerated, as is the case now, or will territorial cohesion be, as it potentially might, a mainstay of future cohesion policy, providing it with a solid rationale? Naturally, the answer depends among others on the Commissioner for Regional Policy and his/her standing, but also on the future of the Union as such, etc., etc. However, the answer also depends on whether fundamental issues can be resolved. This requires academic reflection regarding: the nature of the EU in relation to its constituent parts, the nation-states; and the nature of space/territory and the role of spatial planning in the emergent context of the shifting target which is what the European project is