Memorandum by METREX—The Network
of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas
INTRODUCTION TO
METREX
1. METREX is the Network of European Metropolitan
Regions and Areas. The acronym stands for Metropolitan Exchange.
The twin objectives of the Network are the exchange of knowledge
and understanding on metropolitan spatial planning and development
issues between practitioners (politicians, officials and their
advisers) and the contribution of a metropolitan dimension to
European affairs. In effect, METREX is a self-help network of
those responsible for strategic decision-making at the metropolitan
level.
2. METREX was founded in 1996, with the
support of the then DGXVI (Regional Policy), at the Glasgow Metropolitan
Regions Conference. It now has Members from 50 of the 100+ recognised
metropolitan regions and areas of Europe. It has Members from
most EU countries and a number of EU neighbours, for example,
Russia and Turkey. It is, therefore, highly representative of
European metropolitan opinion (see also www.eurometrex.org).
CONTEXT—THE
METROPOLITAN DIMENSION—MEETING
THE CHALLENGES
3. By "metropolitan" METREX means
the larger city-regions of Europe, generally with populations
over 500k, which share many common strategic problems and opportunities.
They number 100+ and comprise perhaps 60%+ of the European population
of 490 million. They are the main drivers of the European economy.
4. There are many strategic issues that
can only be addressed effectively at the metropolitan level. For
example, promoting urban competitiveness and cohesion, balancing
the need for urban renewal and regeneration with urban extension,
integrating land use and transportation, assessing the environmental
impact of major development options and mitigating the emission
of greenhouse gases.
5. In many parts of Europe, most notably
in Germany, there is recognition of the value of a metropolitan
approach. Germany has restructured its local government to set
up 11 Metropolregions focussed on the main cities and their areas
of influence. It has done this because it recognises that to remain
competitive German urban areas must have the competencies and
capabilities to address their key strategic issues in a comprehensive
and integrated way.
6. The European Spatial Planning Observation
Network (ESPON), which is the primary research network on spatial
planning issues supported by the European Union, has assessed
and categorised European metropolitan areas (see www.espon.eu).
It has concluded that although Europe has a number of metropolitan
areas of global or European significance many have latent potentials
or structural weaknesses that need to be addressed if the EU's
Lisbon Strategy is to be realised.
7. The Structural Funds need to recognise
the importance of the metropolitan dimension to the Lisbon and
Gothenburg agendas for sustainable economic and environmental
development. Social cohesion within Europe also has a metropolitan
dimension.
8. Effective metropolitan governance, as
Germany and other countries have concluded, is central to the
realisation of many EU and National objectives and to meeting
Europe's challenges in the future. The European Economic and Social
Committee (EESC) has strongly advocated the recognition of a metropolitan
dimension to European Affairs in Opinions it has offered to the
European Parliament (see www.eesc.europa.eu)
9. It is in this context that METREX offers
its written evidence.
SUBSIDIARITY
10. The Structural Funds should respond
to the key issues that the EU and its constituent nation States
can foresee in the medium to longer term, that is, beyond the
next 10 years and towards the next 25+ years. Most of the agenda
for the next five years is programmed and much of the agenda for
5-10 years is planned.
11. There are certain key strategic issues
that only the EU can address effectively. These include, for example,
external and internal connectivity and how the EU can function
as an integrated social and economic entity and external and internal
population movement and change, economic change, and environmental
change and their consequences.
12. By addressing such key strategic issues
the EU can set the context for national and metropolitan policy.
The concept of subsidiarity relies on a clear common understanding
of the issues that need to be addressed, and which can only be
addressed effectively, at the various levels of government.
13. The EU does not have an integrated medium/longer
term perspective that addresses and responds to the key social,
economic and environmental issues that can be foreseen. It has
the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) of 1999 but
this was limited in scope and is now dated.
14. The Structural Funds should be the means
through which key medium/longer term European strategic issues
are addressed in an integrated way. First the issues need to be
identified and considered. There could then be a structured European
dialogue on the most effective means of implementing a European
perspective and the metropolitan contribution that could be made
to this.
OBJECTIVES OF
THE EU'S
STRUCTURAL FUNDS
15. In this context the objective of the
EU's Structural Funds should be to respond to the agreed key medium/longer
term European strategic issues identified in a European Perspective.
It could be expected that connectivity, as exemplified in the
current TEN programme, would remain an issue and that areas facing
social, economic and environmental stress of European significance
would continue to be supported. The current dilemma of the balance
to be struck between funds for cohesion and funds for competitiveness
would remain. In reality these two issues are closely interrelated.
16. However, if the EU was to actively promote
a metropolitan dimension to European affairs, for the same good
reasons that have led Germany to do so for its own competitiveness,
then Europe would have a new and effective level of governance
through which, and with which, to work. Metropolitan governance
mechanisms can range from the voluntary to the statutory, with
various combinations in between.
17. The metropolitan level of governance
could reasonably be invited to assess its medium to longer-term
problems and opportunities, on a SWOT basis, and to identify those
that would be beyond its resources to respond to. It could make
the case for EU support across a range of social, economic and
environmental issues. The key requirement could be to demonstrate
the added value of considering these in an integrated way, with
EU support. For example, improved internal connectivity to respond
to areas of social exclusion, improve access to economic opportunities
and the mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
DELIVERY MECHANISMS,
ALLOCATION CRITERIA,
ELIGIBILITY AND
COMPLIANCE
18. Metropolitan areas, with appropriate
governance, represent an effective delivery mechanism for action
to implement a European Perspective for the future, and the consequential
Structural Fund priorities. They also represent areas over which
integrated Metropolitan Strategies can be formulated to deal with
their own key issues on a SWOT basis.
19. It might be expected that the Structural
Funds would be allocated, on a proportionate basis, to those metropolitan
areas that had clearly demonstrated in their Strategies how they
would contribute to the realisation of a European Perspective
and how they would address the priorities emerging from their
own metropolitan SWOT analyses. In effect, to enable European
metropolitan areas to become as strong as they possible can be
collectively and individually.
20. The Scottish Regional Authorities, from
before the Scottish Parliament was constituted, offer a good and
proven example of how such as approach can work within the UK.
More recently, the establishment of the "Metropolregions"
within Germany confirms and endorses the practicality and effectiveness
of such an approach.
ENLARGEMENT
21. The ESDP was concerned with the issue
of better urban balance across the wider Europe and the need for
the peripheral areas to balance the core (London/Paris/Rhine/Ruhr
area). In the absence of an up to date European perspective METREX
has produced a Framework to provide a context for action at the
metropolitan level, through the PolyMETREXplus project under the
EU's Interreg IIIC Programme (see www.eurometrex.org). The Framework
concludes that better European urban balance can be achieved through
the fostering and development of cluster and corridors of metropolitan
areas cooperating for greater competitiveness.
22. Examples of such a "polycentric"
approach include the Saxon Triangle (Dresden/Leipzeg/Chemnitz/Halle),
Eurocity Basque (San Sebastian/Biarritz), Øresund (Copenhagen.
Malmö) and the Po (Torino/Milano/Bologna/Veneto) and Ebro
valleys (Zaragoza/Barcelona). There are similar opportunities
in Silesia and the Baltic States.
CLIMATE CHANGE
23. METREX has promoted the EUC02 80/50
project under the EU's Interreg IVC programme. A partnership of
24 metropolitan areas, led by the Metropolregion Hamburg, aimes
to use the GRIP model and process (see www.euco2.org and www.grip.co.uk)
to assess individual metropolitan energy use and greenhouse gas
sources and emissions, explore mitigation scenarios and adopt
effective Mitigation Strategies to deliver an 80% reduction, over
1990 level, by 2050.
24. This is an example of the metropolitan
dimension in action in partnership with the EU.
17 December 2007
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