From ideas to effective governance: how does the EU change the territorial settings of its member states and what does it mean for European governance?

Abstract

In the past, EU cohesion policy has led to some crucial shifts in European integration, the most important of which was its influence on the emergence and ensuing dynamic of EU multi-level governance (MLG). Its current reform – the so-called territorial dimension – helps create a new kind of region and thus significantly influences relations among the levels of European governance. European multi-level governance is undergoing a fundamental transformation, which is not directed by the European Commission through hard pressure, but rather through ideas and discourse. Which of these new regions will ‘harden’ and become stable actors in European governance, and which, by contrast, will gradually perish, remains an unanswered question.