Research Papers

Since 2005, the European Union (EU) has devised two macro-regional strategies, the Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the Strategy for the Danube Region. This paper argues that the EU has launched a process of 'macro-regionalization' quot; underwritten by macro-regional strategies quot; because it has become too diverse to devise integrative schemes that will sustain collective action problems. We conceive of macro-regionalisation as a process underpinned by a single strategic approach focussing on a sufficient number of issues in common, such as a common pool resource (sea, river, etc.). It aims at building functional and transnational regions between the EU, the Member States as well as partner countries. Macro-regional strategies affect numerous international, intergovernmental, and non-governmental actors stretching from the European to the local level. They affect the implementation of EU policies; require an alignment of project funding through Structural Funds; improve horizontal and vertical interplay among the different countries, sub-national governments, and stakeholders in the region; and combine the internal and external dimension of Europeanization because they co-opt non-EU macro-regional institutions (e.g., regional sea conventions such as HELCOM). Thus, these strategies are likely to lead to a new mode of European governance.