Development and Implementation of EU Macro-regional Strategies: Towards a New Form of European Governance?

With the adoption of the EU Strategies for the Baltic Sea Region (2009), the Danube Region (2011), the Adriatic and Ionian Region (2014) as well as the upcoming adoption of the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region, the European Union (EU) set out to forge a new macro-regional approach focusing on functional and territorial cooperation in areas such as economic growth, transport and sustainable development. This paper argues that the European Union has started a process of macro-regionalization because it has become too diverse to solve collective action problems at macro-regional scale. Macro-regionalization is underpinned by a strategic approach focusing on regions around a common pool resources (Baltic Sea, Adriatic Sea, Danube River, Alpes) with a sufficient number of issues in common. Drawing on the multi-level governance approach, this paper shows that macro-regional strategies affect European macro-regions in different ways: First, they have impacts on the institutional architecture of macro-regions by affecting and co-opting non-EU macro-regional institutions (e.g., regional sea conventions such as HELCOM), and even leading to the development of new institutional arrangements. Second, they affect the implementation of EU legislation such as the Water Framework Directive or the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Third, they require an alignment of project funding through EU Cohesion Policy such as INTERREG Baltic Sea Region or INTERREG Danube Region (2014 to 2020). The paper argues that EU macro-regional strategies lead to the development of transnational and functional regions between the EU, member states and non-member states. They affect horizontal interplay between the EU and macro-regional institutions, vertical interplay within macro-regions, in particular the involvement of subnational authorities and civil society at macro-regional scale, and the relationship between EU member states and non-member states. Thus, EU macro-regional strategies have the potential to change EU multi-level governance and Europeanization within and beyond macro-regions.