سناریوهایی درباره توسعه فضایی و اقتصادی اروپا

Countless autonomous, self-reinforcing and countervailing forces impact the future competitiveness of Europe and its spatial structure. Poignant examples include globalization, ageing and climate change, but also policy decisions taken by nation-states or the European Union. Scenarios are an appropriate method by which to explore possible future developmental pathways in a dynamic context. This contribution describes and discusses four economic policy scenarios produced by the ESPON 3.2 project and link these to the Lisbon Strategy and the European Social Model. In each scenario, a policy package is assembled from existing EU policy areas according to a particular ideological context. Afterwards, its territorial consequences are discussed in terms of socioeconomic disparities, migration and the environment. In so doing, some observations will be made regarding possible spin-offs, trade-offs and side effects of European policy when placed in a spatial context. These scenarios should hold interest for policy discussions on territorial cohesion, a concept which seeks to integrate economic development and spatial planning, as well as on European competitiveness and cohesion.

By mid-decade of the new millennium, the project of European integration found itself at a historical juncture. The most extensive and daring enlargement had just been carried out, delivering a final and crushing blow to the cold-war division which had plagued the Continent for the second half of the twentieth century, and bringing in a rich variety of new cultures, languages and territories under the umbrella of the European Union (EU). At the same time, Europe was deciding whether to codify its long cooperation by means of a constitution, signalling not only a major milestone in peaceful integration but also an acknowledgement that the European Union had become much more than a free-trade agreement. The evolving European self-consciousness is epitomized in the Lisbon Strategy: the ambition to develop the EU into the world's most competitive knowledge-based economy. It is also epitomized by the commitment to a convergence of values commonly referred to as the European Social Model which eschews the propagation of pure market forces in favour of ideals of social justice and sustainability. At the same time, Europe was faced with formidable structural challenges. With the 2004 enlargement, the EU had also inherited the largest levels of territorial inequality in its history, threatening solidarity, and with it, the European Social Model. Meanwhile, the Lisbon Strategy was being challenged by disappointing interim results. These great historical developments and the fundamental policy dilemmas they produced cast great uncertainty on the future of Europe. Because of this, no simple line can be extrapolated to predict the future social, economic or territorial development of the European Union. Instead, one must work with scenarios that allow for different developmental pathways to be identified on the basis of policy preferences. This contribution discusses the results of the thematic economy scenarios drawn up in the framework of the ESPON 3.2 project (see editor's introduction). Two of the four economy scenarios will be elaborated to illustrate the dilemmas surrounding the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and two to illustrate the dilemmas of solidarity and integration in the wake of European enlargement.

This contribution recounted the inputs and outputs of four policy-oriented scenarios on the economic development in Europe created in the framework of the ESPON 3.2 project [1]. According to a scenario logic of policy orientation (competitiveness/cohesion) and EU influence (high/low) four distinct futures were posited and elaborated. For the purposes of discussion, these scenarios have been linked to the Lisbon Strategy and the European Social Model as contrasting (and, depending on one's point of view, contradictory) ambitions. It should be pointed out that the scenarios, and thus the spatial and economic effects in the scenarios, were developed to explore the limits of decision-making at the European level. Because of this, some policy decisions described in the scenarios are unlikely given existing institutional and political constraints (e.g. veto rights). More likely is a mix between competitiveness and cohesion, usually (as was the case in EuroTigers) underpinned with argumentations of synergetic effects. In addition, a word of caution is in order with respect to the magnitude of the effects as described in the scenarios; these are mainly the product of expert opinions based on the driving forces identified in the scenario base, and should be understood as relative to one another, rather than absolute. Moreover, as EU policy is the variable which serves to distinguish the scenarios, its effects may (and probably are) structurally overestimated. In fact, the results of an econometric model run on similar scenarios [9] and [38] for the first half of the scenario period found only slight impacts on total economic growth and disparities in absolute terms. This is unsurprising given the modest financial means (approximately 1% GDP) at the disposal of the EU. It is with these caveats in mind that the differences between the scenario outcomes should be understood. With regard to European competitiveness and the Lisbon Strategy, obviously Best Foot Forward and EuroTigers score better than Blühende Landschaften and National Revival (although the latter does provide room for excellence at the member state level). The beneficiaries in the scenarios and the spatial effects differ however. Best Foot Forward results in more concentration of economic activity in the pentagon and southern Scandinavia and thus to increasing disparities at the European level. At the national level, metropolitan areas are favoured above their hinterland and peripheral regions are allowed to decline and depopulate. EuroTigers produces similar, but not identical results. Economic growth is slightly higher than Best Foot Forward due to the focus on rapidly developing regions, but less progress is made towards the Lisbon Strategy.5 Beneficiaries are mainly capital regions in the new member states, resulting in reduced disparities at the EU-level but, like Best Foot Forward, increasing disparities at the national level. Finally, it can be added that both scenarios reinforce existing market trends towards agglomeration in cities and rescaling at the regional level [39] and [40]. Some interesting trade-offs arise when Best Foot Forward is compared to EuroTigers in terms of sustainability. Best Foot Forward would obviously compound negative agglomeration effects in the European core area such as congestion, pollution and lack of open space. On the other hand, the longer distances between growth centres in EuroTigers could more than compensate for this due to a reliance on air travel, especially if more net economic growth is produced. This could lead to the rather uneasy conclusion that a strategy inspired in part by the ESDP – where sustainable development is a guiding principle – could conceivably be the most environmentally damaging. With regard to cohesion, Best Foot Forward and EuroTigers both produce polarization between urban and rural areas. The membership of the Best Foot Forward ‘convergence club’ of urban winners is more exclusive than that of EuroTigers. In addition to the distribution of gains and losses of GDP across the European territory, one must also consider the impacts this has on society and the environment. In general, economic growth is accompanied by pollution and loss of open space. In addition, property owners and workers with skills in inelastic supply stand to gain from economic growth, while the underclass experiences increasing rents and negative agglomeration effects [41]. These tendencies, already visible in prosperous cities like London [42], will spread to capital regions in East Europe in EuroTigers. The last two scenarios also produce mixed results on cohesion. In relative terms, Blühende Landschaften does seem to deliver what its name suggests: rural areas are less disadvantaged than in other scenarios and become more liveable in terms of environmental quality. Although there is less relative migration to the cities and core areas of Europe, this does not turn the tide significantly, and the European Social Model, as interpreted as the right to live and work in one's own region, continues to erode because the policy instruments (CAP and regional policy), are relatively weak compared to structural demographic decline and economic agglomeration forces. In National Revival, migration may be restricted by member states, creating a de facto Social Model, but not one based on choice. Some member states will be more successful than others in keeping their countryside liveable, while others may pursue a Best Foot Forward strategy, allowing urban/rural disparities to accelerate. In conclusion, the four ESPON economy scenarios function as a rhetorical device to place policy choices into a territorial perspective. Their value is not in their prognosticative capacity – which admittedly is rather limited, given the broad brush approach and lack of rigorous quantitative modelling – but in the way that insight is gained into trade-offs regarding the distribution of costs and benefits in the European territory. Each scenario carries with it its own set of advantages and disadvantages. European policy documents on the economy or the Lisbon Strategy (e.g. the competitiveness reports), generally neglect the territorial consequences of their policy suggestions, and focus narrowly on the ‘profit’ dimension. These scenarios seek to show that decisions regarding competiveness and cohesion will have different and sometimes unforeseen impacts on ‘people’ and ‘planet’ and that the spatial distribution of this varies in the long term. In this sense, the scenario exercise directly supports the informal political process which has produced the territorial agenda [43] and the green paper on territorial cohesion [44]. Both documents insist that geography is not neutral; it structures the prospects for economic development and affects the impact of generic policy.