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Cohesion policy contributing to territorial cohesion: Scenarios

This paper first discusses the present and uncertain future of EU Cohesion policy. The Barca Report argues for all developmental policies, including EU Cohesion policy, to be place-based. This makes for territorial cohesion becoming an important element in the equation. Territory is after all the arena in which households and businesses and public authorities interact. It is thus a platform for co-ordinating public and private actors and their sometimes disparate approaches. Since the future is uncertain, rather than making any predictions, the paper then outlines four scenarios building on the ESPON scenario study2. This latter study concerns a ‘baseline’, a ‘competitiveness-oriented’ and a ‘cohesion-oriented’ scenario after which it constructs a ‘roll back’ scenario representing a vision of Europe developing according to principles enunciated in the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP). Whilst the scenarios in this paper do not exactly correspond to the ESPON scenarios, the authors nevertheless recognise the influence on their thinking of this important study.