ABSTRACT
Our aim is to make an assessment of the impact of Portugal’s entry into the European Union on national spatial policies, based on questions of territorial dynamics and focusing on the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA). The focus here is on the territorial changes brought about by initiatives that were financed by EU Structural Funds (especially European Regional Development Funds, ERDF). The impact and the importance of EU programmes prompt the following questions:
How are EU spatial policies translated into local strategies, bearing in mind that in regions that lack resources it is easier and faster to prepare projects that call for (outside) funds than to design local policies, later applying these funds in coordination with European policies? How can EU spatial policies influence local strategies, using EU funds as a way of implicitly implementing such policies? In what ways have the tools of EU spatial policies been affecting the integration of urban areas?
