The ESDP's Impact on Multi-level Governance: 'European Spatial Development Perspective' Case Studies of German and French Planning Traditions

The ESDP and the European Integration As a response to increasing interdependency and the forces of globalization, Member States of the EU have started to engage in a cooperative manner. Spatial planning is beyond EU competence and scope, has entered into the European agenda though, albeit through untraditional procedures. Initiatives such as the ESDP reveal alternative practices that have expanded the scope of European cooperation. Rather than regulatory and binding practices of cooperation, the ESDP instead presents the importance of political will and the formulation of frameworks open to interpretation as the fundamental principles of cooperation which aims to serve the interests of all the parties included. Accordingly; the cooperation seems to provide an added value to the multi-level governance approach in explaining the European integration processes. The impact of and the motivation for the ESDP in two powerful agents in the European arena Germany-- federal state-- and France-- unitary state, exhibits, though partially and with reservations, the validity of evolving alternative methods and approaches to European integration.