ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the peculiar dynamics linked to the emerging scales of intervention remain monolithic and unidirectional. It also suggests that the legacy of materialist-inspired regulation school theory, which foregrounds the instrumentalist and strategic logic of national accumulation regimes as central metaphors in the construction of 'spatial fixes' for capital. Since the early 1990s special importance has been accorded the development of transborder regions throughout the European Union as potentially key sites of economic dynamism resulting from continent-wide economic integration and enlargement. The whole Maas-Rhein Euregio thus stands at an economic crossroads, grappling with problems of industrial conversion in its mining sector, searching for an appropriate developmental pathway drawing from new technologies and cross-border synergies. The chapter concludes with a reflection on what the awareness might mean for our conceptualization of the identity of 'Europe' as a stable and coherent geographical entity.
