ABSTRACT
The European integration process questions territorial politics and policies within the member states in two different ways. First, the economic aspects of integration, with the Single European Act in 1986 and the Single Market in 1993, change the relations of capital and labour and create new types of territorial polarization. Second, the political aspects of integration, with the increased powers of EU institutions and the development of regional policy, exert a more direct influence upon territorial politics within the member states. National governments and bureaucracies face dramatic geoeconomic changes amplified or created by the integration process, which often make previous public policies obsolete. They are also constrained in their adaptive strategies by the normative and administrative pressures of new European regulations and policies.
