ABSTRACT
As the empirical insights of the previous chapters are limited to France, Italy and Germany, this chapter will contextualise the results by referring to the experiences and trends in other European countries. These are Spain, Portugal, Denmark, England, The Netherlands, Norway and Poland. In all these countries, city-regions and their governance have been an issue in the last decade but the study confirms that we can hardly speak of a next wave of metropolitan reforms in Europe. The national initiatives point into different directions (centralisation, decentralisation; consolidation, contracting, deal-making and asymmetric treatment of territories). In some countries there are national role models but the assumption of the rise of city-regions as political or economic scale is half true and half wrong. We have seen a number of reforms targeting the city-regional level in many states – not only in Europe – but this does not constitute a new paradigm of metropolitics in Europe. There is a broad spectrum of national initiatives and interventions, context specific and incremental solutions. The difference between unitary, federal and regional states can explain some of these variations. In quite a few states fiscal consolidation pressures are an essential motivation for reopening the debate on city-regions.
