Governance in Europeanisation

History of Europeanisation

The Italian Renaissance generated a new cultural model, which was promising a modernisation and the European expansion, whilst the European cultural homogeneity should still had been maintained. Therefore, this specification was leading to such an outcome, that all countries on Atlantic coastline specialised mainly in trade, central Europe retained an urban – based commercial landscape, and Eastern Europe an apricultural perception. The early modern period was strongly characterized by contradictory processes of Europeanisation. Lately, the French Revolution contributed to an increase of this domain. Increasing effort to create a number of European institutions had not entirely followed the process of Europeanisation, although recently it is a relatively stable framework for states, as bodies and members of these institutions. The European Union as one of these institutions nowadays represents a modern level and a new quality of Europeanisation influencing the countries within the European Union.

Europeanisation in British Cities

In the UK, a significant shift of power to NGOs and private companies determinates the new implementation of policy by these actors. Local government and urban authorities are experiencing a significant decrease of influence and therefore, the public participation’s trust and involvement in decision processes is highly dependent on the cooperation with NGOs and their ability to provide a significant level of awareness. Central cities due to the shift of governance have been cut off from their “suburban hinterlands” and forced to implement narrower policies. With an involvement of New Labour i n 1997, the new urban regeneration programmes have been implemented into local level. Participation in EU Structural Fund programmes, the URBAN Community Initiative and Urban Pilot Projects has significantly contributed to a change of urban governance in the UK. The UK central government’s effort to retain absolute control over the Structural Funding has been determined by encouragement rather than prevention of further Europeanisation at the local level. Increasing level of Europeanisation in the UK has also a further origin in a connection between the central government with local actors, resulted in formation of new implications in terms of urban governance e.g. “european urban governance”. The centralization of local government is apparent in the weight of legislation directed at local authorities. The local authorities in cities such as Birmingham and Glasgow have participated and encouraged direct lobbying, long-term strategic programming and partnership, to liaise with conditions of The European Union Programme and to benefit from Structural Funding in terms of urban development. This process can be described as “following the European strategies” in terms of urban governance. Internalisation of European Commission’s principles of programming occurs as one of the significant elements within urban local authorities when implementing the policy on European level. Both cities have further developed strong transnational networks within Eastern Europe and strong relationship in terms of international cooperation and development programmes. Observation of their development released the evidence about the adaptation pressure arose from EU Structural Funds. The Europeanisation occurs here as an emerging process, thus a “steering regulator”, which the governments of these countries are more likely to follow than to regulate and govern.

EU Cohesion Policy

EU Cohesion Policy is a new reform programme which has been developed to assess and monitor the evaluation of Structural Funds and their outcome in lower developing regions. The new reform became one of the most intensively evaluated policies in Europe. The contributors and assessors are policy makers and researchers from different range of disciplines. EU Cohesion Policy refers to the set of activities aimed to reduction of regional and social disparities in the European Union. Although, the EU Cohesion Policy appears as a relatively well designated programme, there are still some unresolved issues in terms of measurements, philosophical approaches and methods of Cohesion Policy evaluation.

The further challenges such as different interests of European institutions and Member State governments occur as a main constraint. Cohesion Policy has been described as “political expression of solidarity” between Europe’s wealthier and poorer regions. In terms of resolving the challenges, the EU Funding should be focused more on specialized areas of support, such as regional innovation networking, financial engineering, environmental sustainability and specialist advisory. The better approach should be made not only in terms of accountability, but on capacity-building and learning objectives. Although, there is a direct influence from political actors to determine the policy, decisions processes, objectives and methods should be made within the partnership programme. The main objective of cohesion policy is to diminish the gap between different regions, more precisely between less-favored regions and affluent ones. It is an instrument of financial solidarity and a powerful force for economic integration.

Socio-economic disparities in European regions

Socio-economic disparities in the European Union countries are considerable. Strong differences between neighboring regions create both, threats and opportunities. In terms of opportunities we understand goods, capital and labour in relatively closely defined regions; in the threats perspective it is mainly appearance of large differences between wealth and lagging regions. Described threats are highlighting the importance of geographical range (thus influence on socio-economic standards). In terms of economic development, disparities between European countries have been reduced over the last two decades, showing a clear “convergence” between the countries. The imbalances occurred particularly due to a large agglomeration, where geographically advanced regions play a significant role in growing GDP. Although poorer and more peripheral regions of the EU have shown a significant economic growth, in terms of the whole European economy they represent only a smart part of contribution. In rapidly growing economies such as Ireland, Estonia and Latvia regional differences lead to a positive outcome and relative decline in the more peripheral parts. Socio-economic differences due to regional disadvantage occur particularly in Finland, France and Spain, where the high unemployment rate has increased in more peripheral regions. Migration into rapidly growing areas seems in most European countries as an emerging issue.

Spatial disparities in European Regions

The increase in intra-national regional disparities is experienced by almost all the EU-27 Member States. Mapping potential accessibility to European GDP makes it possible to identify the areas well positioned to develop “hub functions”, by acting as "businesses and entrepreneurial" crossroad. In the former EU-15 countries the analysis confirms that the main cause of inequality is a dominance of the main metropolitan areas, which are creating two or more imbalanced territories, such as Italy (North-South), Belgium (Flanders-Wallonia), Germany (West-East) and Spain (North-East and South-West). Geometrical coherence is an identifiable quality that ties the city together through form, and is an essential for the vitality of the urban fabric. From the perspective of geographical advantage, a major core area centered in the border regions of Southern Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia emerges as well as a key – centre in terms of accessibility around Prague, Bucharest, Budapest and Vienna.

Further disparities between urban and rural regions may have a detrimental impact on the perspectives in terms of sustainable growth and GDP. Infrastructure investments may extend the labor market and decrease structural disadvantages within the country; however, their effectiveness depends on their investment design and main objective. Huge territorial imbalances between metropolitan areas and their surrounding regions are highlighting the strong polarization of the European territory.

EEA Grants and Norway Grants

The EEA Grants and Norway Grants are Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway’s contribution to reducing economic and social disparities in European Economic Area and to the strengthening of bilateral relations with the 15 beneficiary states in Central and Southern Europe. All three countries have provided the financial support in terms of social and economic imbalances since 1994 and both grants initiatives were established in connection with the historic enlargement of the European Union and European Economic Area in 2004. Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway agreed on joint management of the EEA Grants and Norway Grants; however, the decision-making procedure regarding the EEA Grants lies in hands of the Financial Mechanism Committee, whereas the Norway Grants are being managed by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The EEA Grants and Norway Grants are administered by the Financial Mechanism Office (FMO) in Brussels. A National Focal Point is the coordinating authority and contact point for each of the beneficiary states. More than one fourth of the EEA Grants was awarded to projects in the fields of environmental protection and sustainable development.

Urban Governance

Urban Governance is a combined effort of multitude actors at a different level of government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and community. Vertical partnership between national, regional and local governments must be complemented by horizontal partnership of stakeholders within cities. Local authorities and government play significantly important role in land use development, community development and social services. The Urban governance in European countries is characterised by its diversity due to spatial and urban disparities. In cities of southern Europe a high level of centralized decisions is jeopardizing a successful outcome of the policy. Importance of the examination of local level political processes, determined by the local political and social infrastructure is an important tool for successful urban governance.

The north European regions’ post-war welfare has been described as a consequence of extensive urban planning policies and centrally defined responsibilities for local authorities, whereas the southern regions interpret a presence of indigenous small and medium-sized firms dominated the organisation of industry. A significantly lower level of urban development appears in the south, while increase in entrepreneurial activities as a “part of urban development” occurs in northern parts. Urban governance in southern European regions is determined by institutional and territorial decentralisation and a week participation in urban development programmes.

Lack of transparency and accountability within governance networks in south European areas increasingly blurs the distinction between the state, NGOs, private companies and public sector. The structure and functions of the governmental organizations are often highly fragmented and therefore, these might be overlapping powers and responsibilities. Secondly, the community response in southern European states is less included in decision-making processes, either in variety of consultations with stakeholders, or in assessments of environmental impacts and management processes. Political will is significantly important for successful process of urban governance, as changing the political environment has a great impact on voluntary and community activity. The more closer is the connection between ‘real communities’ in regions, cities, neighborhoods and government bodies, the more sensitive will be addressing the issues on local and regional level, and more successful the implementation of the policy. Urban governance is hence, not a tool to retain a control over the increasing challenges, but ability to successfully manage and regulate the differences and to be creative in urban areas where the changes are most visible.

Urban Policy

In 2007, in European Union, ministers adopted the Leipzig Charter to achieve the objective of sustainable cities and recognise the importance of social, cultural and economic role that cities play.

The key policy document is building on the results of the previous presidencies, in particular:

European cities (and metropolitan regions) by signing the Leipzig Charter had acceded into conditions to draw up integral development plans, whereas the local authorities had taken responsibility to implement these plans.

The Leipzig Charter contains two key policy messages:

Local governance and NGOs in European regions

Networks, as today's “panacea” for environmental governance occurs as an important driver for implementing certain policies. NGOs are significantly influencing public participation's involvement and on the other hand, they step in where, there is a “gap” that governments or companies are unable to fill. Networks are playing an essential role in decision-making processes in terms of consultation to government or industries, regulating activities and sometimes even intervene, when substituting for traditional policies. NGOs can further act on behalf of their members, or as a significant political pressure group in their own right.

The most addressing reason for shifting the urban governance into local and institutional networks is economic globalization and global spectacle, thus the emergence of world-wide institutions. Cities as a key element of urban governance due to changes in political, social, spatial spheres and growing complexity of social life are trying to “delink” themselves from their national economies. City governments had to become more entrepreneurial and able to attract a business investments. New lifestyle and social differentiation appears as impossible to govern at one level and the governance response to these circumstances therefore includes new combinations of people-based and place-based policies. Community capacity-building remains a “cornerstone of area committee” and is likely to increase its appearance in the future. Institutional frameworks can influence positively to regional and urban challenges in terms of innovative processes. By institutions, institutionalists we understand rules, norms and practices which structure areas of social endeavour and not formal organisations, which focus on interactions and not decisions. The way of governing has shifted from those of “hierarchies and bureaucracy” to selforganising networks of heterarchy.” Private firms are seeking more political engagement and want to achieve better functioning of urban and economic system. On the other hand, the state wants to influence firms to achieve better overall economic performance. In the European Union the urban governance at the national scale requires except network influences and financial capital, sufficiency of knowledge for policy makers, otherwise “one solution model suitable to one region” does not necessarily guarantee successful outcome of the policy in the other region. The issue of multilevel governance in cities occurs in such cases when, the local governance activity “can mask the inefficiency” of social and political implementation policies to support and encourage citizens. Another cause of urban governance shift is arising a social justice, greater consciousness of the diversity of basic needs and cultural identities, and a stronger awareness of environmental resource management and sustainability limits.