The Regional and Urban Policy of the European Union. Cohesion, Results-Orientation and Smart Specialisation - By Philip McCann, Series: New Horizons in Regional Science, Cheltenham, Northampton: Edward Elgar. 2015. xiii + 286 pp. ISBN 978-1-78347-950-4.

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-134
Author(s):  
P. Lelio Iapadre
2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-56
Author(s):  
Marie Redon

In 2010, the capital of Haiti was devastated by an earthquake that seemed to provide the opportunity for the country, as well as foreign donors, to put Port-au-Prince on the track of an ordered, planned urban policy, in line with its multi-risk context. Prior to the earthquake, the lack of a legal framework for urban planning was called into question. In its wake, speeches making the capital the emblem of a new ‘sustainable’ start have flourished. The European Union, the main donor of funds for Haiti, has embarked on a programme of support for reconstruction, but with what results three years later? The paper proposes to approach the limitations of the ‘sustainable city’ model, conditioned by spatiotemporal continuity. The systemic functioning underlying urban sustainability clashes with the context of Port-au-Prince, where spatial division and temporal discontinuity are determinant. In spite of itself, aid and its operation by projects, seems to enforce urban fragmentation and dissonance.


Author(s):  
Federico Fabbrini

This chapter focuses on the European Union after Brexit and articulates the case for constitutional reforms. Reforms are necessary to address the substantive and institutional shortcomings that patently emerged in the context of Europe’s old and new crises. Moreover, reforms will be compelled by the exigencies of the post-Covid-19 EU recovery, which pushes the EU towards new horizons in terms of fiscal federalism and democratic governance. As a result, the chapter considers both obstacles and opportunities to reform the EU and make it more effective and legitimate. On the one hand, it underlines the difficulties connected to the EU treaty amendment procedure, owing to the requirement of unanimous approval of any treaty change, and the consequential problem of the veto. On the other hand, it emphasizes the increasing practice by Member States to use intergovernmental agreements outside the EU legal order and stresses that these have set new rules on their entry into force which overcome state veto, suggesting that this is now a precedent to consider.


Author(s):  
Olivier Sykes

This issue of Transactions of AESOP brings together a series of papers which reflect on the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) document which was adopted by the then member states of the European Union (EU) in Potsdam, Germany in 1999, and is published shortly after the adoption in December 2020 of a new EU Territorial Agenda 2030 document under the recent German EU Presidency. It features an introduction and five original papers which explore the legacies of the ESDP and the present and future prospects for European territorial development and urban policy.


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