Urban and regional development in the Baltic States and other Central and Eastern European countries has experienced rapid changes since their re-independence at the beginning of the 1990s. Meanwhile, urban and regional planning institutions and organizational cultures in the Baltic States have only changed rather incrementally, despite various national and European pressures for reform. As a consequence, the effects of European cohesion and structural policy measures have been quite modest, and the ability of the planning systems in the Baltic states to manage contemporary trends in urban and regional development has become increasingly limited. This book focuses on these issues and tensions of spatial planning and development in the Baltic States and their distinctiveness compared to other European countries. It provides an overview of the historical and cultural context of spatial development, a discussion of the processes of Europeanization of spatial planning in the specific context of the Baltic States, and an analysis of whether these processes may be leading to policy convergence in the region. This book was published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,7, University of Southern Denmark (Department of Border Region Studies), course: European Regional Innovation Policy, language: English, abstract: This paper is designed to examine the Regional Innovation Policy, consisting of existing schemes of systematic exploitation of innovation, so-called Regional Innovation Systems, and entailing public procurement for innovation and cluster-policies in combination with a mapping of the actors in the Regional Innovation System in the Baltic Sea Region, all in regard to Small Medium Enterprises due its pre-dominance in the fields of research and practical implementation of economic innovation. While the scope of this paper includes the effectiveness and efficiency of the "European Union Baltic Sea Region Programme" (EU BSRP) in reference to one of its priorities, "fostering innovation‟ for economical growth in the Baltic Sea Region, the programme's relative novelty in design and strategic relevance, given by the fact of promulgation of a "European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region" (EU STRAT BSR) parallel to implementation of EU BSRP, point out to a demand for further investigation on the fact that the EU BSRP is an innovation by itself concerning regional policy as "macro-regional cooperation" within the framework of the EU. This paper will address firstly the EU STRAT BSR and its potential effects on the strategic environment in the Baltic Sea Region in particular and on European level in general by scrutinizing the second programmatic "pillar", making "[...] [t]he Baltic Sea A Prosperous Place", due to its reference character for the economic yield of the strategy. This short description and analysis of EU STRAT BSR is followed by an outline of the EU BSRP by providing an account of innovation policies in the Baltic Sea Region.Two research questions will serve as a guideline along the descriptive part a

EBOOK The Economics of European Integration 6e

The Nordic Regions and the European Union is an authoritative book on the influences of European integration on the regional level in the Nordic countries. It provides both factual insight into the Nordic regions and the Europeanization of the four Nordic countries, offering theoretical contributions to the theory of regionalism in a European context built on systematic comparison. the extent to which the regional level of governance has been influenced by the increasing importance of European integration across a range of policy areas. Part two presents in-depth studies of key aspects of the process of Europeanization in the Nordic regions, including cross-border co-operation, regional lobby activities in Brussels and regional policy as a field of activity in which multi-level governance has become particularly prominent.

"While the constitutional development of the European Union appears to be stymied, new modes of governance have sprung up in the interstices of formal institutions. This book digs beneath the treaties and formal institutions to inquire into the possibilities, and limits, of new, more flexible, methods of decision making which involve the diffusion of authority to private or public actors beyond and beneath the central state. The authors succeed in deepening our understanding of new modes of governance and their effectiveness, but they also critically assess the challenge of making such arrangements accountable to European citizens. In short, this book is a most welcome and timely contribution to our understanding of European politics."--BOOK JACKET.

Seit 1989 ist es im Ostseeraum zu einer explosionsartigen Entstehung einer Vielzahl von regionalen Initiativen und Zusammenschlussen gekommen. Der Ostseeraum weist bis heute eine europaweit einzigartig hohe Konzentration an kooperativen regionalen Strukturen auf. Diese bilden gemeinsam ein enges Netzwerk von Vereinigungen, die unter dem Uberbegriff der Ostseezusammenarbeit' interagieren. Diese Studie analysiert die Hintergrunde dieses regionalen Phanomens oder so genannten "Ostsee-Ratsels" auf Basis eines Vergleichs zwischen den Regionalpolitiken zweier staatlicher Schlusselakteure, Schweden und Finnland, wobei der europaische Integrationsprozess als ubergeordneter Bezugsrahmen fur die Untersuchung dient. In the course of the 1990s, a variety of regional initiatives and associations emerged in the Baltic Sea Region. As a result, today, the region features an extremely high concentration of regionalist structures, which add up to a tight network of cooperative arrangements that all label themselves as Baltic'. The present study looks closely at this specific regional phenomenon, the 'Baltic Sea Conundrum', by employing a comparative approach. Looking at the cases of Sweden and Finland, their political performance as both regional stakeholders and members of the EU, it is sought to show how in recent years regional agendas have intersected with European issues and vice versa.

Economic Styles in the Process of EU Eastern Enlargement is the product of a research project on 'The Historical and Cultural Path Dependence of the Transition Processes in the Baltic Sea Region and Its Significance for the Enlargement of the European Uni