European Territorialization and the Eastern Neighbourhood: Spatial Development Co-operation between the EU and Russia

Abstract

The advancing European discourse on spatial development policy and, more recently, territorial cohesion contributes to the emergence of an increasingly sharpened territorial profile of the European Union by supporting the development of a single, more integrated and cohesive EU territory. This internal European Union process obviously also has external implications for the wider European neighbourhood. Within this setting at the interface between the internal and external dimensions of European territorialization, this article investigates co-operation in spatial development policy between the two major regional actors, the European Union and the Russian Federation. Initially, the analysis is theoretically framed by clarification of the concept of territory/ality and its relation to European Union governance while exploring the influence of geopolitical relations between the EU and Russia on existing co-operation in this policy field. An investigation is then made of CEMAT, ESPON, the ESDP process, VASAB, and the INTERREG Community Initiative as channels for co-operation between the EU and Russia. It is argued that EU-Russian co-operation in spatial development policy is of an explicitly multi-level nature that incorporates a peculiar mix of regional, national/bilateral, and panEuropean/supranational co-operation initiatives, although the main channels of Russian access to European Union spatial policy initiatives are those in which the national level retains a strong role. Thus, collaboration efforts across the EU’s external border cannot be generalized but rather are contingent on broader geopolitical relations between the EU – as well as its member states – and Russia.