Assessing the rise of macro-regionalism in Europe: the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR)
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Assessing the rise of macro‑regionalism in Europe: the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR) Roberto Belloni1
© Springer Nature Limited 2019
Abstract This article investigates the rationale and activities of the European Union Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR) established in 2014 with the objective of addressing macro-regional challenges—most importantly, the attempt to couple the protection of the Adriatic and Ionian seas with the area’s economic development—while progressively integrating Southeastern European states into the European Union through multi-level governance programmes. The results of this scheme, however, have been so far unsatisfactory. Through an examination of two highly salient issues pertaining to its development, oil and gas exploration in the Adriatic Sea and the building of a highway linking Greece to Italy, this article shows how the EUSAIR influences only marginally, if at all, states’ priorities and it does not yet contribute significantly to the building of cross-border cooperation and trust. Accordingly, the EUSAIR risks becoming irrelevant vis-à-vis the challenges that the macro-region is expected to confront. Keywords EUSAIR · Macro-regions · Western Balkans · Multi-level governance · European integration
Introduction Since the adoption of the first macro-regional strategy in 2009, the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), several more macro-regions have been established: the Danube (EUSDR, established in 2011), the Adriatic Ionian (2014) and the Alpine (2015) regions. Others have been considered, including the Carpathian, North Sea, Black Sea, and Atlantic regions, as well as the western and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea (European Parliament 2015; Gänzle and Kern 2016b). This enthusiasm for regionalism is reflected in the work of several * Roberto Belloni [email protected] 1
Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale, Università di Trento, Via Verdi 26, 38122 Trento, Italy Vol.:(0123456789)
R. Belloni
analysts. Indeed, a ‘new regional fetishism […] seems to pervade a great part of the EU policy literature that supports the macro-regional fad’ (Bialasiewicz et al. 2012, p. 72). Since the mid-2010s onwards, the difficulties with implementing macroregional strategies have slowly contributed to lowering the enthusiasm among policymakers (European Commission 2016b), but the macro-regional scheme remains firmly on the European policy and research agenda (Gänzle et al. 2018). Different types of regional cooperation have existed in Europe for decades (Dangerfield 2016). Macro-regions are an extension of the cooperation, as they seek to augment systematically the effectiveness of the European Union (EU) policies by using the existing structures and resources in a coordinated, cross-sectoral and territorially defined way. They provide for the rescaling and restructuring of the European space aimed at delivering an answer to the increasing difficulties in governing complex cross-border dynamics through natio
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