Abstract

EUROPEAN POLICIES WITH IMPACT ON
TERRITORIAL PLANNING

POLITICI EUROPENE CU
IMPACT ASUPRA
ORGANIZĂRII SPAŢIULUIFlorina BRAN
Professor PhD, Faculty of Agri-Food and Environmental
Economics, Bucharest University of Economic Studies
E-mail: florinabran@yahoo.com

Ildiko IOAN
Associate professor PhD, Faculty of Agri-Food andEnvironmental Economics, Bucharest University of
Economic Studies
E-mail: ildiko.ioan@yahoo.com

Carmen Valentina RADULESCU
Associate professor PhD, Faculty of Agri-Food andEnvironmental Economics, Bucharest University of
Economic Studies
E-mail: cv_radulescu@yahoo.com
Abstract

The European goal to have a smart, sustainable,
and inclusive economy supposes, among others, toreduce regional disparities. The European policies
that have impact on territorial planning are the ones
regarding competition, trans-European networks oftransportation and telecommunication, agriculture
and rural development, environmental protection
and tourism. In order to highlight how the proposed
actions contributed to the fulfilment of EU goals inregional development we examined the impact ofpolicies on territorial planning using case studies
from Romania. The analysis indicated that there isan influence, but the changes that occurred did nottransform always in functional relations fromadministrative point of view.
Keywords:

regional development, territorialplanning, European policies, Romania

RezumatObiectivul european al dezvoltării unei economii inteligente,sustenabile și inclusive, presupune, între altele, o diminuare adisparităților regionale. Politicile europene care au impact asupraorganizării spațiului sunt cele privind concurența, rețeleletranseuropene de transport și telecomunicații, agricultură și
dezvoltare rurală, protecția mediului și turism. Pentru a evidenția
modul în care acțiunile propuse au contribuit la îndeplinirea
obiectivelor UE în domeniul dezvoltării regionale am examinat
impactul acestor politici asupra organizării spațiului folosind oserie de studii de caz din România. Analiza a evidențiat că există
o influență, dar schimbările produse nu s-au transformatîntotdeauna în relații funcționale din punct de vedere
administrativ.

Cuvinte cheie: dezvoltare regională, organizarea spațiului,
politici europene, România

JEL CODES: O18, O21………………
Proceedings of the 11th Administration and Public
Management International Conference”Strategic Management for Local Communities”

BRAN Florina, IOAN Ildiko and RADULESCU Carmen Valentina

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1. INTRODUCTIONPROCEEDINGS OF THE 11TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE”Strategic Management for Local Communities”
30th – 31st October 2015
Bucharest

The geographic territory of Europe comprises an area of around 10 million square kilometers, situating
this continent at the end of the hierarchy compared with the other continents. Nonetheless, Europe
concentrates a variety of cultures that impacted on development all over the world. The current economic
framework although allowed European states to value their historic capital, was also very advantageousfor emerging regions that leaped in economic growth and now challenge European producers within the
global market’s framework.
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic construct that is not entirely overlapped with thegeographic area, but holds most of it. Currently EU embodies states with different characteristics althoughwith common interests in certain areas. The overarching goal of this construct is to reduce the differencesin such a way that each state maximizes its development potential and their interaction boosts synergetic
processes enabling the sustainable growth of EU’s competitiveness in a global context. The main meansof achieving this goal is economic growth facilitated by the economies of scale enabled within the common
market. Thus, the three fundamental goals of the European policy are:

Economic and social cohesion;Conservation and management of natural resources and of the cultural heritage;More balanced competitiveness of the European territory.

The differences among states arise from various aspects, including territorial planning. Each state has its
own approach in this area, approach that impacts on the effectiveness of some European policies. It could
be inferred that, on their turn, European policies will also have an impact on territorial planning, impactthat should enable the achievement of these policies’ goals.
Territorial planning itself is an issue with relevance for entire union and since the early phases it was
outlined the European Spatial Development Program that is aiming to achieve a balanced and sustainable
development of the European territory. This policy is considered the framework for sector policies of the
EU and of the Member States that have impacts on territorial planning.
Territorial planning is a practice with a long tradition that stem back in times with a very different social,economic, political and cultural background (Cândea et al., 2006). In modern times, this practice wasconceptualized and developed by scientific approach that resulted in some major changes, but with apatchy implementation across European states. These changes were more related with shifts of thepolitical regime, while the dynamic of the economy was less influential until recently.

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Territorial planning has long ranging effects and its change occur gradually or not at all unless an authority
will be brought to life by adapting policy measures to the opportunities and restrains of each Member
State’s territorial planning model. This raises the question of how the territorial impact could be enhanced
in order to boost the effectiveness of European policies in various sectors. By examining some of thesepolicies and their territorial impact we are aiming to highlight relevant aspects for the improvement ofpolicy making.

2. TYPOLOGY OF EUROPEAN MODELS OF TERRITORIAL PLANNING
Territorial processes are determined by the interaction between investors and population who balances
job and residential areas. In the current economic setting of the EU the logic of the free market leads tourban expansion that threatens the functionality of natural systems with a potential harmful impact on longterm wellbeing. Therefore territorial planning is an issue of public interest that justifies public intervention
and is recognized as such by the Member States.
Territorial planning is also considered an issue of European relevance and great effort was invested indeveloping a model that allows the start of a process of convergence. This effort was commenced by anassessment of the existing models that concerned common elements and their advantages and restrains
against the goals of the European policies. Further, building on the results of this assessment it wasdeveloped a typology of European territorial planning models in order to substantiate institutional changes
that might be necessary.
Despite the small size of the European territory, compared with other continents, and shifting nationalboundaries, national territorial planning evolved independently resulting in a variety of approaches. For
their analysis there were proposed not less than four typologies developed using the following criteria:family of nations (Newman and Thornley, 1996); traditions of territorial planning (Faludi, 2004); macroregional perspective; and hyper-cube of territorial planning based on four dimensions.
The typology based on family of nations comprises four models – British, Napoleonic, German, andScandinavian, distributed as it is presented in figure 1.

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based regime is enforced. It is more likely that other changes needed in the pursuit of European goals

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FIGURE 1 - TERRITORIAL PLANNING MODELS BASED ON FAMILIES OF NATIONS
Source: Newman and Thornley, 1996

In the British model each request is assessed separately; local decisions are evaluated by a central control
against national guidelines. There is a competitive tension between local authorities and claims, although
in case of large projects the plans are negotiated considering their overall benefits. Planning,development, and control are tasks of different departments.
Within the Napoleonic model territorial planning tend to be aligned to a national code and to havehierarchy, with the possibility to express the development policy on its superior level.
The German model outstands by its rigorous regulation of territorial planning with a regional pattern of I
supported by regulations, plans, guidelines, and agreements. There are significant differences among
regions, although the national context is very strong.
The Scandinavian model is the most decentralized, since the national component consisting only in theestablishment of responsibilities and involvement in planning. Local planning supposes negotiations
between authorities and claimers.
The tradition based typology outlines four categories too, namely: regional; comprehensive-integrative;land-use based; and urbanism based (figure 2).

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FIGURE 2 - TERRITORIAL PLANNING MODELS BASED ON TRADITIONS
Source: ESPON 3.2, 2007

The typology based on macro-regional perspective was outlined by the changes occurred under the
influence of globalization being facilitated by more intense communication regarding territorial planning.
The models outlined by this criterion are the followings:
North-western perspective: the model combines the patterns of German, French, and Dutch
models, having a great influence on the entire European approach of territorial planning (Rivolinand Faludi, 2005);



British/Irish perspective: focus on the linkage between territorial planning and land use planning;Northern perspective: territorial planning is developed at local level, with very few elements
established at national level;Mediterranean perspective: is featured by complex and gradual changes being deployed asurban regeneration and local development.

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FIGURE 3 - THE FOUR DIMENSION HYPER-CUBE OF TERRITORIAL PLANNING
Source: ESPON 3.1, 2005

The typology of the hyper-cube, takes in account four dimensions: level of approach; style of territorialplanning (the styles are corresponding with the models identified based on traditions); role of planning;and sustainability (figure 3). There are outlined five models of territorial planning (Schön, 2005): regionaladministrative; regional decentralization; regionalization by existing local authorities; regional autonomy;
and regional federalization.

3. EU’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND TERRITORIAL PLANNING
EU gained the reputation of pioneering in the field of environmental protection. This is endorsed byimportant action in policy making, but also by a highly performing industry that produces clean technology
equipment. The aspects of the environmental policy that have impact on territorial planning are: water
protection; waste management; biodiversity preservation; and climate change.
Water protection supposes a number of investments in systems of distribution of tap water and collectionof waste waters. These investments should be managed by local authorities being designed to serve
communities. The same is true for waste management system (deposits, recycling facilities) that could be
efficient only if they are optimized by taking in account the territorial distribution of communities and theamount of waste they generate. In this process it is necessary to be in accordance with the administrative
units, since contract with waste management operators are made by their local authorities.
Another environmental policy issue that has a great relevance for territorial planning is biodiversity
preservation. Its most common action is to designate protected areas that aim to protect habitats andspecies. Although this activity is controlled by local environmental agencies, the boundaries of protected

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areas are not always respecting the administrative limits. Further, protected areas are to be managed by

The nature conservation goals that should be considered in territorial planning are:

Monitoring, assessment, and improvement of species and habitats conservation status ofcommunity importance;Efficient management of protected areas, including Natura 2000 sites.

For instance, in Romania, where nature’s conservation status is one of the highest across Europe, there
are around 500 Natura 2000 sites, along with tens of nationally designated protected areas (figure 4).
Altogether they represent around one quarter of the country’s territory, an area of 6 million hectares.

FIGURE 4 - PROTECTED AREAS IN ROMANIA
Source: Natura 2000 Network Viewer

A little proportion of them have established an administration based on a contract. Each protected area
is composed by territories belonging to more local authorities. Most of these communities are envisaging
the development of their infrastructure and this could have impact on the status of the protected areas.
Further, local communities territorial plans should take in account the goals of the protected area thathave included territories from their land.
Climate change adaptation, risk prevention and management suppose:Non-structural measures to mitigate the risks generated by climate change, such as floods,
droughts, completed with infrastructure projects such as river arrangements and dams;

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their own administration and the goals should be correlated with spatial development goals.

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

Investments for reducing coastal erosion;Improving response capacity in situation of emergence by developing professional services,
including volunteers too.

Reducing the emission of greenhouse gases in all sectors involves promotion of the use of renewableenergy sources. Wind and solar energy are the most important forms to be developed, but the power
plant for this energy sources are using large areas and this type of use could hinder the possibilities forother uses. This aspect should be carefully considered especially in the case of solar power, since thepresence of photovoltaic panels. The largest solar projects cover areas of hundreds of hectares, each
unit of power being produced in 1-3 hectares of land. The most intensive use of land in photovoltaic
projects is recorded in EU’s largest project of this type – Ferme solaire de Cestas. Figure 5 presents thesituation of production capacity (in megawatts) and compared with the area covered by the largest solar
projects in Europe. Excepting the project mentioned above, the rest of the projects are located in Spain.

FIGURE 5 - THE LARGEST SOLAR PROJECTS IN EU
Source: Solar Power Europe data

Further, production of biofuel raw materials like corn, rapeseed oil withdraws land from food crops. It isalso important to take in account the fact that most of the so called energy crops are very intensive usersof minerals from soil and high yields will necessitate to apply intensive technologies that use large
amounts of fertilizers and pesticides with the potential to create harmful effects on the fertility of soils andto diffuse as pollution through surface and ground water. At EU level it is estimated that 1.0-1.5 million
hectares could be considered for energy crops.

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Europe’s territory although is amongst the smallest one compared with other continents, could becharacterized as being varied from at least two points of view: natural organization and socialorganization.
Natural organization resulted in the presence of all forms of relief in balanced proportions supporting a
range of ecosystems representing eleven bio-geographical regions. Although diverse, the naturalorganization does not create major restriction for arrangements that allow the use of resources anddevelopment of settlements.
Social organization of the space resulted also in a variety of concepts and principles that were groupedin families, traditions and other criteria. The process of European integration seeks to find a concept that
could be applied all other the Member States, although such issues raise very sensitive aspects that
influence administration on all levels. That is why current European policies consider the territorialplanning as it is, but place their goals considering the processes that are of relevance at that scale. Thus,
the implementation of these policies reveals the changed needed in territorial planning or at least the
aspect that should be considered more carefully in order to achieve the goals.
A closer look was given for the case of environmental policies’ impact on territorial planning. It revealed
that almost all aspects of environmental protection are depending on territorial planning from datacollection to renewable energy valuation. A special focus should be on nature preservation since theaccomplishment of conservation goals necessitates the collaboration among communities belonging todifferent administrative units that should coordinate their development projects involving impact on thebiodiversity.
REFERENCES
Cândea, M., Bran, F., Cimpoeru, I. (2006). Organizarea, amenajarea și dezvoltarea durabilă a spațiului
geographic, Bucharest, Editura Universitară.
ESPON 3.1. (2005). European Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON). ESPON Project 3.1,
2005, integrated tools for European Spatial Development, Final Report.
ESPON 3.2. (2007). Scenarios on the territorial future of Europe. ESPON project 3.2. Luxembourg:
ESPON.
Faludi, A. (2004). Spatial planning traditions in Europe: their role in the ESDP process 1. International
Planning Studies, 9(2-3), 155-172.
Newman, P., Thornley, A. (1996). Urban planning in Europe: International competition, national systems,
and planning projects. Psychology Press.

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CONCLUSIONSBRAN Florina, IOAN Ildiko and RADULESCU Carmen Valentina
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Natura 2000 Network Viewer.

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Rivolin, U.J., Faludi, A. (2005). ”The hidden face of European spatial planning: Innovations ingovernance”, European Planning Studies, 13(2), pp. 195-215.
Schön, P. (2005). ”Territorial Cohesion in Europe? Interface”, Planning Theory & Practice, 6(3), pp. 389400.

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