Europe's Changing Geography: The Impact of Inter-regional Networks

Europe's regions have become particularly important partners for the European Union in realizing its policy goals and this has involved increasing cooperation across national borders, with fostering and additional funding from the European Union allowing regions to strengthen their activities and to find partners for joint projects. Collaboration has been especially abundant among regions that enjoy similar situations, resources, problems, orientations and socio-cultural backgrounds. Hence, foci of activity have developed in the Baltic, Mediterranean and elsewhere. These trans-regional collaborations and partnerships have grown in importance over time and have allowed for ongoing integration processes throughout Europe as a whole. Now, these regions have formed larger networks spreading out across the continent, forming macro-regions. This book explores these Europe wide processes, while also examining the networks of collaboration that exist below the level of the macro-regions as well as the forging of linkages to other parts of the world.