Research Papers

The trans-boundary nature of environmental problems, where impacts are felt in multiple jurisdictions, mean that policies to address them often need to be transnational and multi-sectoral. Increasing emphasis on trans-boundary environmental problems in policy-making has been accompanied by processes of policy rescaling. These processes not only imply changes in powers across existing layers of decision-making but can also imply new scales of intervention, new actor constellations, and variable geometries of governance. The emergence of 'soft spaces' quot; multi-area sub-regions in which strategy is being made between or alongside formal institutions and processes quot; is another phenomenon associated with contemporary rescaling. These spaces are often overlapping, characterised by fuzzy boundaries and have a strong emphasis on pragmatism or 'getting things done'. This paper discusses the recent emergence of European macro-regional strategies in the light of processes of rescaling and the creation of these 'soft spaces'. Attention is primarily focused on the development of the Baltic Sea Strategy, the first European macro-regional strategy to be published, which appeared in the summer of 2009. The strategy addresses a range of issues and challenges, not just limited to environmental matters, although many of them are closely related to the environment, and environmental challenges are presented as the most important rationale for the strategy.