ABSTRACT
The third issue regards the future of spatial patterns and their administrative organiz-
ation in Eastern Europe. Theories suggest that agglomeration benefits are necessary for
the economic growth in the EU. Farole et al. (2010, p. 10) claim that if Europe wants
to remain competitive in the more integrated world and an innovative first mover in the
global economy, agglomerations may be the geographical underpinning for that. Success-
ful regions are competitive metropolitan areas. This fosters the spatial concentration of
economic growth in Eastern Europe. Despite this, territorial diversity and specificity
and cooperation between the European regions are strongly emphasized. The current
EU spatial policy on polycentrism suggests that economic growth must take place in
the core agglomerations but also in connection to the remaining EU territory (CEC,
2008). Spatial patterns change slowly; therefore, one should look decades ahead for
path-dependent, resilient and path creation trajectories in Eastern Europe. The futures
studies methods were applied to trace weak signals and megatrends for these three devel-
opment scenarios.
