Macro-regional strategies are an important tool in achieving the strategic objectives of the European Union, as well as an indispensable part of the Union's multi-level governance.1 The establishment of four strategies in just six years (EUSBSR the first in 2009, EUSALP the latest in 2015) testifies to the favor enjoyed by these instruments of territorial cooperation in the European Union, first and foremost in the EC. In recent times, however, we are witnessing a sort of fogging of the process, due to a multiplicity of motivations among which the most important seem to be, at least in the opinion of the writer: (a) the implementation problems of existing strategies, which, as illustrated above, they are convincing the European Institutions to “freeze” the launch of new strategies to aim at consolidating those already in operation; (b) the difficulties that the European Union as a whole is experiencing and which prevent it from giving impetus to other policies and the reference is obviously to epochal challenges which are undermining its foundations, such as the mismanagement of migratory flows and the relative disagreements between Member States, tensions concerning the definition of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, the complexity of the negotiations on the Brexit, the rising tide of populist and euro-skeptic parties and movements, the increased centrality of intergovernmental institutions, starting from the European Council, without considering the crises that seem quite dormant but which could re-emerge at any moment, such as the euro and that of security (terrorism); (c) complications that have in the meantime arisen in some quadrants potentially integrated into EU macro-regional strategies, such as the southern neighborhood (Maghreb and the Middle East) and the eastern neighborhood (Ukraine and the Black Sea basin in general), in which they are deflagrated crisis and in some cases real wars that have made it impossible to cooperate between states in view of the establishment of a macro-regional strategy. To all this add that in 2019 there will be elections for the renewal of the European Parliament.
Since the result of the vote is decisive for the election of the president of the EC2131
(and therefore for the composition of the Commission itself, given the powers of its
1 Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions on the implementation of macro-regional
strategies adopted at the Plenary Session of 30 November-1 December 2017.
2 As established by art. 17, par. 7 TEU: “Having regard to the elections to the European Parliament
and after having carried out the appropriate consultations, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall propose to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the Commission. This
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president in the appointment of the commissioners), it will be interesting to see what kind of commission will leave this meeting and assess its impact on current and future macro-regional strategies, given that the EC plays a major role in the establishment and operation of strategies, both from a political and a technical point of view. An EC deeply influenced by the expansion of populist and Eurosceptic parties and movements, could it also have repercussions on these particular instruments of territorial cooperation? And what kind? Plausibly, the scenarios could be two. The first one, characterized by a substantial indifference of the Commission that would lead to manage the existing strategies without giving an impulse to their further development. Basically, it would continue to provide technical support through its more relevant Directorates-General but without giving political input. The second scenario, on the contrary, could push the Commission to act, but for two diametrically opposed reasons. The first reason-which we could label as progressive-would see the improvement of the implementation of existing strategies and the creation of new ones to (a) favor and encourage the convergence between unbalanced territories from the socio-economic, infrastructural and technological point of view, (b) support the Union's enlargement policy and (c) contribute to the achievement of the general objectives of the European Union. The second reason-this time regressive-depends on the desire to break down in macro- territories a European Union already less united, cohesive and supportive and crossed by tendencies to fragmentation, the return to the nation-states and the intergovernmental method and the attempt to “Renationalise” policies. In this sense, to proliferate macro-regional strategies, “balancing” the European Union in many macro-regions, perhaps endowing them with legal personality so as to make them weigh, for example, in the allocation of structural funds, in the formation of the norms and policies of Union (upward phase) and in the implementation of the obligations deriving from the European legal system (descending phase), could further undermine the pro-European project and decree the collapse of the “European common house”. (Bache, 2012, pp. 638ss).
candidate is elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members. If the candidate does not obtain a majority, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, proposes within one month a new candidate, who is elected by the European Parliament according to the same procedure (...)”.
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