International Planning Studies, Vol.

9, Nos 23,
155172, MayAugust 2004

Spatial Planning Traditions in Europe: Their Role in the

ESDP Process1

ANDREAS FALUDI
Radboud University Nijmegen, Oostplantsoen 114, NL-2611 WL Delft, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT Making and applying the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is an
example of Europeanization. Europeanization is the outcome of the interaction between actors
with various motivations. In the case of the ESDP process, these motivations reflect the spatial
planning traditions and the institutional set-ups of the relevant actors. As a preliminary, the paper
describes the ESDP. It then analyses the motivations, reflecting as they do their spatial planning
traditions and institutional set-ups, of four key actors without whom the ESDP would not have
been what it is: France, the Netherlands, Germany and the European Commission. The paper ends
with a discussion of the prospects of European spatial planning after enlargement.

Making and applying the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP)

(CEC, 1999) is part of the wider process of Europeanization (Borzel, 2002).
During the process various spatial planning traditions have been influencing
each other. The EU Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies,
consisting of a summary volume (CEC, 1997) and volumes on each member
state, is the source on spatial planning traditions, or approaches. They cannot be
looked at in isolation but reflect the institutional set-ups of member states, more
particularly the balance of power between national planning on the one hand
and regional/local planning on the other, and between planning and other
policy sectors. To plot the trajectory of European spatial planning into the future
requires insight in these various arenas.
First, the paper briefly describes the ESDP and its making. What follows is an
analysis of the motivationsreflecting as they do their spatial planning traditionsof national planners in France, the Netherlands, Germany and the
Directorate-General of the European Commission responsible for regional policy. The paper ends with a discussion of the prospects of European spatial
planning after enlargement.
The ESDP
In May 1999, in Potsdam, the ESDP received the blessing of the ministers of the
member states of the EU responsible for spatial planning.
The document comprises two parts: a policy-oriented Part A and an analytical
Part B. Part A starts with an introduction, The Spatial Approach at European
Level, asserting territory to be a new dimension of European policy. The
opening sentence addresses a key concern as regards Europeanization, namely
1356-3475 Print/1469-9265 Online/03/02-30155-18 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1356347042000311758

156 A. Faludi
that it leads to more uniformity: Spatial development policies must not
standardise local and regional identities which help enrich the quality of life
of its citizens (CEC, 1999, p. 7). The spatial approach as such is about coordinating policies with a spatial impact. What is important is a shared discourse. Of
course, there is reference to sustainable development. Here, the notion of
balanced spatial development alluded to in the subtitle of the document:
Towards Balanced and Sustainable Development of the Territory of the EU
comes in. Balanced development helps to reconcile social and economic claims
on land with an areas ecological and cultural functions. The medium through
which this is to be done is that of a balanced spatial structure. Here, the
document relates the three main policy guidelines of the ESDP:
development of a balanced and polycentric urban system and new urbanrural relationship;
securing parity of access to infrastructure and knowledge; and
sustainable development, prudent management and protection of nature and
cultural heritage (CEC, 1999, p. 11).
These guidelines must be reconciled with each other, and have due regard to
local situations. However, the ESDP is no blueprint but rather a general
source of reference for actions with a spatial impact Beyond that, it should act
as a positive signal for broad public participation in the political debate on
decisions at European level and their impact on cities and regions in the EU (op.
cit.). So the ESDP is a non-binding policy framework, and each country will
take it forward according to the extent it wishes to take account of European
spatial development aspects in its national policies (op. cit.).
Chapter 2 is about EU policies with a spatial impact that the ESDP wants to
coordinate. The Single Market assumes space to be frictionless. This abstract idea
is being imposed on a situation marked by long distances and physical barriers
exacerbating cultural and linguistic diversity and different levels of development. The gains of integration are unevenly distributed (Heritier, 1999, p. 31).
The Treaty of Rome recognizes this. The preamble refers to the need to
reduce the differences between the various regions and the backwardness of
the less favoured regions. In addition, some of the sectoral policies assumed
a regional character in their early phases (Calussi, 1998, pp. 225226). Some
regulations were derogated to allow regions to catch up, but it took until 1975
when the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was established for
any positive policy to emerge (Pierret, 1984; Husson, 2002).
Regional policy is now the second-largest spender, after the Common Agricultural Policy, and one of the most prominent examples of a Community policy
with a spatial impact, and is also the cradle of European spatial planning.
Originally a club of member states, through its regional policy the EU draws
others levels of government within its orbit. The involvement of sub-national
governments makes it a form of multi-level governance (Hooghe & Marks,
2001).
Environmental policy is another EU spatial policy. The decision to embark on
environmental policy was taken at the Paris Summit of 1972. The environment
now has a prominent position in the European treaties. Most significant for
spatial planning is the requirement of Environmental Impact Assessments and of
setting aside areas for protecting birds and the habitats of endangered species,
but the EU is also seeking to inject environmental awareness into all its policies.

Spatial Planning Traditions in Europe

157

The Treaty of Rome already asked for a transport policy, but it took a ruling
of the European Court of Justice to jolt the Council of Ministers into action
(Heritier, 1999, p. 33). Lobbying by the European Round Table of leading
industrialists added to the momentum (Richardson, 1997) that led to the creation
of so-called Trans-European Networks. The reasoning was that national networks needed to be integrated and access to them improved so as to facilitate
the operation of the Single Market. Coordinating transport policy with spatial
development policy and urban development measures would facilitate the
desired shift in the modal split towards more environmentally friendly modes of
transport (CEC, 1999, p. 14), this being an example of where the spatial
approach would come into its own.
The ESDP discusses other spatial policies as well, including competition policy
and the policy of the European Investment Bank. Chapter 3 then presents 60
policy options, which constitute a mixed bag. Option 1 is Strengthening of
several larger zones of global economic integration in the EU through
transnational spatial development strategies. Contrast this with option 59:
Protection of contemporary buildings with high architectural quality. What is
striking is the absence of any sort of key diagram conceptualizing European
spacesomething that Dutch planners have pushed for (Faludi & Waterhout,
2002; Roeleveld, 2003) All that the ESDP gives is a verbal description of the core
of Europe as the pentagon comprising London, Paris, Milan, Munich and
Hamburg, the only outstanding larger geographical zone of global economic
integration of Europe. Here, on 20% of the EU territory inhabited by 40% of its
population no less than 50% of the EUs total GDP is being generated. The trend
towards more concentration needs to be broken: The creation of several
dynamic zones of global integration, well distributed throughout the EU territory and comprising a network of internationally accessible metropolitan regions
and their linked hinterland will play a key role in improving spatial balance
in Europe (CEC, 1999, p. 20). The emphasis is on initiatives from below, which
demonstrates the affinity of this concept with the notion of endogenous development and of building social capital (as one of the planks of EU regional policy).
This is indeed a central proposition, but one that is hidden behind a plethora of
other concerns for which the compromise character of the ESDP, creating a need
to accommodate many concerns, is responsible.
Chapter 4, on the application of the ESDP, specifies the intended follow-ups,
all of which are on a voluntary basis. There are recommendations concerning the
European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON). A whole paragraph
is devoted to transnational cooperation, endorsing the so-called INTERREG
Community initiative. A further paragraph stresses the need for the Europeanization of state, regional and urban planning.
Chapter 5 of the ESDP is a perfunctory exploration of the impact of enlargement, then still way off but now, of course, a fact.
The ESDP has come about by way of protracted discussions between national
planners extending over the best part of 10 years. National establishments
perceived opportunities to improve their positions; the process has been described elsewhere (Faludi & Zonneveld, 1997; Albrechts, 1998; Faludi &
Waterhout, 2002). The trigger had been the reform of the Structural Funds. The
Directorate-General XVI responsible for such matters wanted to explore the
spatial dimension of these vastly increased funds. To this end, Article 10 of the
new regulations governing the ERDF was invoked for a study aiming to identify

158 A. Faludi
the elements necessary to establish a prospective outline of the utilization of the
Community territory. On this basis, Directorate-General XVI produced Europe
2000 (CEC, 1991), followed later by Europe 2000 (CEC, 1994).
The end of the 1980s was also when ministers from the Member States
gathered at Nantes in France for the first of what was to become a series of
meetings on the road to Potsdam 10 years later. Ministers listened to Commission President Jacques Delors views on cohesion policy. The Italians
organized a follow-up. This suited the Dutch who, during their Presidency in
1991, wanted to hold another meeting. They took a great leap forward by
proposing setting up the Committee on Spatial Development (CSD) to prepare
future meetings. Normally, the Commission would chair such a committee, but
the proposal was for the rotating EU Presidency to hold the chair. German
misgivings about the whole undertaking (about which more below) had been
conveyed to other member states, which is why the Commission was held at a
distance, but even so Directorate-General XVI provided the secretariat of the
CSD. It gave other support as well, thereby treating the CSD as one of the untold
number of Brussels committees.
At the fourth meeting in Lisbon various ministers asked for a spatial vision,
and the next meeting at Lie`ge agreed to the making of a Schema de developpement
de lespace communautaire (European Spatial Development Perspective) as the
intergovernmental complement to Europe 2000 . In fact, the Germans already
had plans for such a document to be prepared during their upcoming term.
In this they succeeded to the extent of getting the so-called Leipzig Principles,
a kind of constitutive ESDP document, adopted in 1994. After Leipzig the
participants expected to proceed swiftly. However, during their Presidency the
French introduced various scenarios. The effort was inconclusive. Being next in
line, Spain feared that the ESDP might imply reallocation of the Structural
Funds. The Spanish central authorities were not enamoured by local and
regional empowerment either (Morata & Munoz, 1996; Farinos Das et al., 2005).
Such ambivalence continued during the Italian Presidency. Nevertheless, ministers resolved to bring the process to its conclusion under the Dutch Presidency
in 1997, which is when diagrammatic representations became an issue. Being
unfamiliar with maps as a way of articulating spatial policy, some delegations
were unhappy, and so the policy maps pushed for by the Dutch were relegated
to the appendix.
At Noordwijk in the Netherlands, ministers accepted the First Official Draft
of the ESDP. Transnational seminars and consultations within the Commission
followed. In parallel, the British Presidency produced the First Complete Draft.
Another German Presidency brought the process to a conclusion (but rescinded
policy maps altogether). There was no fanfare, just a communique by the
German Presidency announcing that the political debate had come to an end. In
October 1999 the Finnish Presidency held a follow-up meeting at Tampere
devoted mainly to a 12-point Action Programme.
The member states and the Commission are now applying the ESDP (Faludi,
2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a). An important arena is the INTERREG Community
Initiative providing co-financing for hundreds of transnational projects. There is
also ESPON ostensibly doing the groundwork for the next ESDP. We now turn
to the motivations of the main players, which is where spatial planning traditions come in.

Spatial Planning Traditions in Europe

159

Motivations of the Main Players

It is not to belittle the role of others to say that without France, the Netherlands,
Germany and the European Commission, the ESDP would not have come into
being. Most other member states did not do much in the way of national spatial
planning and/or were latecomers. For instance, with the exception of Denmark,
Nordic Member States did not have much input (Bohme, 2002, 2003). Southern
Member States were reluctant, viewing spatial planning as a north-west European concern (Rusca, 1998), but the ESDP may have a long-term effect (Janin
Rivolin & Faludi, 2005). So this is why we restrict this discussion to the key
players in the order in which they appeared on the scene, starting with France.

France
An interventionist state elite (Ross, 1995, p. 242) propelled an unstable post-war
France along a path of modernization, with the Commissariat General du Plan
under Jean Monnet, later to become the pioneer of European integration, in the
lead. The Commissariat practised indicative planning, and to this day indicative
plans remain a feature of the French planning tradition although, to be sure,
local planning works with regulatory plans. Later, President Charles de Gaulle
established the Delegation a` lamenagement du territoire et a` laction regionale
(DATAR) to co-ordinate the actions of the different ministries in the domain
of central territorial development (Balme & Jouve, 1996, p. 225). This was
congenial to the Gaullist view of development being guided from the centre
(Burnham, 1999).
Amenagement du territoire has no satisfactory English equivalent. The expressions most commonly used are spatial planning and regional policy but those do
not reflect the global ambition to reach a harmonious allocation of economic
activities (Chicoye, 1992, p. 411). Note that it is neither regulatory nor concerned with balancing claims on land. The Compendium (CEC, 1997, p. 35)
describes this as the regional economic planning approach. Accordingly,
spatial planning has a very broad meaning relating to the pursuit of wide
social and economic objectives, especially in relation to disparities between
different regions Where this approach is dominant, central government
inevitably plays an important role
Unlike regulatory planning, amenagement du territoire requires no extra powers
and in fact no plan, let alone a statutory one. Naturally, though, it assumes a
view of the national territory, and schemes or scenarios can be helpful for this.
French planners show particular acumen for working with spatial scenarios. In
1995, a national planning scheme was foreseen by the new planning act, only to
be rescinded from the statute book in 1999 (Faludi & Peyrony, 2001), so French
planners returned to working with indicative scenarios.
The key problem is the dominance of Paris, the slogan being that of Paris and
the French desert (Gravier, 1947). Investments went to, for instance, the
aerospace industry at Toulouse. It was also considered necessary to decentralize
administration. Since 1982, this has been taken seriously. DATAR introduced
so-called Contrats du Plan Etat-Region (CPERs), putting amenagement du territoire
on a new footing.
French attitudes towards Europe were mixed, but in the 1980s President
Francois Mitterrand reckoned

160 A. Faludi
that the French could profit from renewing European integration.
The British were ambivalent about Europe altogether. The Germans,
despite their economic power, could not lead because of their history.
The French administration, good at producing quick results and overcoming opposition, was another asset, particularly in Brussels. (Ross,
1998, p. 2)
However, national ministries, already loosing out to the regions, were apprehensive about Europeanization (Drevet, 1995). DATAR itself was under threat
(Guyomarch et al., 1998) but decided to put a positive spin on Europeanization.
It got involved in the reform of the Structural Funds and in inducing Directorate-General XVI to produce Europe 2000. Directorate-General XVI had a French
make-up and the procedure for allocating structural funds following the
structural funds reform of 1988 reflects, in many respects, the structure and the
action principles of the French CPERs that were conceived while Jacques Delors
was a member of the French government (Balme & Jouve, 1996, p. 231).
This was the setting for what subsequently turned out to have been the
kick-off meeting of the ESDP process. At Nantes, Francois Chere`que, Minister of
Home Affairs and as such responsible for planning, was in the chair. The
decision to hold the Nantes meeting had been taken by his predecessor.
Chere`que was not at liberty to convene a Council of Ministers. Such initiatives
were subject to inter-ministerial coordination. This, and not, as is being argued,
because the Community had no planning competence, was why the Nantes
meeting was an informal one. The type of planning discussed related to regional
policy, and for this there was a Community competence, but ministers of finance
and economic affairs did not want to let planners come on board.
Shortly after the Nantes meeting a member of the Chere`que cabinet, formerly
a DATAR staff member, moved to Directorate-General XVI to work on European
planning. (The outlook of Directorate-General XVI will be discussed below.) The
second occasion for the French to exert influence came during their 1995
Presidency. By that time, the intergovernmental ESDP process initiated by
Germany was in full swing. French attitudes had also changed. The minister
responsible at that time, Charles Pasqua, was (and as a Member of the European
Parliament still is) a declared Eurosceptic, or, as the term goes in France
souvereinist, and was as much against a Community role in planning as the
Germans. French input in 1995 was in the field of methods. In the early 1990s,
DATAR had been engaged in a France 2015 scenario exercise and prior to that
in one for the Paris Basin, where Pasqua had been running one of the departements (Liepitz, 1995). Other member states were surprised by the emphasis on
scenarios. The agreement had been to formulate policy options based on the
Leipzig Principles adopted previously. However, the French persevered and
CSD delegations were required to draw up national trend scenarios. However,
because of different spatial planning traditions the scenarios could not be
synthesized, neither, as had been the intention, was it possible to formulate a
policy scenario (scenario voluntariste).
The complexity of the task apart, the reason was pressure of time. French
elections loomed, and there was little time to prepare the scenarios. Ministers
meeting at Strasbourg barely took notice of them. Nonetheless, some CSD
delegates saw the French initiative as having been to good purpose (Sinz, 1996).
It had forced them to look at spatial development of their territory as a whole.

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161

In the second half of 2000 France assumed the EU Presidency once again, by
which time the ESDP was on the books. France was particularly interested in
polycentricity (INGEROP, 2000; Baudelle & Castagne`de, 2002; Peyrony, 2002). In
yet another scenario exercise, France 2020, France is portrayed as being nested
in a European polycentric system (Guigou, 2002).
In 2000 the future of intergovernmental cooperation was also at stake. The
issue was to clarify the role of the Commission. Even though the document is
intergovernmental, the ESDP would not have materialized without the Commission. Formalizing the role of the Commission seemed to require treaty
changes, but the Intergovernmental Conference leading to the Treaty of Nice had
other things to worry about.
By that time, Michel Barnier had become Commissioner responsible for
regional policy and, coincidentally, also for the preparation of the Treaty of Nice
and later for representing the Commission on the Presidium of the Convention
on the Future of Europe drawing up the draft Constitution of the EU. As French
Minister of European Affairs he had seen to it that the concept of territorial
cohesion was included in Article 16 (formerly Article 7D) of the Treaty of
Amsterdam (Husson, 2002)about which more below.
So DATAR and other French players have perceived opportunities for projecting their ideas at the European level. French identity is increasingly rooted in
European identity (Schwok, 1999, pp. 6465). At the same time, Frances European policy works on the assumption that EC affairs are an integral part
of national policy and should therefore be a mirror-image of what goes on in
Paris (Middlemas, 1995, p. 293). In other words, the Commissions approach,
reflecting French thinking, fits into a broader pattern. Before discussing the
Commission, the Netherlands and Germany will be discussed, the former for the
support it gave to the Commission and the latter for stopping it in its tracks.
The Netherlands
The Dutch had been party to preliminary discussions leading to Nantes and
their Presidencies of 1991 and 1997 took great leaps forward in the development
of the ESDP. Thus, at The Hague the Dutch presented a document, Urban
Networks in Europe (Minister of Housing, Physical Planning and the Environment, 1991), the effects of which are visible in the ESDP focus on polycentricity.
Also, at the instigation of the Dutch, the CSD was set up as the cornerstone of
aalbeit weakEuropean institutional infrastructure. At Noordwijk in 1997 the
Dutch Presidency presented the First Official Draft of the ESDP.
The key Dutch actor is the National Spatial Planning Agency, since then
refashioned as a Directorate-General at the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. As compared to other European outfits, its
establishment at the time of close to 300 staff made it seem like a giant. With a
history extending back more than 60 years, its track record is good. The
Compendium of European planning systems describes Dutch planning as one of
the most outspoken examples of the comprehensive integrated approach. This
is an approach conducted through a very systematic and formal hierarchy of
plans from national to local level, which co-ordinate public sector activity across
different sectors but focus more specifically on spatial co-ordination than economic development (CEC, 1997, pp. 3637). Indeed, Dutch planning takes place
at all three levels of government. However, what is important is that Dutch

162 A. Faludi
national planning documents are not master plans but rather indicative policy
statements.
Early Dutch planning, which was local, owed much to the German example.
Local planning was, and still is, a form of zoning but with the addition of
uniquely effective land policy instruments. With suburban sprawl raising its
head in the 20th century, Dutch planners put their faith in regional as well as
national spatial planning being able to stop it. The twists and turns of the
development of Dutch planning are not at issue here. Suffice it to say that
planning is entrenched. The system comprises detailed, legally binding local
schemes and comprehensive but indicative plans at local and provincial and
strategic policy documents called National Spatial Planning Reports at national
level. There is an intricate system for linking these plans to each other.
Dutch planning conceives its task as the coordination of various sectors, the
operational agencies intervening in space. Conflicts between sectors making
claims on land need to be ironed out and opportunities for synergies established
ex ante. In this, the Dutch spatial planning tradition is like the spatial approach
advocated in the ESDP.
Naturally, there is conflict with the sectors. In this struggle, the ability of
planners to conceptualize space and spatial development using images has been
an asset. Amongst others, the images conjure up the spectre of suburban sprawl
covering the countryside. Dutch planners also fancy themselves as locked in a
struggle to keep the horseshoe-shaped pattern of towns and cities, called the
Randstad, surrounding the Green Heart intact. The latter is perhaps the most
successful Dutch planning concept. (For a critique see van Eeten & Roe, 2000.)
Randstad and Green Heart have captured the imagination of politicians and the
public alike, forming the basis of the coalition with housing policy that is
responsible for the success of Dutch growth management (Faludi & van der
Valk, 1994; Dieleman et al., 1999; Needham & Faludi, 1999; Evers et al., 2000).
Spatial imagery appears so effective that spending departments like Agriculture,
Economic Affairs and Transport are now formulating their own spatial visions
(Priemus, 1999).
Dutch planners also place their country in its wider north-west European
context where it forms a gateway, with two main ports, the Port of Rotterdam
and Amsterdam Airport, handling an extraordinary amount of traffic. When the
Dutch economy was in a crisis in the 1980s, and with the Single Market in the
offing, this position became one of the key concerns. The idea was that a country
with good access to the hinterland, and with good spatial quality (National
Spatial Planning Agency, 2001) would provide opportunities for international
investors. This was to be achieved, amongst others, by coordination with its
neighbours and throughout the European Community. Thus, the Fourth National Spatial Planning Report of the late-1980s and early 1990s argued for the
European Community to assume a planning role, a position that, albeit briefly,
Dutch ministers were willing to defend at Brussels. In a report entitled Perspectives in Europe (National Physical Planning Agency, 1991) the Dutch
demonstrated what their approach implied for Europe. The report had been
prepared in splendid isolation and presented at the margins of the 1991 meeting
under the Dutch Presidency where it was largely ignored. Although mismanaged in the way it was presented, the report nevertheless demonstrated an
indicative European strategy.

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163

Dutch planners remained staunch ESDP advocates, devoting one of the year
books of the national agency wholly to European planning and translating it
from cover to cover into English (National Spatial Planning Agency, 2000a;
Martin, 2001). Also, the ESDP was invoked in the Fifth National Policy Document on Spatial Planning 2000/2020, an ill-fated document in the process of
being absorbed into a new National Spatial Strategy. The report identified six
national urban networks, including the Delta Metropolisa new name for the
well-known Randstadand presented as one of the nodes of the European
polycentric system of cities discussed in the ESDP. With an eye to improving the
Dutch competitive position, the government undertook to improve infrastructure links with the Flemish cities and the Ruhr area. To this end, and to improve
coordination generally, contacts with its neighbours were intensified.
The Dutch, with their share in three transnational areas of cooperation,
including one concerned with flood prevention in the Rhine and Meuse river
basins, also had an important stake in INTERREG IIC. The Dutch were lead
partners on several projects, including one formulating a spatial vision for
north-west Europe (National Spatial Planning Agency, 2000b). Like elsewhere,
Dutch planners now exploit opportunities offered by INTERREG IIIB. Additionally, the Dutch policy is one of strengthening the spatial dimension of European
regional policy. The goal is a European strategy for spatial investments. This is
with a view to the second half of 2004, when once again the Netherlands holds
the EU Presidency. They see this as an opportunity to give European spatial
planning a new boost.
It will be evident that Dutch planners have something to contribute and that,
by getting a handle on European planning, they also think it possible to create
a more congenial context for Dutch planning. Member states that think highly of
some of their policies commonly pursue a strategy of forward defence (Heritier
et al., 1996). However, the Dutch rely on their professional reputation rather than
on political lobbying. They neglect building coalitions with others representing
similar spatial planning tradition, like the Germans, whose role and motivation
we discuss next.
Germany
As mentioned above, it was under the German Presidency that ministers
consented to the ESDP. This is not to say that Germany ran the show. Germany
simply happened to hold the EU Presidency at two strategic junctures: at the
end, and five years previously, in 1994 when the Leipzig Principles were
adopted.
The Germans had not been party to initial discussions leading to Nantes.
When they woke up to what had happened there, they developed serious
misgivings. Like with the predilections of other key actors, explaining this
necessitates analysing the German spatial planning tradition and institutional
set-up.
Germans make a distinction between local planning and regional, national
and, where relevant, international planning. The former is a matter for autonomous local authorities. Above the local level, planning is called Raumordnung
(literally spatial ordering). Federal legislation sets broad guidelines within which
the 16 Lander make their own laws and draw up their regulatory plans. There is
much variation, therefore, but, like in the Netherlands, spatial planning always

164 A. Faludi
involves coordinating various sectors as they impact upon space. German
planning is thus another representative of the comprehensive-integrated approach. However, unlike the Dutch, German planners have forged no alliances
with sectors. In not having financial instruments, German planning is more
regulatory than proactive. Initiatives come not from planners but from the
sectors and/or private developers. They must comply with statutory plans, but
this is where the role of planning often ends.
Because planning is regulatory, planners put their faith in binding plans and
are ill at ease with French- and Dutch-style indicative strategies. It should be
added that, at the federal level, there has never been a spatial plan, and certainly
not a legally binding one, nor does the law foresee this as an option.
However, other than in the two other federal states of the EU, Austria and
Belgium, the federal level does have a planning role. Defining substantive
planning guidelines, the Federal Planning Act sets the general framework, and
a federal minister (currently the Federal Minister of Transport, Building and
Urban Development) is responsible for federal policy. However, the Lander
always eye federal initiatives for what they may imply for their position, so
federal planning is a delicate affair. Much business is conducted jointly with the
Lander through a Conference of Planning Ministers (known by its German
acronym as the MKROMinisterkonferenz fur Raumordnung) bringing together
the federal and the Lander ministers of planning.
After German unification, the MKRO took the unusual step of adopting two
successive documents relating to the development of the Federal Republic, the
English version of the first and more important of the two going under the title
of Guidelines for Regional Planning (Federal Ministry for Regional Planning,
Building and Urban Development, 1993). The Guidelines also dealt with the
position of Germany in the wider and changing European context. By securely
placing this initiative within the MKRO, the challenge to the balance of power
between the federal level and that of the Lander was contained.
European integration poses another ongoing challenge to this delicate balance.
Generally, the federal government conducts much business through the agencies
of the Lander. Foreign policy and defence are its only exclusive prerogatives.
European integration started out as a matter of foreign policy, with the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs taking a lead. However, European integration affects powers
and responsibilities that within the Federal Republic are shared with, or even
reserved for, the Lander, this whilst their governments are kept out of European
decision making. True, meanwhile, the Lander are represented on the consultative Committee of the Regions, but this has not become the strong platform for
presenting the point of view of the regions, one reason being because it also
represents local authorities (Borzel, 2002). So this is no real solution to the
problem as seen by the German Lander. In terms of population, 19 out of 25 EU
member states are smaller than the largest German LandNorth RhineWestphaliawith its 18 million inhabitants (approximately 50 times the population
of the smallest member state, Malta). Still, North RhineWestphalia relies on the
federal government to defend its interests.
Unsurprisingly, there is weariness as regards European integration, also
because in relation to their regional economic policy the Lander have the
European Commission breathing down their necks. Regional economic policy is
a task shared by the federal government and the governments of the Lander, but
the European Commission allows only such support for regional economic

Spatial Planning Traditions in Europe

165

development that fits into the agreed Community Support Framework. This
prevents prosperous Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg (home to Mercedes Benz)
from pursuing regional economic policies of their own.
The Commissions entering spatial planning threatened to give it another
string to its bow and would have interfered with the planning prerogative of the
Lander. The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs responsible for the federal
input into regional policy shared their misgivings. Taking the Lander premonitions on board, a new federal chief planner saw an opportunity for enhancing
the position of federal planning as the intermediary between the Lander and the
European Community, but then European planning had to remain under the
control of member states. His reasoning was that, since German federal planners
had no power to make plans for the Lander to fit into, it was inconceivable for
Germany to grant such powers to the EU. It will be remembered that Germans
view plans as binding legal documents. Nobody at the Commission, nor indeed
the French or Dutch advocates of European planning, had asked for the
Community to be given the power to make such plans. Neither France nor the
Netherlands knows such plans at national level. Still, the spectre of European
regulatory planning provided a pretext for opposing Community planning.
The German position thus was that European spatial planning should be an
intergovernmental responsibility. Germans were even trying, unsuccessfully it
must be said, to include provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam for intergovernmental planning, thus formalizing the situation around the ESDP (Akademie fur
Raumforschung und Landesplanung, 1996). Note that it is common practice in
Germany for policies to be formulated from the bottom up, this being an
example of what Germans call the counter-current principle, so this proposal
was congenial to the way of thinking about policy making in a multilevel
system.
An additional stimulus for a positive German attitude towards a, albeit
intergovernmental, form of European planning came from the Guidelines mentioned above, putting Germany in its European context. Germany assumed that,
during its 1994 Presidency it could produce an ESDP based on the Guidelines.
Oddly, one implication was not drawn. The Guidelines had been produced
under the umbrella of the MKRO, with the federal and the Lander ministers of
planning on it. What was there against the Commission drawing up an indicative ESDP jointly with the member states? This would have been close to the
hearts of the French and the Dutch, but the Germans could not bring themselves
to think about an ESDP sponsored by the Commission as anything other than a
threat.
The Germans overplayed their hand in 1994. Notwithstanding this, as with the
Dutch after their Perspectives in Europe proposal had been rejected, the
Germans remained committed to the ESDP.
What happened since Potsdam in terms of applying the ESDP? Coming six
years after the Guidelines, the ESDP is more elaborate and specific. Should they
be revised to take account of the ESDP? This evokes little enthusiasm. German
planning has already anticipated many ESDP principles, so there is no obvious
benefit to be gained from this. The alternative would be for the Lander to apply
it directly, without the Guidelines being revised (Selke, 1999, 9092). However,
even though each and every phase during its preparation has been discussed by
the MKRO, and even though Lander representatives have always been part of the
German delegations during the ESDP process, the Lander keep their distance.

166 A. Faludi
Germany has tended to focus on relations with the accession statesthose
countries that became new members of the EU as from 1 May 2004. The country
has a share in various INTERREG transnational cooperation areas, the emphasis
being on the Baltic Sea Area and on CADSES, shorthand for Central European,
Adriatic, Danubian and South-East European Space. The federal government has
set priorities as to the types of projects it co-finances.
There is little enthusiasm for taking the ESDP process forward to a revision
announced in the ESDP. Germans realize that, in the absence of continued
Commission support, the intergovernmental ESDP process has reached the end
of the road. Independent German experts have had discussions with their
French colleagues and are beginning to get used to the idea of the EU engaging
in a form of planning under the rubric of territorial cohesion (Faludi, 2004b), but
the Lander are far from being reconciled to the prospect. Nor are ministries other
than the ministry responsible for planning. So it will be interesting to see
whether there will be opposition to the Commission pursuing EU territorial
cohesion policy, once the Treaty on a Constitution for Europe is ratified. Before
discussing these prospects, the role of the Commission needs to be analysed.
The European Commission
The Commission is a college of eminent figures, often ex-ministers, nominated
by member states. The European Parliament has to approve their appointment,
but unlike national executives they are not elected, nor can the European
Parliament vote individual Commissioners out of office. Commissioners are
sworn to promote European integration and the Commission has the exclusive
right of initiative. Indeed, neither the Council of Ministers nor the European
Parliament can make formal proposals (but it is not unknown for the European
Council of heads of state and government to invite the Commission to take
certain initiatives). Subsequent to the Commission making a proposal, the
Council of Ministers enacts the proposals into European law. Since the Treaty of
Maastricht, under the so-called co-decision procedure the European Parliament
has to give its approval, and there are conciliation procedures in place for when
there is disagreement. So there is little comparison with national set-ups.
The Commission is mandated to innovate. Having observed Jacques Delors
and his political cabinet in operation, Ross (1995, p. 12) describes his Presidencies as having offered unique opportunities for fulfilling this role:
It was the Commissions official job to find ways to use this space. The
Commission had the power and institutional right to pick and choose
among possible courses of action, to set agendas. The right choices,
those which made the most of the political opportunity structures,
could set the Community in motion again. Bad political work by the
Commission would have wasted the opportunity.
Ross adds that the setting was manipulated with astounding success. The
quest for European spatial planning was part of these high-spirited efforts.
Indeed, planning was an area that Delors was interested in as part of his
cohesion policy and the quest for preserving the European model of society.
Spatial planning was not, however, an urgent matter at the Commissioners
weekly meetings. Rather, discussions were restricted to the bureaucracy, but
always within the broader context set by the Delors programme. This bureauc-

Spatial Planning Traditions in Europe

167

racy, often referred to as the Eurocrats, is organized in so-called DirectoratesGeneral.

The mover of things as regards European spatial planning was, and still is,
Directorate-General XVI, but since Commission President Romano Prodi has
done away with arcane Roman numerals it is now called Directorate-General
Regio. It was set up to administer the ERDF. Initially, it gave aid to member
states to pursue their regional policies, with few strings attached. However,
building on experiences gained in the experimental Integrated Mediterranean
Programmes (IMPs), Delors proposed a new approach. The various funds were,
firstly, integrated around six (later three) objectives. Secondly, they were to be
invoked in consultation with public and private regional and local stakeholders.
In this way the, what Delors described as the forces vives were to be mobilized.
For overall coordination and as a think tank building on expertise gained in
the IMPs, Delors set up a new Directorate-General XXII. However, DirectorateGeneral XVI had operational experience in administering funds and set itself up
as being solely responsible for coordinating the new Structural Funds. Using the
expertise of national experts on secondment it also developed a capacity for
conceptualizing policy. Eventually, Directorate-General XXII was dissolved and
some of its personnel were absorbed into Directorate-General XVI (Hooghe,
1996). Its hands were strengthened further by the addition of a former French
member of the Delors cabinet, responsible for developing cohesion policy, as one
of its directors, a position that he fulfils to the present day. Directorate-General
XVI as a whole had many French officials anyway. As will be remembered,
Community regional policy was modelled on the French example.
This is the backdrop to the initiative, on the instigation of France, for a
prospective study of the development of the European territory under Article 10
of the ERDF regulations. Unsurprisingly, the spatial planning tradition that this
represented was French. In an interview, a French Commission official (the one
who had been appointed to the Commission staff after Nantes) professed to his
surprise when challenged for pursuing a European master plan. This would
have been against the spirit of amenagement du territoire, he explained. Rather
than a master plan, what he and others at the Commission had in mind was a
spatial perspective to form the basis for more effective use of Structural Funds.
Drawing up such a perspective required no special legal mandate. The problem
for Directorate-General XVI was rather to gain political legitimacy for it. Directorate-General XVI wanted a Council of Ministers to deliberate the issues raised.
Today, the absence of planning powers in the treaties is being seen as an
obstacle to European planning. At the time that was not the perception. A
Council meeting could have been convened to discuss any matter relating to
regional policy, including Europe 2000. The reasons why Nantes was an
informal meeting were the misgivingsreported above when discussing the
French roleheld by other ministries. As indicated, subsequently the operation
ran into opposition from member states, and so the opportunity for an EU
planning role slipped. Directorate-General XVI continued to support intergovernmental planning. It is not uncommon for the Commission to bide its time
until opportunities arise to cash in on investments.
There were, of course, teething problems before a balance could be found
between the ostensibly supportive, but omnipresent, not to say overpowering
Directorate-General XVI and the various Presidencies. Once they had been
sorted out, the ESDP process ran smoothly. However, as soon as the ESDP had

168 A. Faludi
arrived, the Commission ended its support. At present, it seems to be re-tooling
for an altogether different approach, more closely linked to the delivery of the
Structural Funds in the post-accession situation when the lions share will go to
the member states from Central and Eastern Europe. The remainder of the Funds
will be used to support the implementation in the existing Member States of the
Lisbon Strategy of turning the EU into the most competitive region globally and
to build on the INTERREG, URBAN and LEADER Community Initiatives, all
under the label of territorial cohesion policy. Thus once again the Commission
has allowed itself to be influenced by the French spatial planning tradition
where thinking in terms of territorial cohesion comes from (Faludi, 2004b).
The second Cohesion Report (CEC, 2001a) already makes reference to this
rather French concept (Faludi, 2003a, 2004b). Article 3 of the Constitution refers
to territorial cohesion as an aim of the Union, alongside economic and social
cohesion, listing it in Article 15 as a competence shared between the Union and
the member states (Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the
Member States, 2004). The third Cohesion Report (CEC, 2004) announces the
intention of producing a strategic document on cohesion policy, to be put
before the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Although the
Cohesion Report of February 2004 makes no explicit mention of this document
addressing territorial cohesion, it is safe to assume that this is what the
Commission intends (Faludi, 2004c).
Conclusions and Prospects
The French, the Dutch and the Commission were initially on the same wavelength. The Dutch planning tradition was more comprehensive but, like French
planning, worked with indicative rather than binding planning schemes. Both
shared the Commissions outlook that European planning cannot be about
producing a master plan. Had this triumvirate been allowed to get on with it, we
would have seen indicative European spatial planning, French style, combined
with the Dutch concern for spatial quality. The outcome would have somewhat
resembled the ill-fated Dutch Perspectives in Europe exercise or the spatial
vision for north-west Europe formulated under INTERREG IIC (National Spatial
Planning Agency, 2000b). The document would have been prepared under the
auspices of Directorate-General XVI but, as always, the Commission would have
drawn on national expertise. Obviously, the Dutch and the French could have
counted on getting a share of the action, but the Commission would have
ensured that the work was distributed equitably. The document would have
been submitted to the Council of Ministers to give it political backing.
This is alternative history. The Germans closed the window of opportunity for
European Community planning. Why did the process proceed, nevertheless?
Why have successive EU Presidencies taken the ESDP further? The German
initiative to bring the process into an intergovernmental arena created a diffuse
commitment sufficient to keep the ESDP process on track.
So far, one would be hard put to discern clearly defined national interests at
work in this process. Governments do not engage each other over planning. It
is national planners (often pleading with ministers to take up their cause) that
have a primary interest in the matter. Their hope is that Europeanization will

Spatial Planning Traditions in Europe

169

enhance their position vis-a`-vis sectors and/or regions. This type of bureaucratic politics has been one of the forces propelling the ESDP process along. For
instance, DATAR was keen on European planning to bolster its position. The
Dutch National Spatial Planning Agency made European planning its main
policy and gained government approval for this (but when Dutch-sector departments discovered what was happening, they put a spanner in the works; see
Waterhout & Zonneveld, 2000). Similarly, German federal planning defined it as
in its best interests to accept the Lander position of containing the Commission,
but it combined containment with forward defence: the pursuit of European
spatial planning as an intergovernmental affair.
Initially, the Commission seemed to do the bidding of DATAR, and now once
again its outlook is French. However, as evidenced by the White Paper on
European Governance (CEC, 2001b), the Commission has accepted the Dutch
and German idea of coordinating sectors to achieve balanced development.
French amenagement du territoire, too, now embraces the sustainability agenda
(Wachter, 2002), and so does, of course, the Commission, as evidenced by the
Lisbon and, in particular, the Goteborg strategy for a sustainable Europe (CEC,
2001c) As indicated, the Commission expects that inclusion of territorial cohesion amongst the goals of the Union in the Constitutional Treaty will provide
an umbrella for putting its own role in spatial planning on a more secure footing
(Faludi, 2004b).
At the same time, this is taking spatial planning, or what comes in its place,
out of bureaucratic politics into the arena of high politics. To take account of the
needs of new members, the Commission is proposing to increase the EU budget
for 200713 above the current level of less than 1% of GDP (but still staying well
clear of the ceiling agreed at Maastricht). Six existing member states, including
Germany, France and the Netherlands, are arguing for current spending not to
be exceeded, and there is opposition to cohesion policy pumping around
moneybudget contributions being ploughed back to member states, but under
conditions set by the EU.
The outcome of all this remains unclear. Just to illustrate how uncertain
the outcome is, it is worth looking at the situation as it evolves in France.
In the wake of the defeat of the Raffarin government in regional elections
in April 2004, Michel Barnier has become French Foreign Minister, thus
dashing any hopes of his serving another term as Commissioner for regional
policy. Now, it seems hard to conceive of a French government with him in this
position going soft on territorial cohesion, but the fight for the 1% budget ceiling
is now led by a potential opponent of President Chirac in the elections of
2007Minister of Finance Nicolas Sarkozy. What the outcome of the struggles
ahead will be, including amongst others concerning the Common Agricultural
Policy, no one can say.
The other unknown is the Polish Commissioner Danuta Hubner. Will spatial
planning concerns, articulated as they now are under the flag of territorial cohesion, recede into the background? Or are they sufficiently well
entrenched in Commission thinking to persist? European spatial planning is
not only unfinished business (Faludi, 2003a) but is also an uncertain
proposition.

170 A. Faludi
Note
1.

An earlier version of this paper was published as: Las tradiciones de Planificacion Territorial en
Europa: su papel en el proceso de la Estrategia Territorial Europea, in: J. Romero & J. Farinos
(Eds) Ordenacion del Territorio y Desarrollo Territorial. El gobierno del territorio en Europa: tradiciones, contextos, culturas y nuevas visiones, pp. 1744 (Gijon: TREA).

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