PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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European Communities have grown into what aspires to be an “ever closer union”
among the peoples of Europe (Article 1 of the EU Treaty). Deepening is a process
parallel to, and often viewed as a necessary step prior to, enlargement.
With regard to the aim of integrating Europe and working towards a single
market, the Common Transport Policy (CTP) was regarded by the Community’s initiators
as an essential pillar for the achievement of the internal market and the free flow of
goods, services, labor and capital across national borders.
Until the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, emphasis lay on non-spatial, regulatory
issues concerning the harmonization and taxation of transport services. It was only after
the Maastricht commitment to develop Trans-European Networks that the spatial
dimensions of European integration were directly addressed by the Community through
infrastructure funding. 7
Integration then also came to be understood not only as a spatial,
but also as a modal objective. In his foreword to Turró’s TEN study, ex-Transport
Commissioner Neil Kinnock explicitly appreciates “the emphasis he gives to integration
– within modes, between modes, and across borders – as the leitmotiv of TENs
development” (Turro 1999:foreword).
In the end, however, European integration remains a complicated vision that
attempts to unify economic, political and social forces that often seem irreconcilable.
And, as Graham and Hart (1998:259) remind us, “European integration is largely a
political process being orchestrated primarily through economic policies, which are often
incompatible with the processes that defined the contested meanings of belonging in
contemporary Europe.” The EU’s options of political intervention in the face of global
competition and internal cultural diversity are thus clearly fraught with difficulties.