European Regional Policy and Governance of Cross-Border Regions

The reshaping of the territorial organization of the state, the changes in governance, and the regionalisation put forward by the European Commission, contributed to the emergence of new cross-border regional spaces in Europe. This book analyses governance in the process of the formation of new regional alliances and spaces in Europe by studying the case of the Central European Region - Centrope, which is both a region and a political project at the border area of Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. The focus is on socio-spatial transformations, bringing in conceptual clarifications to unravel, among other issues, the ways in which actor's alliances are formed and mobilized to defend and promote particular interests grounded within already established, emerging, or potential state spaces. It thus sheds light on the mode of governance and regional development being fostered by the EU in new cross-border regions, as well as on the challenges involved in implementing new spaces in the EU under the absolute rule of a specific notion of competitiveness, making it useful for researchers and policy-makers dealing with regional development in Europe and worldwide.