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Constructing the European Spatial Development Perspective—For Whom?

This article discusses the provenance and potential significance of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), considering questions of whose policy is it, who had an input into its preparation, who is the client and/or audience, and the significance of its preparation by the Committee on Spatial Development (CSD). The preparation phase from 1993, and the more public phase from the Noordwijk draft of 1997 to completion of the Potsdam text in 1999 are reviewed in order to consider whether the overall time-scale is reasonable and whether the transnational seminars can be regarded as a form of public participation. The paper goes on to discuss what follows after adoption, threats to its role in EU policy-making, and concludes that there are some benefits from the process of preparation by the CSD, and from the form of élite participation that took place, but that the ESDP must become a Commission policy if it is to play a significance role in achieving territorial and social cohesion at the EU level.