ABSTRACT
A significant recent development in Europe is, it is said, a strengthening of the regional level and a parallel decline in the strength of state governments. Existing transnational functional regions, like the Euregio in border areas of Germany and the Netherlands, are now being formally recognised. Transnational geopolitical regions, like the Barents Region and the Baltic Region, are now also formalised. Cooperation between separate administrative and functional regions in different countries is being strengthened by the formation of systems of regions (Nordgreen 1995), of which the so-called Blue Banana may be an example; or by the creation of alliances of regions, perhaps best illustrated by the so-called Four Motors of Europe. Such cooperation may be bilateral, trilateral, or even multilateral, and need not be characterised by territorial contiguity.
