The Territorial Agenda 2030 addresses inequalities between places and people and advocates for a future for all places. The action aims to create a better understanding policy impacts on territories to design better policies that are place-sensitive and address the needs of communities and citizens.
In recent years, both national and EU regulations with either spatial or non-spatial impact, have interacted in ways that sometimes create tension between sectoral policy areas and spatial development ambitions, with each making different claims on member state territories. Since there is no spatial planning at the EU level, relevant policies are shaped across various sectors.
While guidelines such as the Better Regulation Guidelines & Toolbox exist to promote territorially considerate regulations and policies, this pilot action investigates the effective implementation in the TIA Quick Check and at European, national and regional level. The process of the ‘Region-focused Territorial Impact Assessment’ has two main phases:
Phase 1 (May – December 2024): Assessment of current measures through desk research. We will collect data including best practices in different member states, collect EU legislation with territorial impact ready for analysis, set-up focus groups, interviews with practitioners and explore a number of case studies.
Phase 2 (January – December 2025): Data analysis of the abovementioned activities resulting in writing reports and working on texts on how to improve the current TIA handbook and necessity test.
Partners
Partner states are The Netherlands (lead), Poland, Germany, Slovenia, Ireland and as observers we include Austria and Sweden. Additional cooperation partners are the European Committee of the Regions, The Committee of European Municipalities and Regions and ESPON. Interested parties are welcome to join.
