ABSTRACT
As a matter of fact, the EU has slowly become one of the most interesting and stimulating existing institutional projects (Sbragia, 2002), where the latest step has been the production of the text of the EU Constitution, currently undergoing discussion and ratification in each EU member state. The relevance of the institutional challenge it proposes is highlighted, even if from different perspectives by several scholars in the field of institutional studies. This section of the book does not bring together contributions written by ‘orthodox’ scholars in the field of institutions, but mostly by scholars in urban and territorial planning, who, with similar origins, though being engaged on different research paths and starting from different research interests, offer a deep insight on the way in which the planning discipline is to different extents affected by the institutional dimension of the process of constitution of the EU.
