Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
were prepared by the fifteen EU member states for their domestic territories
according to a methodology and outline provided by the French presidency. The
French delegation synthesised the individual national contributions into three Euro-
pean trend scenarios, according to the three themes (urban system
red (see
Plate 11), transport infrastructureblue, and natural heritagegreen). The French
presidency proposed that the member states would elaborate the desired vision or
policy scenario for their respective nation-state, and the ESDP would be derived
from a synthesis of these proactive scenarios (DATAR, 1995). However, sub-
sequent presidencies did not follow up these ideas.
The trend scenario exercise was notable for the innovative approach to
understanding spatial development patterns and trends, and because it made
people for the first time in the process consider the spatial implications of the
ESDP policy options - even if only for their own territory. The trend scenarios have
reportedly helped to clarify the content and purpose of the ESDP and to overcome
language barriers in the intergovernmental working group (Sinz, 1997). This stage
in the ESDP process was therefore highly productive in facilitating the exploration
of different understandings about spatial development among member states. In
some countries, the work on the scenario exercise has influenced domestic policy
approaches, as for instance in Germany, where the work on the trend scenarios
and the
Raumordnungspolitischer Orientierungsrahmen
(BMBau, 1993) were
undertaken in parallel (cf. Rase and Sinz, 1993).
Yet the fact that all member states had significant influence over the
representations of their territories in their national contributions affected the validity
of the end result significantly. The categories suggested by the French presidency
on the one hand allowed enough flexibility for different definitions and indicators to
be employed, but on the other hand were perceived in the more sparsely popu-
lated EU member states as being drawn up by and for the urbanised core of
Europe. The Swedish contribution to the European trend scenarios, for instance,
pointed out the significant differences in the urban system in Sweden by compari-
son with the rest of the EU territory, and the problem of fitting this into 'descrip-
tions of the development of urban systems in Europe. [The Swedish towns']
regional importance is often greater than for centres of corresponding size in
Europe' (BOVERKET, 1995b: 1). This, in addition to the fact that member states
worked only on their domestic territories, without consideration of the European
context, implies that the fifteen national contributions cannot be compared, as they
were based on distinctly different assumptions, definitions, and indicators, and the
outcome has therefore been called a 'rather jumbled fifteen-piece jigsaw puzzle'
(Bastrup-Birk and Doucet, 1997: 309).
The lack of comparative data for the European Union, which are often based
on national and regional data sources and different criteria for data collection
