Development of Cross-Border Areas: Study Cases Review
By Marcela Șlusarciuc, 2015
The paper aims to review study cases found in the scientific literature concerning the development of crossborder areas in European Union and its neighbourhood. The introductory part of the paper is drawing few considerations about the cross-border areas. Further we identified in the specific literature relevant study cases that provide lessons learned, tools and models that can contribute to the development of the cross-border areas. The last part of the paper is focusing on an inquiry about how this lessons, learned, tools and models may be adapted in case of cross-border areas along the Romanian border with the EU Eastern Neighbourhood.
 Șlusarciuc (2015) Development of Cross-Border Areas | [ ] |
A border between France and Spain or between Iparralde and Hegoalde? Contested imaginations of a Basque Borderland
By Jan Mansvelt Beck, 2008
For more than a century state and sub-state nationalisms compete in the Basque borderland. At present this competition implies contested imaginations of the Franco-Spanish borderland. In this contribution I will explore these imaginations in terms of respectively cross-border and intra-state integration. I will study the imaginations of integration according to its cultural and political dimensions. Nationalist rhetoric will be compared with daily cultural experiences and political practice. I will demonstrate that paradoxically the opening-up of the Franco-Spanish border as a result of European integration and the concomitant rise of crossborder cooperation have confined Basque national integration to the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country. In this respect both the old State border and internal administrative borders in Spain have acted as strong barriers against the diffusion of ethnonationalism.
Soft spaces, fuzzy boundaries, and metagovernance: the new spatial planning in the Thames Gateway
By Phil Allmendinger and Graham Haughton, 2009
This paper examines the changing practices of spatial planning, critically engaging with state theory to argue that a new generation of `soft spaces' and `fuzzy boundaries' occupies a key position in the emergent planning system. In the process we question whether privileged scales and sectors can meaningfully be identified in current state-restructuring processes.We use interviews with key national policy makers and a case study of the Thames Gateway to test our ideas.
