Europe of Regions
Lendava, 23. 8. 2013 | speech
Prof. dr. Danilo Türk at the International Investment Conference "Energies for future"
Lendava, 23 - 24 August 2014
Europe has many faces. The Europeans have been - until recently - used to see Europe as the continent of states, primarily nation states, and Europe divided by the barriers of cold war. However, in a longer historical perspective, in the perspective of the "histoire de la longue duree", to borrow an apt description from the French historian Fernand Braudel, Europe is a space defined by layers of history and multitude of regions. A closer look at the latter show a remarkable richness and variety.
Let us take just a handful of examples. The Swiss city of Geneva is surrounded by the territory of France (Haute Savoie and the Pays de Gex) and has, over centuries, developed a close relationship with its French neighbourhood, characterized by customs-free zones and a well-coordinated development of infrastructure. The Region of Tyrol was divided between Austria and Italy after World War I and later, after World War II, became a region of a special trade regime, which strengthened the economic dynamism on both sides of the border. After the partition of the stillborn Free Territory of Trieste between Italy and Yugoslavia (1954), the two neighbouring countries established a regime of small frontier traffic, which enabled movement of people and goods in the border area much above the levels typical for the ideologically divided Europe at that time. In Europe, many regional arrangements developed in the areas of older delimitations. A good example is the area of Oresund between Denmark and Sweden, an area of developed regional cooperation and recently connected by the bridge which connects the economic basins of the cities of Copenhagen and Malmo.
The above examples illustrate the variety of regional arrangements across state borders and their continued validity in our era. Today, the ideological borders are gone, and an ever-larger area of Europe constitutes the European Union, a system of close economic integration and increasingly unified legal standards relevant to development. The question now is how does this progress affect the development of these different, historically established regions.
Obviously, some instruments of earlier regional cooperation, such as customs-free regimes are no longer necessary. New elements are coming to the fore, including joint regional planning, development of infrastructure, promotion of investment, joint projects of environmental protection, new forms of cooperation for the mitigation of effects of natural disasters, projects in the fields of culture and many others. The European Union represents the baseline and not the ceiling for regional cooperation. The more integration the better - for the European Union, for the transborder regions and, above all, for the people.
Lendava is a place that has experienced all the vagaries of history: a transit region since the antiquity, a border area for the last century, a town near a hard cold war divide for decades, a town experiencing the advantages of the post cold war development, in particular of membership of its entire surrounding into the European Union. The recent accession of Croatia to the EU has completed this important transformation. Now the neighbouring regions of Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia and Austria and their municipalities have an opportunity of historic proportions. Times have never been as promising as they are today. The current economic problems should not obscure the large picture: This is the time for the imaginative and the brave. The entire region between the main urban centers: Ljubljana, Vienna, Budapest and Zagreb should take advantage of its unique location and new opportunities. European Union funds will help. However, the imagination, healthy economic ambition and business acumen are essential. Let them come out to the full.
.JPG)
Lendava, 23 August 2013