2.4 Co-ordination in Order to Improve the Effectiveness and Coherence of European
Community Policies
“The need for coherence in the Union is increasing: the range of tasks has grown;
enlargement will increase diversity; challenges such as climate and demographic change
cross the boundaries of the sectoral policies on which the Union has been built. [...]
Coherence requires political leadership and a strong responsibility on the part of the
Institutions to ensure a consistent approach within a complex system.” (COM (2001), 428
final, 10).
Co-ordination of sector policies would also benefit the policies themselves. Concurrent
Community policies cause frictional losses on two levels.
First, one must assume that the lack of co-ordination makes achieving the sectors’ goals all
the more harder. In the early 1990s both the European Parliament and the member states
pointed out that more co-operation between Community sector policies was a necessity (cp.
Schafer, 2003). They criticised the fact that the effects of the policies were at times counter-
productive, their goals contradictory and that interdependencies between policies were not
considered thoroughly. Activities towards remedying this situation were only hesitant at best.
While the ESDP was being developed it became clear that scientific advise to policy makers
was of major significance to the success of such a process. At their informal meeting in
Leipzig in 1994 the spatial development ministers of the member states agreed to strengthen
the analytical capacity on the European level and to establish a European Spatial Planning
Observation Network (ESPON). The network was to provide specific information on the
spatial effects of common policies and to identify future territorial challenges facing the EU.
Appropriate indicators were to be employed to “measure” and map these spatial effects.
Regardless of ambitious plans, initially a Study Programme on European Spatial Planning
(SPESP) was set up as a pilot action under Article 10 of the Structural Funds in co-operation
between the EU Member States and the European Commission (1998-2000). “The Study
Programme was also a test exercise, intended to provide insights on how a possible European
Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON) could be organised and what could be
expected of it.” (SPESP final report 2000, preface). It took until 2002 for ESPON to get off
the ground under the INTERREG IIIB Community Initiative. The network has been
established for a five-year period, i.e. it will receive financing until 2006. In this framework,
the first attempt has been made to quantify the spatial influences of EU policies and thereby to
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