EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Follow-up of the Territorial Agenda and Leipzig Charter

Follow-up of the Territorial Agenda and Leipzig Charter

Introduction

In May 2007, the ministers responsible for spatial planning of the Member States of the European Union adopted the Territorial Agenda of the European Union: Towards a more competitive Europe of diverse regions (Territorial Agenda) and the Leipzig Charter on sustainable European cities (Leipzig Charter) at the informal ministerial meeting on urban development and territorial cohesion in Leipzig. Taking these two political documents as a starting point this ad-hoc note analyzes the present (prevailing) state of territorial policy making on European level and proposes a number of actions which are deemed necessary to further enhance territorial cohesion in Europe and a balanced development of the European regions.

Description

The Territorial Agenda as well as the Leipzig Charter are political documents. The Territorial Agenda addresses the whole territory of the EU and provides recommendations for an integrated spatial development policy aiming at mobilising the potential of European regions and cities for sustainable economic growth and more jobs. The Leipzig Charter focuses on a specific type of territorial unit, the urban areas or cities. The Territorial Agenda can thus be regarded as the overarching document. Both documents are part of a continuing track record of designing spatial and urban policy on EU level.

Conclusions

Both the Territorial Agenda and the Leipzig Charter contain policy recommendations. But while the Leipzig Charter may be considered a concluding strategy document for the concerned authorities also providing adequate instruments on the EU level, the recommendations of the Territorial Agenda remain on a rather general level. The most important action foreseen is to elaborate an action plan in the course of the coming presidencies. The Portuguese Presidency has begun work on an Action Programme for the implementation of the Territorial Agenda and the Slovene Presidency has agreed to initiate its implementation. In sthis study, it is recommend that such an action plan should concentrate on 4 key areas of action i.e.

Awareness raising: recognition has remained limited and the ESPON 2013 programme is well placed to play a key role in the gathering and processing of information for more awareness. Also, political leadership is needed for the disseminiation.

The policy coordination process: it is recommended to enhance this process through through three actions, all within the competence of the EU institutions – the setting up of an interservice group on territorial cohesion; an intensified policy discourse within the regular informal ministerial meetings of the ministers responsible for spatial planning; and the introduction of an Open Method of Coordination including a peer review process. Whereas the first action would strengthen the horizontal coordination within the Commission, the other two would address the issues of vertical coordination.

Tools for integration of the territorial dimension: The instruments for impact assessment of planned policy actions and evaluation of current policy measures seem very well advanced on EU level and in most Member States. It is therefore consider not necessary to develop a new (formal) tool on EU level but highly recommend including the territorial dimension in transnational (and possibly crossborder) SEAs as well as adding it to the Commission’s formal Impact Assessments. This would have a great impact on the recognition of the territorial dimension of EU policy actions and of transnational projects.

The evaluation of the proposed action programme: Stipulating the main purpose of the proposed action programme to be firstly the promotion of awareness for the territorial dimension in achieving economic and social cohesion and secondly the integration of the priorities set out in the Territorial Agenda and in the Leipzig Charter, we distinguish two types of results which need to be evaluated when implementing this action programme: (a) the accomplishment of the proposed institutional innovations respectively their progress and (b) the introduction of and consensus on indicators for territorial cohesion. For the latter there are (too) many suggestions available but no consensus about their validity and feasibility so far. We therefore recommend making this decision on relevant and available evaluation indicators for territorial cohesion and hence for the impact of the Action Programme the initial outcome of the proposed OMC process.

Contact info

European Parliament
Policy Department B: Structural and Cohesion Policies
B-1047 Brussels
Belgium
Ms Ivana Katsarova

Publication date

13/12/2007

Researcher

Isabel Naylon, Peter Schneidewind and Gabriele Tatzberger

Links

Click here to visit the website of the Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning, which conducted the research

Click here to download the complete study "Follow-up of the Territorial Agenda and the Leipzig Charter: towards a European Action Programme for spatial development and territorial cohesion" (PDF, Eng, 2.14MB)

Click here to download the Executive Summary in Dutch (PDF, NL, 92 kB)

Click here to download the Executive Summary in Spanish (PDF, ES, 92 kB)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords