The Atlantic Arc: Transnational European Reality or Regional Mirage?

Abstract

In promoting transnational regional development, the European Commission designated the 'Atlantic Arc' as one of eight 'Euroregions' in its Europe 2000 reports. This article critically examines this 'Arc' concept and assesses the degree to which it is being transformed into reality. It then draws implications for builders of other potential transnational regions within the EU. While the Atlantic Arc Commission has promoted a range of crossborder activities, commitment to it varies greatly and the projects undertaken remain limited in scale. Therefore, it is too soon to judge whether it is generating durable transnational 'bottom-up' development, or merely pursuing a regional mirage.

When Soft Spaces Harden: The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

“…In addition to these events an open consultation was initiated to comment on a draft version of the strategy to which all self-elected stakeholders were invited. 3 Although there are important divergences between them, it should also be noted that the macroregionalconcept bears a distinct family resemblance to the 'Euroregion'-concept of the 1990's (see further Wise, 2000a and2000b). Regarding the back history of the strategy, see Lehti (2009) and Joenniemi (2009) on the role of the EU parliamentarian Baltic Strategy Working Group and later the initiative by Sweden to invite the European Council to mandate the elaboration of a Baltic strategy primarily focusing upon the increasingly visible degradation of the marine environment and related issues (Joenniemi, 2009).…”

Subnational Government and Transnational Networking: The Rationalist Logic of Local Level Europeanization

“…In cases where there were no pre‐existing networks focused on a SNA's area of strategic interest, they often established new ones. Bretagne, for example, had a longstanding interest in maritime policy, leading to their role establishing the CPMR (Wise, ). As explained by a French regional officer: ‘there is a very strong link between Brittany and this network, because it's a maritime network and we are a maritime region’ (Interview 44).…”

Traditional and Modern Practices of Soil Fertilization: Effects on Cadmium Pollution of River Ecosystems in Spain

“…Asturias is a region of 10,690.68 km 2 within the Atlantic Arc (Wise 2000), located in the north of Spain between 42°5 2′-43°43′ N and 0°50′-3°28′ W. The typical Asturian landscape is green, with natural leguminous species, grass and caducei forests (chestnuts, oaks). Geologically the substrate is calcareous in the mountains, with a maximum height of 2,650 m over sea level in Picos de Europa, and siliceous in some areas closer to the coast.…”