The EU Macro-regions: approaches and patterns

With the decline of the nation state and the increasing importance of regionalisation, the EU has launched macro-regions, i.e., areas, including territories from several countries, that share common goals and operating under multi-level governance. This paper focuses on the EU territorial cooperation strategy, utilising the concept of „macro- -region” and the perspective of the macro-regional approach. Following the first macro-regions (such as the Baltic Sea Region and the Danube Region), the EU recently launched the Adriatic-Ionian Macro-regional Strategy, which was seen as an additional tool for cooperation between local and regional authorities that overlooks the Adriatic Sea. Nevertheless, future developments in the region appear at the present to be quite uncertain, owing to structural industrial decline, rural marginalisation and a lack of infrastructure adequate to support the entire cooperation area. To overcome these constraints, the concept of macro-region must be strengthened by creating alternative ways to engage in cross-border cooperation between areas subject to similar conditions. Matching among regions that belong to different Euro-countries within the framework of a macro- -region may be the best way to forge a consistent path towards territorial, economic and social integration. This will help to create a common pole of cooperation characterized by various strategies that can act as accelerators in creating territorial capital