Can multiple streams predict the territorial cohesion debate in the EU?

Introduction

This article contributes to the literature on ‘territorial cohesion’ in the European Union (EU). The concept was first formulated in 1995 and quickly became a buzzword that was taken up in a dozen policy documents that contributed to successive reviews of territorial development in the EU. However, different reviews produced competing definitions of what territorial cohesion would mean in practice. Even after the 2009 Lisbon Treaty defined territorial cohesion as an EU objective, an authoritative definition of the concept was still lacking.

Scholars have long recognised and traced discursive shifts in EU territorial development policies, but theoretical accounts of the drivers and parameters of such shifts are rare. In order to begin filling this gap, this article draws on John Kingdon’s multiple streams model of agenda-setting. This model separates problems, policies and politics, and thus permits tracing the definitional shifts that a policy term can sometimes undergo before the final decision is made. This article applies multiple streams to the debate over territorial cohesion in order to explore how useful the model is in analysing and predicting the course of this policy debate.

The next section introduces the multiple streams model, which is then applied to the case of territorial cohesion. As in most multiple streams analyses, the discussion is structured according to the three streams. After discussing problems and policies separately, it is possible to assess the political feasibility of different policy solutions. The final section evaluates the predictive power of the multiple streams model, showing that it is able to predict several crucial directions of the territorial cohesion debate. However, others, particularly those that involve a substantial redefinition of existing policy terms, need to be explained by reference to key actors’ broader discursive strategies.

Multiple streams and agenda-setting in the EU

Kingdon’s (1984) account of agenda-setting in the United States was one of the first to present the policy process as inherently unpredictable and disordered. Kingdon noted that policy-making is not always a neat sequence in which policy-makers identify a problem and seek an optimal solution that is then implemented. Rather, they are faced with a multitude of conflicting proposals and have only imperfect information about the outcomes of their decisions (Zahariadis, 2007). Under these conditions of uncertainty, the policy process can be captured in the metaphor of three ‘streams’ that are relatively independent of each other:

According to Kingdon, change occurs only if the three streams are coupled or converge in a window of opportunity. This is particularly likely when policy entrepreneurs such as government officials, experts or lobbyists promote a particular policy, but their preferences cannot always be identified a priori.

In other words, policy-making is not always purposeful and policy proposals are not always fashioned in response to a particular problem. At the very least, they are not firmly tied to a particular problem, so that one can conceive of some policies as ‘solutions chasing problems’ (Zahariadis, 2008: 519). A policy proposal can be linked to different reference frameworks. For example, congestion in urban areas can be presented as a transport issue or as an environmental issue, and the policy outcome depends on the chosen frame (Kingdon, 2003).

The multiple streams perspective has been criticised severely. Some of the most damaging criticisms have targeted its very foundations: multiple streams has been attacked for being empirically, rather than theoretically, driven (Bendor et al., 2001). A related criticism is that it does not render any testable hypotheses (Sabatier, 2007). Analyses are frequently carried out through separate examination of the three streams (e.g. Blankenau, 2001; Brunner, 2008). Such analyses can only argue that the three streams converged when a particular policy was adopted but struggle to identify the underlying reasons for why convergence took place. Taking ambiguity as its starting point, the multiple streams perspective can only ever offer explanations a posteriori.

However, multiple streams does permit tracing the course of a given policy debate. The underlying assumption is that policy entrepreneurs drive policy debates. Thus, whenever it is possible to identify the preferences of these entrepreneurs and key decision-makers, it is also possible to generate testable predictions about where these preferences are likely to converge. The aim of what follows is to examine the usefulness of multiple streams in predicting the preliminary outcomes of the ongoing territorial cohesion debate.

Multiple streams originated in an American context but has increasingly been applied to the EU (Ackrill and Kay, 2011; Jordan et al., 2003; Zahariadis, 2008). With its emphasis on ambiguity, multiple streams seems well suited to describe policy-making in the EU, which is fluid and complex (Andersen and Eliassen, 2001; Richardson, 2006). Zahariadis (2008: 517) describes the EU’s opaque organisation where ‘jurisdictional boundaries are blurred’, and a policy issue can span the competences of many different actors. This phenomenon has been analysed horizontally. For example, Ackrill and Kay (2011: 75) define ambiguity institutionally, ‘the term “institutional ambiguity” referring to a policy-making environment of overlapping institutions lacking a clear hierarchy’. They look at how competences overlap between different Directorates General in the EU.

Conversely, this article conceives of vertical institutional ambiguity, which arises from the multi-level structure of the EU. As has long been argued by scholars of ‘multi-level governance’, different levels of government share policy-making competences in the EU (George, 2004; Marks et al., 1996). The term ‘governance’ indicates that the EU has no single accountable government; rather, it constitutes a complex political system in which public and private actors participate in policy-making (Kohler-Koch and Rittberger, 2006). While multi-level governance conceptualises member state governments as crucial actors, these are no longer seen as the only source of decision-making authority in the European polity: authority has been dispersed upwards to European institutions and downwards to local and regional authorities. Indeed, subnational and non-state actors can often act independently of the state in implementing policies or in lobbying European institutions. Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks (2001), for instance, have identified several ways in which subnational actors influence policy-making at EU level, including links with European institutions such as the European Commission or the Committee of the Regions, Brussels-based offices or as part of broader policy networks with other subnational activists.

To put it in terms of multiple streams, in the policy stream a variety of actors from different levels of governance find it easier to place their concerns on the agenda than in many other polities. This is because the EU affords lobbyists and interest groups many formal and informal channels of influence (Peters, 1994). As the multiple streams perspective also indicates, however, agenda-setting is not a singular event but should be conceived as a form of deliberation. Once an issue or a proposal has been made public, it is open to debate and redefinition by multiple actors, even in ways not initially envisaged or desired by its proponents (Rochefort and Cobb, 1994; Zahariadis, 2008). Multiple streams separates problems and policy solutions and thus permits individual assessments of different policies’ political feasibility and identifying their most vocal advocates. The next section begins by tracing the ‘problem stream’, that is the debate over territorial cohesion that has been ongoing since the 1990s.

The problem stream, 1989–2008

The recognition of territorial cohesion as a European concern must be seen in the context of a spatial planning debate that was emerging in Europe in the late 1980s and 1990s. There was growing awareness that Europe was divided into a geographical and developmental core and periphery. This centre–periphery gap was captured in diverse metaphors, such as the ‘pentagon’ that spans London, Paris, Milan, Munich and Hamburg (Waterhout, 2002).

Initially, there was much reluctance among some member states to agree to planning coordination at the European level, not least because different member states had incompatible planning traditions (Faludi, 2003; Rivolin and Faludi, 2005). The very term ‘spatial planning’ was avoided carefully until the mid-1990s (Doucet, 2006). Nevertheless, something of a pan-European planning zeitgeist was clearly emerging (Böhme et al., 2004). For example, the Commission’s Europe 2000 analysis of the European territory and the follow-up Europe 2000+ highlighted existing disparities and argued that there was growing acceptance of EU-level spatial planning (CEC, 1991, 1994). Some member states such as France were particularly eager to introduce a supranational competence in spatial planning while others such as Germany were sceptical.

In this context, in 1995, the Assembly of European Regions (AER) put forward the concept of social, economic and territorial cohesion in its report Regions and Territories in Europe (AER, n.d.). The report noted that many EU policies such as competition policy or transport policy had unintended territorial impacts. It argued that ‘territorial cohesion’ should complement economic and social cohesion as a core Community goal (Husson, 2002). Originally intended by the AER as the coordination of sectoral policies with unintended spatial impacts, territorial cohesion subsequently took on a variety of – often contradictory – meanings. Table 1 summarises the key events in the evolution of territorial cohesion after the term was first invented.

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Table 1.

Major steps in the evolution of territorial cohesion.

1995	AER Report
1999	ESDP
2001	Second Cohesion Report
2004	Third Cohesion Report
2004	Interim Territorial Cohesion Report
2004	Rotterdam meeting
2005	Luxembourg meeting
2007	Territorial Agenda
2008	Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion
2010	Fifth Cohesion Report
2011	Territorial Agenda 2020

Member states devoted some energy to planning coordination from 1999. The European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was a landmark. Agreed by the ministers responsible for spatial planning in May 1999, the ESDP was a non-binding framework to streamline spatial development policies. The ESDP defined a number of harmful spatial trends including urban sprawl, inadequate accessibility or pressures on cultural and natural heritage. The ESDP identified two key problems to be addressed: spatial development disparities at EU level and within the member states, and the role of some EU policies in exacerbating these disparities (CEC, 1999).

Following agreement on the EDSP, the ministers responsible for spatial planning, urban policy and regional policy held an informal meeting in Tampere in October 1999. They identified 12 actions to apply the ESDP, among them a link to the INTERREG Community Initiative, the development of territorial impact assessment, and a European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON). The creation of ESPON in 2002 was an important step towards the application of the ESDP. It was tasked with collecting spatial data and developing indicators to inform territorial development policy.

The ESDP was no legally binding document. Some have argued that non-binding commitments to coordination signify the member states’ deliberate attempt to avoid any legally enshrined European spatial planning competences (Battis and Kersten, 2008). Indeed, the highly intergovernmental ESDP process sidelined the Commission in spatial planning coordination (Faludi, 2003). However, the intergovernmental process stalled not long after the completion of the ESDP (Schön, 2005). It was in 2001 that the Commission – specifically the Directorate General for Regional Policy – published its Second Cohesion Report. This heralded a period of much greater Commission activism than before (Faludi, 2006).

The Second Cohesion Report presented territorial cohesion as a concept of cohesion policy, already a well-established European competence. The report identified major disparities between and within countries and regions and regarding such topics as demographic development, innovation and gross domestic product (GDP), with even the wealthiest European cities comprising pockets of poverty and deprivation. A whole chapter was devoted to territorial cohesion, arguing that spatial imbalances could be conceived not only in terms of GDP per capita but also geographically, i.e. by focusing on regions such as mountainous areas or islands that were difficult to access and that faced particular challenges (CEC, 2001).

Owing to divergent ideas and traditions in national regional development policies, the long-standing EU objective of economic and social cohesion itself is nowhere defined. There are two main competing interpretations of cohesion in the EU, one which reflects the commitment to balanced development and another that sees cohesion policy a form of investment (Evers, 2008). The need for a greater commitment to balancing disparities that was described, for example, in the Second Cohesion Report, reflects a sense that ‘some sort of spatial justice’ (Doucet, 2007: 1474) or ‘solidarity based on geography’ (Jouen, 2008: 2) should be promoted through redistribution at the European level. In contrast with this more traditional view of cohesion, the Commission, in its Third Cohesion Report, also established a much stronger link between cohesion policy and the so-called ‘Lisbon’ goals of competitiveness, innovation and full employment that had risen to the top of the agenda (CEC, 2004a; Mendez, 2011). Thus, for example, the Commission published an ‘Interim Territorial Cohesion Report’ in April 2004 that was informed by some initial ESPON findings.

The Commission argued that research and innovation capacity as well as accessibility should be strengthened to achieve territorial cohesion, which it defined as ‘the balanced distribution of human activities across the Union’ (CEC, 2004b: 3). In other words, the Commission indicated that the conflict between solidarity and efficiency in cohesion policy can be overcome using a notion of territorial capital, or ‘place-based’ policy, that would exploit endogenous regional strengths in order to contribute towards balanced development. ¹

Territorial capital reconciles equity- and efficiency-based conceptions of cohesion and thus facilitates consensus among different actors’ viewpoints. It gained particular currency among the member states. Thus, territorial capital was reiterated at their informal ministerial meetings in Rotterdam in 2004 and in Luxembourg the following year (Camagni, 2007). At these meetings, it was argued that cohesion policy should focus on activating different territories’ untapped development potentials, strengthening regional connectivity and integration, and promoting coherence of existing EU and national policies with a regional impact (Dutch Presidency, 2004; Luxembourg Presidency, 2005).

At the same time, the ministers responsible for spatial planning sought to integrate cohesion policy and spatial planning. In May 2007, they agreed a ‘Territorial Agenda’, an intergovernmental set of priorities that advocated a more coherent approach to spatial development than before (Gualini, 2008). The Agenda defined as challenges the territorial effects of globalisation, EU enlargement, the overexploitation of ecological and cultural resources and demographic change. Together with a 2007–2011 action programme, the Agenda outlined the ‘future task’ of strengthening territorial cohesion, arguing that it was essential to better exploit territorial potentials in order to address these challenges (German Presidency, 2007). While the Territorial Agenda and accompanying action programme continued to locate planning competences at the member state level, they reiterated calls for better coordination of sectoral policies with a spatial impact between different levels of governance and called for a more integrated territorial development approach of community policies. This was a clear indication that the boundaries between member state competences in spatial planning and shared competences in cohesion policy had become far more fluid than had been suggested by the highly intergovernmental ESDP.

To explore the policy implications of different territorial cohesion problems, and in response to a request formulated in the Territorial Agenda, the Commission published a Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion in October 2008. The Green Paper listed a number of questions for debate concerning the definition and appropriate scale of territorial cohesion policy, the role of cooperation and policy coordination and the scope for wider territorial partnerships (CEC, 2008). A public consultation was then held in an attempt to establish what territorial cohesion would mean in practice. This lasted until February 2009. The responses will be analysed in the section after the next, but first it is necessary to provide an overview of the different possible definitions of territorial cohesion, or the policy stream.

The policy stream

The sheer number of meetings and documents devoted at least partially to territorial cohesion that are listed in Table 1 indicate that it was swiftly embraced as a major concept in territorial development after first entering EU discourse in 1995. However, territorial cohesion was not firmly affixed to any single regional development problem. Rather, it became a proverbial ‘solution chasing a problem’. According to the multiple streams perspective, such unclear concepts can actually shape the course of a debate, as different actors promote different policy definitions that can be seen as different junctures between the problem and policy streams. Five interpretations that contribute to the definitional variety have emerged at different points in time. To be sure, there are other definitions that link territorial cohesion to sustainable development or innovative governance models, to name but two examples. However, the five interrelated and enduring definitions listed below tend to be most prominent.

The politics of different problems

Polycentric development, as presented in the ESDP, has been one of the earliest definitions of territorial cohesion. The European Parliament and six countries’ governments explicitly mentioned polycentric development in their responses to the Green Paper: the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland and Sweden. For example, in the Czech Republic, territorial cohesion was described as, among other things, the ‘Inclusion of urban issues in the promotion of the principle of polycentric settlement network’. ² Luxembourg proposed the creation of a ‘cross-border polycentric region in the Grande Région’ that spans Luxembourg and parts of Belgium, France and Germany.

The two Nordic countries, with their sparsely populated regions, were more sceptical (Damsgaard et al., 2008). Thus, the Swedish contribution argued:

The traditional perspective on European polycentricity is to develop counterweights to the Pentagon. This does not work all over Europe. Instead, e.g. in Sweden and the Nordic countries the policy towards polycentric development needs to focus on the capacity of the specific towns and cities to build more efficient regional alliances for integrated development and growth.

Finland similarly argued that polycentric development should not only be conceived of at a continental scale but rather similar to Finland’s national policy ‘in which a regional structure with multiple centres is seen as ensuring balanced regional development’. That polycentricity as a continental goal is in decline is also suggested by the small number of regional responses to the Green Paper supporting it, including those of the Spanish regions of Navarra and Andalucia.

Accessibility is the second definition of territorial cohesion as a spatial planning term. The AER and more than half the member states mentioned accessibility in their responses: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Predictably, individual member states’ views were influenced strongly by what they experienced as constraints on accessibility in their national contexts. Thus, the island states Cyprus and Malta both linked difficult access to insularity. Finland attributed it to its remote location at the external EU border, while Romania stressed the needs of mountainous and rural peripheral areas. Similarly, in the regional contributions, many island regions highlighted the need for improved accessibility, among them Corsica, Madeira and Bornholm. Other regions that supported the goal of accessibility include remote ones, such as Eastern Finland or Scotland, as well as several Spanish regions.

France and Slovakia both emphasised the development of transport infrastructure as an important means to achieve accessibility. Furthermore, Slovakia also pledged to improve its citizens’ access to health, education and other public services at regional level. Poland likewise stressed the importance of accessible services while warning that ‘it is not possible to provide perfectly equal accessibility on the whole territory of the EU, for instance on account of differences in population density’.

Germany and Austria, with their long-standing spatial planning tradition, were among those countries that did not define territorial cohesion as a spatial planning concept even partially. Supported by most Austrian regions, Wales and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, both countries’ governments insisted that territorial cohesion had not introduced any spatial planning competences at the EU level. They defined territorial cohesion firmly in terms of cohesion policy, and several others shared this view. Thus, countries that defined territorial cohesion in terms of helping poorer regions (or countries) catch up include Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal, as well as many regional authorities. As one response put it, ‘The Danish government believes that the primary purpose of cohesion is solidarity and support of growth in the disadvantaged sections of the Union.’

Those that made reference to balanced development, as a related concept, included Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK, as well as the Economic and Social Committee (ESC). Belgium, Finland and Romania made only fleeting reference to solidarity-based definitions of cohesion, while Malta, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain did not mention them at all. To be sure, it is possible that these five countries assumed that this objective was already covered by economic and social cohesion or, as we shall see below, the notion of territorial capital. Nevertheless, the fact that they no longer found it necessary to even mention equalisation demonstrates just how much conceptions of cohesion policy shifted in the 2000s.

Indeed, competitiveness was mentioned frequently. Ten governments mentioned the Lisbon Agenda of competitiveness and innovation: Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovenia and the UK. However, one should add that, in the past, some countries such as Austria or France recognised that balancing regional imbalances may conflict with the Lisbon goals of stimulating competitiveness and growth.

The notion of territorial capital emerged as a common denominator, no doubt because it bridges equity- and efficiency-based conceptions of cohesion and thus facilitates consensus. There was broad agreement on the formula of exploiting regional development potentials to stimulate growth in all regions based on their specific characteristics. Every government’s and most regions’ contributions made reference to this. To cite the Italian government’s contribution:

Italy believes that a better consideration of the territorial dimension of cohesion policy can positively contribute to re-launch the EU economic growth, by leveraging the reservoir of economic development opportunities represented by regions whose territorial resources (natural, cultural, human) are not fully utilized.

Similarly, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the AER supported territorial capital, while the Committee of the Regions identified a trade-off and called ‘for the regional policy to find the right balance between spending on competitiveness to boost economic growth in a globalised environment, and spending to reduce disparities between territories’.

There was more controversy over another question raised in the Green Paper, namely how regions with specific geographical features should be treated. In the consultation, the Commission had asked whether these regions required any special policy measures. Numerous countries argued that geographical features require special strategic responses: such features could handicap regions but also serve as sources of territorial capital. Therefore, geographical features should be taken into account in their tailor-made development plans. Slovakia and Belgium, for example, put forward this position.

Table 2 gives an overview of the types of geographical features that member states identified as most problematic. Mountainous, island and sparsely populated regions were mentioned frequently. The patterns that emerge from the responses are predictable: island states, such as Malta and Cyprus but also Greece, highlighted the needs of island regions. Countries with sparsely populated areas such as the Nordic countries or the UK mentioned depopulation as a problem. And countries with prominent mountain ranges mentioned mountainous regions. The member states also introduced some new categories not mentioned in the Green Paper such as urban regions or river basins.

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Table 2.

References to specific geographical features.

Mountainous	Austria, Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, United Kingdom
Urban	Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Portugal, United Kingdom
Islands	Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Malta, Sweden, United Kingdom
Rural	Czech Republic, Finland, France, Portugal, Romania
Sparsely populated	Spain, Finland, Portugal, Sweden, United Kingdom
Border	Finland, Poland
River basins	Hungary
Ultra-peripheral (overseas)	France
Coastal	Romania

Regional responses similarly focused on the geographical issues that are unique to different regions, with Auvergne highlighting the problems of mountainous regions, Carinthia those of alpine regions and the Northern Great Plain of Hungary highlighting sparsely populated border areas. The Association of European Border Regions, a network representing border regions, likewise argued that ‘many border regions are not only affected by one, but by several negative characteristics’ and that cross-border cooperation, therefore, ‘has to remain an essential part of cohesion policy and a political objective by itself, which should be strengthened’.

Even those member states that are generally very sceptical about policy action based on geographical criteria, such as Germany, the Czech Republic and the UK, had no difficulty in identifying potential problem areas. Nevertheless, there was much opposition to the use of geographical funding criteria. Austria maintained that specific geographical features do not necessarily mean that a region is disadvantaged. The UK argued that geographical challenges may require special policy responses; ‘However, these need not necessarily be at the EU level.’

The conclusion, for 10 countries, was to reject geographical features explicitly as funding criteria for EU cohesion policy: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal. They preferred to see Structural Funds restricted to the poorest regions, identified through the GDP per capita indicator. However, other member states suggested moving beyond this indicator. The Nordic countries, for example, argued that the indicator does not work well in their context of sparsely populated areas. This is because it hides many of their regional challenges when pan-European comparisons are made at NUTS II level, as mentioned in the Finnish contribution (see also Damsgaard et al., 2008). Conversely, Cyprus, Greece, Finland, Romania and Spain argued that new measures were needed or they explicitly recommended using geographical features as funding criteria.

Eligibility indicators – only GDP per capita versus adding geographical criteria – are one of the main lines of disagreement. Funding criteria are chosen in the member state negotiations over the EU’s financial perspectives. These periodic negotiations that determine the budget, expenditures and the distribution of the Structural Funds are notoriously difficult (Becker, 2008; Laffan, 2000). Because agreement on the financial perspective, and more broadly on the periodic reviews of cohesion policy, requires unanimity or at least compromise, strong opposition on the part of some member states would preclude any major reform. This makes it unlikely that geographical factors will be used as funding criteria.

Outlook: territorial cohesion after the Lisbon Treaty

As the previous section has shown, not all policy solutions are equally feasible. It demonstrated that conflicting preferences between different member states and other stakeholders have so far prevented any definite coupling of the streams. Still, the last section has shown that certain policy solutions are more accepted than others. This is shown in Table 3, which summarises the documents associated with different definitions of territorial cohesion, the advocates of these definitions and the relevant policy tools at the time of the consultation over the Green Paper. In particular, territorial capital and balanced development seem to facilitate consensus to a much greater extent than the proposed use of geographical features as funding criteria above all, though also polycentricity and accessibility. This section will compare these findings against the most recent developments in the debate over territorial cohesion.

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Table 3.

Definitions of territorial cohesion.

	Key documents	Advocates	Policy instruments
Polycentricity	ESDP Second Cohesion Report Territorial Agenda	Commission EP Several member states	Growth poles Infrastructure links Rural–urban linkages
Accessibility	ESDP Second Cohesion Report	AER Member states with remote regions Remote regions	Traffic infrastructure Communications networks Energy supply networks
Balanced development	Interim Territorial Cohesion Report	AEBR Commission CoR EP ESC Most member states and regions	Cohesion policy Territorial impact assessment
Geographical features	Second Cohesion Report	AEBR States and regions with specific geographical features	Infrastructure solutions Territorial cooperation Cohesion funding
Territorial capital	Third Cohesion Report Interim Territorial Cohesion Report Rotterdam meeting Territorial Agenda Barca report	AER Commission CoR EP ESC Member states Regions	Local development concepts Governance

AER, Assembly of European Regions; AEBR, Association of European Border Regions; CoR, Committee of the Regions; EP, European Parliament; ESC, Economic and Social Committee; ESDP, European Spatial Development Perspective.

Territorial cohesion was constitutionalised in the Treaty of Lisbon that entered into force on 1 December 2009 and that defined a formal competence for ‘economic, social and territorial cohesion’. Not long thereafter, the Fifth Cohesion Report that the Commission published in November 2010 argued that it needed to be made clearer what territorial cohesion would add to cohesion policy, now that it was a formal competence. However, the report did not arrive at a definition, arguing that greater flexibility was needed. Instead, several possible definitions from the policy stream were mentioned, including accessibility and regions with special geographical or demographic features. Territorial capital was alluded to in a suggestion to make programmes more flexible ‘in order to reflect the nature and geography of development processes better’ (CEC, 2010: XXIX).

Similar to the consultation on the Green Paper, the Fifth Cohesion Report suggests that territorial capital is the most accepted definition of territorial cohesion. The policies that are designed to achieve it – development concepts that are drawn up by local experts and stakeholders – sit well with the flexibility advocated by the Commission. Moreover, defining territorial cohesion in terms of territorial capital has few implications for EU-level planning coordination. In other words, policy implications for existing policies are rather modest, making consensus formation easy.

However, as the previous section has shown, some policy-makers had long desired a greater supranational competence over spatial planning. Hungary was among these countries, and it promoted stronger links between planning and cohesion policy during its presidency in the first half of 2011. Thus, the Territorial Agenda 2020, an updated version of the first Territorial Agenda, was adopted at the meeting of ministers responsible for spatial planning in May 2011 in the Hungarian town of Gödöllő (Hungarian Presidency, 2011b).

The new Territorial Agenda was based on the premise that regions can exploit their territorial capital and thus contribute towards growth. It defined six priorities for territorial development (Hungarian Presidency, 2011a):

Many of these, including polycentric and balanced development, are familiar concepts from the policy stream. Moreover, the Agenda highlighted territorial capital and a place-based approach to developing cross-border and transnational territorial development strategies. It suggested that the territorial dimension of cohesion policy should be deepened. In other words, the Territorial Agenda was consciously located at the intersection between spatial planning and EU cohesion policy. Given the resistance of several member states to any form of spatial planning at EU level, it is surprising that the Territorial Agenda contained so many planning elements. The fact that the Hungarian Presidency presented these elements in the context of cohesion policy evidently made their inclusion more palatable to countries such as Germany or Austria.

The Commission proposals for Cohesion Policy for 2014–2020 were published in October 2011. They suggested a simplified cohesion policy. The Commission proposals included better coordination between cohesion policy and other EU policies impacting EU territories, enhanced strategic programming, a concentration of resources on disadvantaged territories and a greater emphasis on performance (CEC, 2011). This strategy covers several available definitions of territorial cohesion including balanced development and territorial capital. The proposals also acknowledged some spatial planning tools that are conducive to accessibility or polycentric development. Thus, special support to urban areas would be available in the frame of territorial cohesion. As part of a ring-fencing mechanism which divides up the available funds, 5% of ERDF resources were to be allocated to ‘integrated actions’ in this area.

Finally, the Commission recommended some support for regions with specific geographical features by earmarking €0.9 billion for outermost regions and sparsely populated regions (CEC, 2011: 9). Nevertheless, during the Polish presidency in the second half of 2011, it emerged that member states had reservations about these proposed ring-fencing mechanisms, ‘calling instead for more flexibility and sensitivity to territorial specificities’ (Ministry of Regional Development, 2011: 2). As before, there was disagreement between the member states over eligibility criteria, with some member states wishing to focus support on the poorest regions or member states and others wishing to make support available for regions with specific geographical features. Again, such disagreements make it unlikely that these proposals will have any impact on the allocation of EU Structural Funds. Instead, member states reiterated calls for better utilisation of territorial capital.

Conclusion

This article set out to contribute towards an explanation of the territorial cohesion debate by applying the multiple streams perspective, and to evaluate the usefulness of that perspective in analysing and predicting the course of this policy debate.

Multiple streams is an analytical tool that separates policy problems and policy solutions, drawing attention to the different definitional shifts that policy terms often undergo. This is particularly useful in the EU where different actors – be they member states, European institutions or regional interest groups – influence the agenda. The genesis of the territorial cohesion concept illustrates how policy solutions can rise to prominence in the EU without necessarily being linked to a particular problem. And once an issue or a proposal has been made public, it is open to debate and redefinition by multiple actors, even in ways not initially envisaged or desired by its proponents. When first invented in 1995, the term territorial cohesion was immediately seized by different policy entrepreneurs precisely because its vague meaning facilitated debate and meant different things to different policy entrepreneurs. Even after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the territorial cohesion debate is far from over. The only certainty is that territorial cohesion will remain a formal EU competence.

Still, based on developments since 2009, it is possible to reach some preliminary conclusions. How well did the multiple streams model predict the political feasibility of the five different solutions identified in the policy stream? First, the model did well in predicting the relative endurance of balanced development as a solidarity-based cohesion goal. Moreover, territorial capital has emerged as a key policy solution, as suggested by the multiple streams analysis: a ‘place-based’ cohesion policy is to be implemented more flexibly, simply and with closer regard for the idiosyncratic conditions on the ground. Finally, multiple streams correctly predicted that geographical allocation criteria would be met with staunch opposition by certain member states.

At the same time multiple streams failed to predict the introduction of spatial planning tools into EU cohesion policy. Owing to the explicit resistance of some member states to any form of planning competence to the EU, it was anticipated that goals such as polycentric development or accessibility would remain in purely intergovernmental forums. In contrast, the Territorial Agenda 2020 linked these to EU cohesion policy. By redefining these policies in terms of a long-standing EU competence, it appears that the Hungarian Presidency was able to make them more acceptable. In such cases, multiple streams needs to make reference not just to the preferences of policy entrepreneurs and key decision-makers but also to the discursive strategies that they have at their disposal.

It was too early to tell at the time of writing to establish what exact shape territorial cohesion would take in the future. However, the analysis showed that criticisms that multiple streams can only ever be descriptive are unwarranted. Under certain circumstances, multiple streams does have some predictive – and therefore explanatory – power.