European Union Competition Policy and the European Territorial Cohesion Agenda: An Impossible Reconciliation? State Aid Rules and Public Service Liberalization through the European Spatial Planning Lens

Colomb, Claire; Santinha, Gonçalo

doi:10.1080/09654313.2012.744384

Cited by 44 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…However, some state aid is compatible with the common market, and there is scope for interpretation by the European Commission (Blauberger 2009b). Policies on urban redevelopment and the production of new affordable housing environments are significantly affected by negative integration since they involve state aid policies (Adair et al 2003;Korthals Altes 2006;Elsinga et al 2008;Priemus and Gruis 2011;Colomb and Santinha 2014;Taşan-Kok et al 2013). In this light, it is therefore remarkable that in the Apeldoorn case, as we will see below, the Commission ruled that state aid was permissible because it was deemed to be in line with the agenda of positive integration in the field of urban redevelopment and inner-city housing production.…”

Section: Europeanisation and The Single European Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Housing and positive European integration: permissible state aid for improving the urban environment

Altes

2014

J Hous and the Built Environ

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Housing is not one of the European Union (EU's) formal competences, but European integration does affect member states' housing policies to a significant extent. Without the establishment of EU-level competence, housing cannot become a field of positive integration and the Europeanisation of housing policies will continue to occur through negative integration, i.e. removing housing policy barriers to the establishment of the single European market. This paper analyses a state aid case relating to housing development in the city of Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. The case would suggest that the Commission concludes, on the one hand, that policies which use state funds to provide land for housing distort competition and yet, on the other hand, it views the improvement of the urban environment and quality of life in the neighbourhood as a well-defined EU objective that may make such aid permissible. This case is examined in the context of other state aid decisions on the Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas programme and on services of general economic interests, as well as a comparable case in which state aid was not allowed. It concludes that an EU competence has developed on the urban environment and quality of life and that, as such, positive integration on housing issues exists.

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Section: Europeanisation and The Single European Marketmentioning

confidence: 99%

Housing and positive European integration: permissible state aid for improving the urban environment

Altes

2014

J Hous and the Built Environ

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“…This also leads to member states having to take charge of their development, something which -through national objectives which systematically "downgrade" the European headline targets -enormously biases the process. In this sense we share the views of Colomb and Santinha (2012) in that the "planning agenda" of the EU (EU2020S, Territorial Agenda, etc.) is weak in comparison to macro-economy policy, this being clearly decisive.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is due to the fact that the Commission itself has adopted two communications -on the same level as the seven already mentioned -in which the achievement of the EU2020S objectives is sought through regional and cohesion policies; specifically related to smart growth (European Commission, 2010b) and sustainable growth (2011b). Also, the connection between regional and cohesion policies on the one hand, and the EU2020S on the other, has to do with the fact that the latest reports on territorial cohesion drawn up by Commission -the fifth in the triennial series (European Commission, 2010c), and seventh in a series evaluating the situation that is drafted every two years (European Commission, 2011c) -have also adopted the EU2020S as a reference for application at a regional scale (Colomb and Santinha, 2012). In addition, the Territorial Agenda of the European Union, initially adopted in 2007, was readapted in 2011 to comply with the EU2020S as well.…”

Section: European Platform Against Povertymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Territorial Dimension of “Europe 2020”: Mapping European Regions under the Strategy to Emerge from the Crisis

González¹

2014

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Abstract:The Europe 2020 Strategy (EU2020S) was launched by the European Commission (EC) in November 2009. The consolidated official document of the EU2020S constitutes a Communication from the Commission published in March 2010, being finally adopted by the European Council on the 17th of June 2010 in a meeting held in Brussels. The EU2020S has as meaningful subtitle: "a strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth". That is to say, the EU2020S, first and foremost, seeks growth and considers that this prime objective must be achieved through three priorities, also known as pillars. If the strategic document of the EU for the decade 2000-2010 was the so-called Lisbon Strategy, the intended strategic document for the decade 2010-2020 is the EU2020S. Mainly, the need of a new strategic direction of the EU is motivated by the crisis context. The EU2020S contains eight headline targets that are set for being achieved by 2020. In short, the EU2020S indicates the basic direction that the EU economy should follow and this direction is intended to be measurable by means of some indicators, that is, the headline targets. For the purpose of the SIESTA Project, devoted to grasp the regional dimension of the EU2020S, all these objectives have been considered to be indicators to be mapped, mainly at NUTS 2 level. This way, the project seeks overcoming what some specialists have called the "territorially blind" dimension of the EU2020S. This paper presents the main results of the SIESTA Project by showing the maps directly related with the targets which the EU2020S issues to measure its fulfilment. Additionally, in order to assess the overall fulfilment of the EU2020S, a composite index has also been developed. It measures the distance of regions from the eight EU2020S headline targets: a region would score 100 if it had reached all eight targets, while a region furthest away from all eight targets would score 0. This methodology was inspired by the Lisbon index of the 5th Cohesion Report.

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“…The impact of the single market on housing policies is unclear. Most literature focuses on the fact that the production of new affordable housing is affected significantly by policies on state aid (Adair, Berry, & McGreal, 2003;Colomb and Santinha, 2014;Elsinga, Haffner, & Van der Heijden, 2008;Korthals Altes, 2014b;Priemus and Gruis, 2011;Taşan-Kok, Groetelaers, Haffner, Van der Heijden, & Korthals Altes, 2013). However, other single market policies, such as public procurement (Korthals Altes, 2006;Korthals Altes, 2014a;Taşan-Kok and Korthals Altes, 2012) and the four freedoms À the free movement of goods, capital, persons and the freedom of establishment, including the freedom to provide services (Dimitrova, 2013;Haffner and Hoekstra, 2006) À may also have an impact on housing provision.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

The single European market and the demise of Flemish housing policy

Altes

2015

International Journal of Housing Policy

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European Union Competition Policy and the European Territorial Cohesion Agenda: An Impossible Reconciliation? State Aid Rules and Public Service Liberalization through the European Spatial Planning Lens

Cited by 44 publications

References 29 publications

Housing and positive European integration: permissible state aid for improving the urban environment

Housing and positive European integration: permissible state aid for improving the urban environment

The Territorial Dimension of “Europe 2020”: Mapping European Regions under the Strategy to Emerge from the Crisis

The single European market and the demise of Flemish housing policy

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