Transboundary state reterritorialization in the Romanian-Bulgarian borderlands By A.M. van Wijhe s3039048 Radboud University Nijmegen Specialization Europe: Borders, Identity and Governance Supervisor: Dr. O.T. Kramsch Date: 22-08-2011 Additional information available on: http://criticalgeography.wordpress.com 2 Colophon Master Thesis Human Geography Specialization: Europe: Borders, Identities & Governance Title: Transboundary state reterritorialization in the Romanian-Bulgarian borderlands Author: A.M. van Wijhe Student number: 3039048 E-mail:
[email protected] Thesis supervisor: Dr. O.T. Kramsch Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen School of Management Department of Human Geography Thomas van Aquinostraat 3 P.O. Box 9108 NL – 6500 HK Nijmegen The Netherlands August, 2011 1 Abstract In this research the process of reterritorialization and the development of the Black Sea EUregion and the Romanian-Bulgarian borderlands are analysed. Under the banner of globalisation Europe is increasingly being deterritorialized and its borders are disrupted. While the external border is becoming a spectacle of militarized border enforcement, the internal border appears to be silently eroding. The borderlands of today could be tomorrow's internal spaces. The European integration project and especially its EUregions are changing the relationship between territory, sovereignty and borders. This is also the case in the Romanian-Bulgarian situation where several cross border programs have been set-up, new regional cooperation networks launched and a few million Euro a year is allocated to the border. In the wake of the spatial turn within geography, the rise of EUregions as new transboundary spaces which might gain their own territoriality should gain much more academic attention. Territory is a combination of concepts like land and terrain but also encompasses ideas from the field of history, law and political science.