ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the emergence of transnational spatial planning within the European Union (EU) and spatial planning in the UK and France in the context of reform of spatial planning systems and policies. In order to provide a suffi ciently ‘discrete focus’ (Williams 1983) for comparative investigation, the main emphasis is on how spatial planning in the two countries is related to, and has interacted with, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP).1 This transnational spatial planning document was agreed by European Ministers for spatial planning and regional policy at Potsdam, Germany, in 1999 as an indicative framework to guide spatially signifi cant public policy making in the EU. It is a nonbinding policy statement, which seeks to guide institutions in the exercise of existing competences, which infl uence spatial development. The ESDP promotes three overarching spatial development guidelines for territorial development in Europe: fi rst, the development of a balanced and polycentric urban system and a new urban-rural relationship; second, securing parity of access to infrastructure and knowledge; and third, sustainable development, prudent management and the protection of the natural and cultural heritage (Commission of the European Communities (CEC) 1999). These principles are supported by 60 policy options, which propose more concrete measures which can contribute to the achievement of the overarching spatial development guidelines. The application of the ESDP is achieved through voluntary cooperation based on the principle of subsidiarity and by a reorientation of national spatial development policies and community sectoral policies, at three levels of spatial co-operation; the community level; the transnational/ national level; the regional/local level. In addition to the need for ‘vertical’ co-operation between the different levels of government, in order to achieve integrated spatial development, the ESDP also calls for ‘horizontal’ cooperation between the authorities responsible for sectoral and spatial policies at each administrative level. Given the non-binding status of the ESDP and the
territorial, administrative, and cultural diversity in Europe, both between and within EU member states, the potential for differentiated application of the ESDP by member states is strong (Tewdwr-Jones 2001a). This is underlined by the fact that different conceptions of planning and national spatial planning systems and traditions within EU member states played a very signifi cant role in shaping debates during the formulation of the ESDP (Faludi and Waterhout 2002; Faludi 2005). Different member states brought different dimensions to the development of the ESDP which refl ected both their conceptions of the role, purpose and practice of spatial planning, and their substantive concerns in relation to spatial development issues (Guigou 2001). In light of this, it is important to undertake comparative studies of the infl uence of the ESDP in different national contexts, particularly of the relationships between the ESDP and spatial planning systems which have been identifi ed as belonging to different European ‘planning families’ or ‘spatial planning traditions’ (Newman and Thornley 1996; Commission of the European Communities (CEC) 1997). Recognising the contextual issues discussed above, this chapter contributes to the comparative study of the infl uence of transnational spatial planning on planning in member states by investigating the application of the ESDP in two member states of the European Union representative of different European ‘spatial planning traditions’: the United Kingdom and France. The investigation of relationships between the ESDP and French and British spatial planning takes into account the wider ‘receiving context’ within which the ESDP is applied in the two countries (Sykes 2004) and is informed by themes in wider ‘Europeanisation’ research (Börzel 2005). The literature on ‘Europeanisation’ stresses that this process is not simply a ‘one-way street’, but that EU member states contribute to the making of European policy as well as having to subsequently apply it in domestic contexts (Bulmer and Radaelli 2005). The degree to which member states shape policy, for example, by ‘exporting’ domestic policy models to the European level can infl uence the degree of ‘misfi t’ between subsequent European policy requirements and national approaches and the amount of adaptation of domestic policy which is necessary. It is therefore important here to consider both the role of France and the UK in the emergence of transnational spatial planning in the EU and the development of the ESDP, and the relationship, or degree of ‘fi t’, between the spatial planning model promoted by this document and the existing spatial planning ‘tradition’ and approach of the two countries. Refl ecting this, the discussions below consider two key issues:
The role which the UK and France played in the emergence of transnational European spatial planning; How the ESDP’s model of ‘spatial’ planning relates to the spatial planning tradition and approach in the two countries.
