Transborder State Reterritorialization in Eastern Europe: the Lower Danube Euroregion Gabriel Popescu

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2006 Transborder State Reterritorialization in Eastern Europe: The Lower Danube Euroregion Gabriel Popescu

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

TRANSBORDER STATE RETERRITORIALIZATION IN EASTERN EUROPE:

THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION

GABRIEL POPESCU

A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Gabriel Popescu defended on 04.28.2006.

______Jonathan Leib Professor Directing Dissertation

______Dale Smith Outside Committee Member

______Barney Warf Committee Member

______Patrick O’Sullivan Committee Member

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

To my parents

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Jonathan Leib for his valuable guidance and encouragement during my academic career at Florida State University and for his unwavering support and critical insight throughout this research. I am grateful to Barney Warf for providing inspiration for my academic career as well as generous assistance in my research. I would like to extend my thanks to committee members Patrick O’Sullivan and Dale Smith for helping me with this dissertation. I am especially grateful to my contacts in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova who provided me crucial information and personal insights that informed this research.

This research was supported in part by the following grants and awards: Association of American Geographers, Political Geography Specialty Group, Dissertation Enhancement Award. Florida State University, Dissertation Research Grant. Association of American Geographers, Dissertation Research Grant.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables.………………………………………………………………………………...... vi List of Figures.……………………………………………………………………………...... vii Abstract.…………………………………………………………………………………...... ix

1. INTRODUCTION.………………………………………………………………..…………....1

2. THE CHANGING MEANING OF TERRITORIAL SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZING SOCIAL LIFE.…...... 11

3. RESEARCH DESIGN...... …...... 66

4. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND TRANSBORDER REGIONALISM...... 79

5. TERRITORIAL BORDERING IN THE LOWER DANUBE REGION: HISTORY, SPACE, AND POLITICS...... 140

6. TRANSBORDER COOPERATION IN THE LOWER DANUBE SPACE: LIMITATIONS OF THE TERRITORIAL STATE IDEA AND THE QUEST FOR UNCONVENTIONAL POSSIBILITIES...... 174

7. BREAKING THE MOLD: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF TRANSBORDER TERRITORIES BETWEEN ROMANIA, UKRAINE, AND MOLDOVA ...... 200

8. RETERRITORIALIZING THE STATE ACROSS ITS BORDERS: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION AS A TRANSBORDER SPACE...... 257

9. CONCLUSION...... 285

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 295

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...... 326

LIST OF TABLES

1. The LDE profile by territorial-administrative units...... 210

2. The LDE profile by member national region...... 210

3. The ethnic structure of Akkerman and Ismail Counties after the 1930 Romanian census...... 213

4. The ethnic structure of Akkerman and Ismail Counties after the unpublished 1927 Romanian census...... 213

LIST OF FIGURES

1. The European Union and EU Candidates in 2005...... 86

2. European Euroregions in 2000...... 111

3. Romanian Principalities during the Middle Ages...... 142

4. Romanian Principalities during Early Nineteenth Century...... 144

5. Romanian Historical Regions Today...... 147

6. Historic Moldova and Contemporary Romania...... 148

7. Bessarabia and Bucovina during Early Nineteen Century...... 149

8. The Territory of the Republic of Moldova during the 20th Century...... 152

9. Gagauzia and Transnistria...... 153

10. Ukraine in 2005...... 154

11. The Disappearance of Ukrainian Lands...... 155

12. Soviet Ukraine’s Territory between the Two World Wars...... 157

13. The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...... 160

14. The Lower Danube Region and Eurasian Migrations during the Middle Ages...... 170

15. The Carpathian Euroregion...... 189

16. The Danube-Cris-Mures-Tisza Euroregion...... 193

17. Euroregion Bug...... 194

18. Euroregions between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova...... 195

19. The Lower Danube Euroregion...... 201

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20. The Odessa Region...... 208

21. The Romanian-Ukrainian Border on the Lower Chilia...... 215

22. Palanca Village Area at the Moldovan – Ukrainian Border...... 216

23. The Giurgiulesti Village Area at the Moldovan-Romanian-Ukrainian Border Tripoint...... 217

24. The Snakes Island...... 247

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ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the relationships between the state and reterritorialization of social life by examining the role transborder regions, commonly known as Euroregions, play in the reterritorialization of the international state system. Europe is currently experiencing an unprecedented process of state reterritorialization in the context of European Union integration. In the territorial state system that has characterized Europe for the past four centuries, borders have been the central locus of state territoriality. Euroregions, created across state borders, are crucial to the European reterritorialization process aimed to redefine centralized state territoriality that has proven inadequate in a world of flows. This research investigates the ways in which traditional state territoriality is changing in Eastern Europe by the establishment of Euroregions. In the context of the European Union’s enlargement it is as yet less evident how the State-Euroregions-European Union nexus will play out in Eastern Europe where EU membership has not yet been achieved by all states. I examine this process through an intensive case study of the Lower Danube Euroregion, created between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Findings drawn from the experience of the Lower Danube Euroregion show that the capacity of Euroregions to reterritorialize social life in East European borderlands unfolds through a series of dimensions including institutional, political-territorial, legal, and cultural. However, state transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions is a highly contingent process that is imbued with power relations structured around supranational, national, and subnational scales. Transborder reterritorialization takes place at the juncture of these scales which generates a multiscalar geopolitics of Euroregions where Euroregions are used as tools in international politics to advance the interests of states, the European Union, and subnational actors. Under these circumstances, transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe remains a top-down enterprise that does not penetrate deep enough into the civil society to allow the emergence of sustainable transborder spaces of living. So far, the significance of Euroregions resides more in their territorial potential rather than in their achievements.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Globalization is calling into question the primacy of the nation-state as the main entity of the political division of the world. The traditional understanding of the state, as the ultimate repository of sovereignty over a bounded portion of the Earth’s surface and the society that inhabits it, is at odds with the current world of cross border flows of capital, goods, people, and ideas. Nation-states are under pressure to find innovative ways to redefine their relationships with space. These developments require a much more subtle account of state territoriality. On the one hand, it appears that politics and economics are de-territorializing. The bonds that tied politics, culture, and economics with national territories are loosened under globalization pressures. However, at the same time, there is a reterritorialization of economic and political activity. Europe is currently experiencing an unprecedented process of state reterritorialization in the context of European Union (EU) integration. Borders are identified as the locus of state territoriality and the European states are paying paramount attention to redefine their role by implementing various transborder cooperation projects. Transborder regions, commonly known in the European context as Euroregions, have been created across state borders in order to decrease their role as barriers in an attempt to redefine fixed, border-induced state territoriality. Euroregions are based on the principle of subsidiarity, which asserts that local authorities are better prepared than central governments to address the needs of local inhabitants. The EU supports Euroregions, regarding them as a model and an engine of European integration that help to reduce tensions among states and to alleviate regional economic disparities. While the establishment of transborder cooperation projects is more advanced in Europe today, the reterritorialization process via transborder regions is also present in other parts of the world, as the examples of “Cascadia” between the US and Canada, the San Diego-Tijuana region between the US and Mexico, or the SIJORY growth triangle between Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia demonstrate.

The purpose of this research is to identify and understand how transborder regions affect the current reterritorialization of the international state system in Eastern Europe, and to understand how multiscalar national, supra- and sub-national forces interact to shape social life in Eastern European borderlands in the context of the process of European integration. In addition, the goal is to investigate the role played by Euroregions in the context of the European Union’s eastern enlargement, and how the state’s perception of Euroregion-driven reterritorialization has changed in Eastern Europe in the context of the European Union’s eastern enlargement. The central questions that I seek to answer are: 1) Are transborder regions emerging actors in a multi-tiered international political system that transcends the framework of traditional statehood, or are they tools used by nation-states in international politics to preserve their territorial sovereignty? and 2) Is the presence of a supranational scale, such as the EU, a condition for successful transborder reterritorialization? Although there exist numerous studies on state territoriality and globalization (e.g., Mann 1984; Kratochwil 1986; Harvey 1989; Ruggie 1993; Taylor 1994; Habermas 1995; Agnew and Corbridge 1995; Murphy 1996; Anderson 1996; Holton 1998; Brenner 1999; Jonsson et al 2000), and on border and transborder regions (e.g., Martinez 1986; Foucher 1991; Rumley and Mingi 1991; Paasi 1996; Sparke 1998, 2002; Scott 1999a, 2002b, c; Van der Velde and Van Houtum 2000; Sidaway 2001; Anderson et al 2002a, b; Perkmann 2002a, b, 2003), the relationship between these concepts has been less well explored. It is less clear how the state-Euroregions- European Union nexus will play out at the geopolitical level, particularly in Eastern Europe where democracy has only recently been initiated. It is important to understand how Euroregions will be affected by future EU membership or non-membership in Eastern Europe. Nation-states do not simply acquiesce to sharing territorial sovereignty with transnational actors; instead they usually resist this challenge. In the EU, significant progress has been made towards establishing viable Euroregions, largely due to the existence of the supranational EU framework that favors transnational and transborder cooperation. After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the EU imagined the Eastern European Euroregions as “laboratories of integration” that would familiarize EU candidate countries from the region with the practice of transborder cooperation. Therefore, EU leaders strongly encouraged the establishment of Euroregions across the borders of East European countries.

However, given that national governments often reluctantly engaged in transborder cooperation, top-down management characterizes East European Euroregions. A real devolution of power to the local authorities has not taken place in most cases. Although progress has been made in these Euroregions, mainly in the “soft” sectors of transborder cooperation such as folk festivals, they are far from replicating the success of some of their EU counterparts (Deica and Alexandrescu 1994). In Eastern Europe, in the absence of EU membership, the national governments often commandeer the concept of Euroregions and use it to accommodate unresolved international issues. The outcome of this process proves detrimental to civil society and to democracy in the region and is felt in the slow progress of democratization and integration of local societies and their persistent economic marginalization. Euroregions are at the crux of the European reterritorialization process, aimed at redefining the centralized state territoriality that has proven inadequate in a world of flows. In this context, Euroregions are a prism through which to study the current state reterritorialization process. I intend to analyze this process from a poststructuralist perspective that understands current reterritorialization as a power-laden, socially constructed phenomenon driven by a multiplicity of forces across all geographical scales. Euroregion-driven transborder reterritorialization impacts on interstate relations, on regional and local identity, on personal identification, and on cultural and social landscapes. Thus, understanding Euroregions is important for understanding the relationships between civil society and the political organization of space. I build on this body of theory by emphasizing the geopolitical significance of Euroregions in the complex process of changing meanings of territoriality of the international state system. I show how issues of transborder institutionalization and governance are influenced by border-induced territoriality that is centralized in the national governments. I re-cast the transborder governance and regulation deficit as a direct function of the territorial state’s design limitations in providing solutions at the sub-national level beyond its borders. I contend that understanding these issues at the theoretical level will affect on our ability to understand the contemporary process of reterritorialization. Most of the research conducted on East European Euroregions is limited to countries that bordered the EU until 2004, such as Poland, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia (Buffon 1996; Scott 1998, 2000; Kepka and Murphy 2002; Yoder 2003). The Euroregions

3 created at their western borders with EU member states benefited from German, Finnish, Austrian or Italian investments and expertise. This is not the case with the other East European states, which did not have a common border with EU members, such as Romania, Ukraine, or Moldova. The case of Euroregions created among East European countries outside the EU is understudied (van Houtum 2000a). By filling this gap, this research can provide valuable insights into the understanding of the nature of reterritorialization in circumstances that resemble more closely other parts of the world where the supra-national scale, such as the EU, is only indirectly involved. To answer the central questions of my research, I focus on the Lower Danube Euroregion created across the borders of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova in a region situated at the “periphery” of Europe as well as at the “periphery” of these three states. An examination of the Lower Danube Euroregion (LDE) reveals the difficulties that need to be overcome in order for Euroregions to become successful in Eastern Europe and provides an excellent opportunity to explore the process of state transborder reterritorialization in situations where a supranational framework such as the EU does not exist. Nevertheless, the LDE has the same goals as the Euroregions existing under the EU umbrella: to diminish the barrier function of state borders in order to enhance European integration. The Lower Danube Euroregion was established in 1997 in Ismail (Ukraine) at a summit of the Presidents of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. Its existence was made possible only after the signing of the Basic Treaty between Romania and Ukraine, wherein the creation of Euroregions aiming to preserve ethnic minorities who inhabit border regions is explicitly stipulated. The mentioning of Euroregions as devices to address interstate issues in a bilateral treaty that was designed to serve broader purposes is representative of the Eastern European perspective on Euroregions. Romania has been particularly interested in the creation of the Lower Danube Euroregion. The border with Ukraine consists of Romanian territories occupied by the former USSR at the end of World War II. Ukraine inherited these territories, where many ethnic Romanians used to live, when it became independent in 1991. The Romanian government, although it never accepted the loss, did not claim these territories from Ukraine. Instead, it seems that the Euroregion “solution” satisfied the Romanian government. Geographer Silviu Negut (who played a role in its creation) summarized the Romanian perspective on this Euroregion by

calling it a “Romanian-Romanian-Romanian Euroregion” (personal conversation 2001), stressing the fact that Romanian ethnics inhabit Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian parts of the Euroregion. Ukraine, for its part, is also interested in the Euroregion since its government sees Euroregions as a device to integrate into Europe. Yet the Ukrainian government is still cautious regarding Romanian intentions in the Euroregion. As for Moldova, a landlocked state, the Euroregion seems to be a matter of necessity, given the access it provides to the Danube River and the Black Sea. The LDE is developing at the intersection of the interests of three national governments, of the EU, and the local authorities in the lower Danube borderlands. Notwithstanding difficulties encountered in the functioning of the LDE, transborder reterritorialization has gained momentum among Romania, Ukraine and Moldova. Contacts across borders between local authorities are taking place regularly, and national politicians often mention the Lower Danube Euroregion in their discourses as an example of their capability to meet EU standards of transborder integration. Paradoxically, the EU today indirectly hinders development in the Lower Danube Euroregion. Romania’s acceptance into the Schengen Agreement in 2002 (which specifies no visa is required to travel to EU states) extended the EU’s borders regarding the free circulation of persons to Romania’s eastern borders with Ukraine and Moldova. In this context, the EU required Romania to introduce stricter control of its eastern borders which has disrupted cross- border cooperation in the Lower Danube Euroregion. Moreover, in light of Romania’s EU membership by 2007, the borders of Romania with Ukraine and Moldova will became the borders of the EU for some time to come, since Ukraine and Moldova do not have a timeframe established for EU membership. This adds another layer of issues to reterritorialization in the LDE. While what specific further changes the Euroregion will undertake is as yet less evident, it appears that the division of the LDE borderlands into EU-haves and have-nots will impact considerably the capacity of the LDE to reterritorialize the lower Danube borderlands. This research, through a synthesis of qualitative analysis techniques, will provide a theoretical, empirical, and methodological framework to understand the nature of transformations taking place in the territoriality of the international state system in general, and to gain insight into the transborder reterritorialization and integration of Eastern Europe in particular.

Theoretically, this project will expand the scope of understanding of phenomena at work in transborder reterritorialization by examining the intersection of local, national, and supranational incentives and disincentives involved in the creation of new political-territorial entities that challenge traditional understandings of state territoriality. This research will set the stage for future inquiries regarding the direction and form of the changing meaning of space in Eastern Europe induced by the current round of globalization. Empirically, this project will unveil the complexity and contingency of the processes and actors involved in the creation of transborder spaces that aim to elude the barrier function of borders in politically sensitive areas such as Eastern Europe. By focusing on the geo-political implications of the creation of the LDE, this research will show that the process of reterritorialization is imbued with power relations that range across national and local scales. A consistent tableau of the shape reterritorialization takes has not yet emerged. This study will provide a window into understanding the possible shapes political territoriality might take in the future. Methodologically, this research involves interviews, archival research, and observation data, and integrates theories, methods, and techniques derived from political geography, critical geopolitics, political economy, border studies and qualitative analysis. This methodology is useful for research conducted in transborder cross-cultural settings, where the researcher faces complex uncertainties and has to adopt flexible data gathering techniques in order to adapt to unexpected events occurring in the field.

Chapter Outline

This dissertation consists of nine chapters. In Chapter 1, I introduce the main themes of the research and the research questions, and I explain the theoretical, empirical, and methodological importance and relevance of my case study for the processes of state transborder reterritorialization under the contemporary phase of globalization. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical framework of this research. I critically discuss theoretical approaches to territory and territoriality, state territoriality under globalization, national boundaries, the study of regions and of processes of regionalism that accompany globalization, and transborder cooperation and transborder regions. The process of transborder

reterritorialization fundamentally involves all of these theoretical perspectives. It is at the intersection of territory, global flows and national borders where state reterritorialization is produced today in Europe. In this context, transborder regions/Euroregions emerge as spatial configurations where state territoriality is being reconfigured at a sub-national level. This chapter provides the theoretical background to critically understand contemporary state transborder reterritorialization. Chapter 3 discusses the methodology employed in this study to address the main research questions. First, the rationale for choosing my case study site and the choice of methods used for data collection are explained. Then, I show how the findings of my fieldwork will be analyzed and discuss the methods of data analysis. Most data were acquired through a combination of in- depth interviews with key actors involved in the LDE development, on-site research of archival materials, and participant observation notes from fieldwork sessions. Predominantly qualitative research methods are used to analyze the fieldwork data by building several broad themes of analysis used to address the research questions. Chapter 4 addresses transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions in the broader European context. It provides an in-depth description of the circumstances leading to the emergence of the EU-led European integration process that generated historical re-scaling of state territoriality on the European continent. The chapter continues by showing how the political organization of European territory is changing at both supranational and sub-national levels. National states devolve certain powers upward, to supranational institutions, and downward, to sub-national regions. This re-scaling of state powers generates a political organization of space with three tiers: national, supra- and sub-national. However, a sustainable reterritorialization of the European space cannot be achieved without a transnational integration of the European states. This process places national borders at the vanguard of the European reterritorialization process. The barrier function of national borders has to be bridged in order for Europe to function as a unified space. Euroregions have been imagined as institutions that can help nation states to reterritorialize across their borders at the sub-national level. They can be considered a particular case of regionalism – transborder regionalism. Since the early 1990s, Euroregions have been one of the favorite means employed by the EU to unify Europe across the former Iron Curtain and beyond. In their turn, East European states adopted transborder cooperation in Euroregions as a vehicle of transborder

reterritorialization, but they also adapted Euroregions to the East European historical and geopolitical contexts. Today, there are few borders in Eastern Europe that are not covered by Euroregions. Chapter 5 addresses the broader context of the Lower Danube region. The chapter discusses the historical establishment of the territories and boundaries of the Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian states, with a focus on the areas that are currently part of the LDE. Also, the chapter discusses the dynamic of interstate relations in the Lower Danube region, ranging from Romanian-Russian relations during the Tsarist Empire, to Romanian-Soviet relations, and to the contemporary relations among Romania, Ukraine and Moldova. The chapter ends with a brief outline of the geo-historical and geo-political context of the territories surrounding the mouths of the Danube River. Chapter 6 explores the general context of transborder reterritorialization among Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The chapter begins with a discussion of the changes the border regime in the Lower Danube space went through from the Cold War to the present, and then the chapter moves to examine the factors that led to the institutionalization of transborder cooperation between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova through the establishment of several Euroregions that cover all their common borders. Additionally, the chapter reveals the existence of a geopolitics of Euroregions among the three above-mentioned countries. Each national government intends to use Euroregions to further its interests in international politics. Furthermore, the EU is also a player in this geopolitics. However, when these interests collide, Euroregions become spaces where such conflicts are played out. The process of state transborder reterritorialization in the region is negotiated through the geopolitics of Euroregions. The chapter ends with several specific examples that highlight the geopolitics of Euroregions at work and its impact on transborder reterritorialization. Chapter 7 provides an in-depth analysis of the institutionalization of the LDE as a transborder space. I discuss the circumstances that led to its establishment, the goals of the Euroregion, the process of acquiring LDE’s territorial shape, its governance apparatus, and its ethnic composition, as well as LDE’s accomplishments and failures up to the present. Also, the chapter discusses the outcomes of Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian intergovernmental disputes on the development of the LDE, as well as the impact of the reinforcement of the EU external border regime on the LDE. Altogether, these issues offer a comprehensive picture of the

process of transborder reterritorialization among Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine in the framework of the LDE. Chapter 8 constitutes an analysis of the data presented by the LDE case study. The chapter starts with an assessment of the similarities and differences between the LDE and other European spatial contexts for transborder reterritorialization, such as Euroregions in the EU space. This comparison locates the LDE in the European reterritorialization realm and demonstrates the significance of the LDE for understanding the East European context of transborder reterritorialization. Next, the analysis assesses the state of the process of reterritorialization in the region. Five main dimensions of reterritorialization in the LDE emerge from the fieldwork data: the territorial dimension, the legal dimension, the institutional and governance dimension, the economic dimension, and the cultural dimension. These can be considered main directions along which the Lower Danube borderlands are currently reterritorialized. The examination of these dimensions reveals the degree to which the LDE can be considered a meaningful framework for the reterritorialization of social relations across national borders, and allows us to understand the nature of the process of reterritorialization in the region. At the same time, the reterritorialization dimensions allow us to consider the place of the LDE as a politic-territorial entity in the broader context of the changing meaning of the European space. Additionally, the chapter reveals the way in which spatial power relations are involved in transborder reterritorialization in the LDE through a conceptual clash of territorial logics between nation-states and Euroregions. Interestingly, in spite of the fact that supra- and sub- national transborder integration traditionally went hand in hand, such clashing of territorial logics can be identified lately between the EU and Euroregions straddling its external borders as well. Such conflicts of territorial “interests” are shaping the process of reterritorialization in the LDE to a considerable extent. The chapter ends with a series of policy recommendations that can serve to improve LDE’s capacity to reterritorialize the lower Danube space, followed by a final analysis of the LDE as a reterritorialization agent and a politic-territorial unit for organizing social life. Chapter 9 concludes this research with a discussion of the theoretical and practical contributions the LDE analysis brings to the furthering of our understanding of Euroregions, boundaries, contemporary state reterritorialization, and the changing meaning of space. Also, the

9 chapter suggests further directions of research that can deepen our understanding of such issues. The present research has focused only on certain aspects of the LDE. However, the LDE case study holds ample potential to facilitate further insights into the developments taking place in the international state system.

CHAPTER 2

THE CHANGING MEANING OF TERRITORIAL SYSTEMS OF ORGANIZING SOCIAL LIFE

In this chapter, I discuss the theoretical underpinning of the research on transborder state reterritorialization. The change the territorial system of nation states is undergoing with regard to the reorganization of social relations across political space is a complex phenomenon that includes notions such as territory and territoriality, boundaries, regions and regionalism, and others. In order to gain an understanding of the ways territoriality, boundaries, and regions interact to reterritorialize spatial social relations across national borders at the subnational level, we need to understand how humans relate to such concepts. This chapter critically discusses how territory, boundaries, and regions have been made sense of in the social sciences, focusing on geographical perspectives. This discussion will help us understand the theoretical context in which state transborder reterritorialization takes place today. I begin by addressing the relationship between territoriality and the international state system. First, I examine issues of territory and territoriality that are fundamental for any system of organization of social relations. Second, I discuss the emergence of the interstate system and the development of the nation-states, showing how they came to represent the main divisions of political space in the world. Third, I examine the nature of the nation-state’s territoriality under contemporary globalization. The goal of this section of the chapter is to illustrate the evolution of the ways human societies historically imagined their relationship to territory. The next section addresses issues related to political boundaries. As lines of division and contact between territories, boundaries and territoriality are intrinsically connected both empirically and theoretically. There can be no talk of reterritorialization without engaging issues of boundaries. However, human societies have made sense of political boundaries in different ways at different times. While for the early political-territorial entities

11 boundaries had a rather flexible meaning as outposts of their political power, for modern nation- states boundaries have symbolized sharp lines of separation between territorial systems of rule. Lately, political boundaries have increasingly been imagined as areas of variable width that are shaped by, and shape at their turn, social relations in the surrounding regions. Thus, boundaries are a constitutive part of our interstate system. The chapter follows by discussing the concept of region, the process of regionalism, and the special case of transborder regions. Regions are relevant to this research because transborder reterritorialization takes place in regional settings. Regions both generate and are generated by social relations. As outcomes of territorial power relations regions are instrumental in producing territorial identity. Regionalism as a process of region-building constitutes a territorial strategy to achieve goals at the sub-national level by using regional identity in various social practices. The recent increase in the number of self-assertive regions worldwide, as well as their growing powers, raises interesting questions regarding the relationship between nation-states and sub- national regionalism. In this context, the emergence of transborder regions - regions that straddle state borders – introduces additional complexity to the regional debate. Generally, regions are characterized by homogeneity of their content while national borders seek to separate contents, thus they disrupt homogeneity. Transborder regions have to reconcile such situations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the connections between state reterritorialization and transborder regions. At the transborder level, contemporary changes in political territoriality often manifest in the building of transborder regions across states’ borders. It is important to understand to what extent such regions change traditional ways of territorial organization of social life, and how these changes are manifested in social life. Do transborder regions offer evidence that social relations are becoming less confined by state territoriality? What are the limits of transborder regions as alternatives to state territoriality? What are the implications of transborder reterritorialization for the future of the interstate system? These are several examples of questions addressed in the concluding section of this chapter.

1. Territoriality and the Interstate System

1.1. Territory and Territoriality

Considering the crucial role territory plays in human society, there have been surprisingly few approaches in geography aimed at theorizing the notion of territory. At the conceptual level, for the most part, territory has been taken for granted in academic scholarship. An adequate vocabulary to speak about territory and territoriality was lacking, and terms like “space” or “place” were often used interchangeably with “territory” (Ruggie 1993). Consequently, the meaning of territory (and territoriality) has remained rather unclear, “a trendy word that can mean anything from geopolitics of sovereign states to the idea that something is fixed by location” (Forsberg 1996: 359). It was not until the 1970s and the 1980s that major attempts to grasp critically the meaning of territory and territoriality appeared in Anglo-American geography (Soja 1971; Gottmann 1973; Sack 1986). Part of the explanation for this situation may reside in the fact that territory seems to mean various things for various people in various social contexts. According to Gottmann (1971: ix):

“To politicians, territory means the population and resources therein […]. To the military, territory is topographic features [...]. To the jurist, territory is jurisdiction and delimitation […]. To the geographer, it is the portion of space enclosed by boundary lines […]”.

Territory and territoriality are closely interconnected (Cox 2002). One can be defined through the other: in order to make sense of territory we have to understand what territoriality is, and vice versa. Most often, territory refers to a portion of space that is claimed or occupied by a person, a social group or an institution (Storey 2001, Paasi 2003 b). Territoriality is the process whereby individuals or groups lay claim to territory. In Sack’s (1986: 1) words, territoriality is “a spatial strategy to affect, influence, and control resources and people, by controlling area”. Territory is the area one seeks to control. Territories are defended and contested against others through territoriality. As such, territory and territoriality bring together ideas of power and space. Two related issues result from the definitions of territory and territoriality. First, territory as a portion of space implies the existence of boundaries: a territory is a bounded space (Storey 2001; Jonsson et al. 2000). The notion of boundaries is intrinsic to any understanding of territory since we cannot conceive of a portion of space without conceiving of its limits in regard to other

portions of “space”. In this sense, boundaries are constitutive of territory. Second, in order to influence and control the activity that is taking place in a territory, thus to exercise territoriality, means to have power over that territory. This kind of power is exercised in society through the concept of sovereignty (Gottmann 1973). Together, boundaries and sovereignty provide the medium through which territory and territoriality are articulated in human societies. Each of these concepts will be addressed in detail later in this chapter. Cox (2002) explains how territory becomes an “issue” by directing attention to the tensions between the concepts of “movement” and “embeddedness”. While some people and institutions have a tendency to move across space easily, others do not manifest this tendency, and they develop “roots” in their territory. Both groups need to relate to territory but their territorial behavior take different forms; the former favor a more flexible definition of territory to allow for their mobility, while the later favor a more rigid one to legitimate their immobility. This dialectic process represents the driving force behind human territoriality. The quest to understand and explain such a fundamental notion for the fabric of societies as human territoriality has turned into an academic debate between two sets of arguments that are often called “biological” and “constructivist”. Biological theories, some of the first to be put forward and traditionally supported by biologists and psychologists, argue that forms of territorial behavior are innate in all species, including humans, and therefore territoriality is a natural phenomenon. Storey (2001: 9-13) provides a good overview of this line of argumentation. He shows how many biological theories adopt a deterministic perspective, which, on the basis on analogies drawn from animal behavior, holds that the desire to defend territory is in humans’ genetic make-up and therefore territoriality is a preordained, unchanging “human imperative” (Ardrey 1967). In stark contrast to the deterministic standpoint, constructivist theories, advanced mainly by social theorists, view territoriality as a socially constructed phenomenon (Sack 1986; Gottmann 1973; Soja 1971; Paasi 1996, 2003; Forsberg 1996, 2003; Storey 2001). The constructivist argument maintains that human behavior is conditioned by the social environment in which people live. Analogies between animals and humans regarding territorial behavior are of limited relevance since culture in humans provides a range of adaptive opportunities that set apart humans from animals (Soja 1971; Gottmann 1973). In these circumstances, human territoriality appears as learned behavior and not as natural and inborn.

However, in order to make sense of the nature of territoriality we have to understand why territory and territoriality fulfill such a key role in human societies. According to Gottmann (1973), territory provides two basic functions for humans: it offers shelter and security and constitutes a springboard for opportunity by allowing the economic organization of space (Storey 2001). Many authors have noted that attachment to territory is as old as human society (Murphy 1996). Grosby (1995) goes as far as to call territoriality “the transcendental, primordial feature” of all human societies. Indeed, humans need to relate somehow to the material world, and therefore to territory, in order to survive. However, this relation is socially mediated and structured in certain ways. Therefore, the ways in which territoriality manifests itself in human societies is highly contingent. A comprehensive and elaborate analysis of human territoriality is provided by Sack (1986). He casts territoriality as a spatial strategy of power that works at all scales, from individual to international. Territoriality is a form of spatial behavior that is not genetically motivated but is socially and geographically rooted in the ways people give meaning to space (Sack 1986). Control over a territory implies control over the people who inhabit it, gained by controlling their behavior, and also over the resources available within it, gained by establishing different degrees of access to these resources. Territoriality can be used to control or restrain, as well as to include some and to exclude others; it is a strategy that establishes control over an area as a means of controlling access to things. Thus, territoriality is “a primary geographical expression of social power” (Sack 1986: 5). As a form of power, territoriality is rooted in social relations and it provides the nexus between human society and space. It is a spatial form of power (Sack 1986: 26). Territories are socially constructed under particular circumstances, and their outcomes are contingent on who has the power over them and to what ends that power is used. As such, territories require constant effort to establish and maintain. They have to be permanently enforced, and to be “communicated” through various signs, most usually in the form of borders. The appeal of using territorial strategies resides in the benefits of claiming control over the whole content of an area rather than enumerating all things contained by the area. This helps to make spatial relationships seem impersonal. Territoriality can be asserted in various ways at various scales, such as in land ownership rights, in job descriptions that establish what type of activities can be undertaken in particular places and at particular times, in cultural norms, and

even in body language. Viewed this way, territoriality can be considered as a way to define social relationships (Sack 1986). Moreover, territoriality can function as a means to reify power. Territoriality makes power visible through the “materiality” of land. Territory comes to be perceived as natural, as being “just there”, and therefore to be taken for granted in social relations. However, the naturalization of territory is used to deflect attention from power relations in society. The focus of attention is on territory and not on the relations between the controller and the controlled. In Sack’s words (1986: 33), “territory appears as the agent doing the controlling”. Indeed, most of the contemporary laws are enacted in the name of a territorial entity rather than in the name of particular individuals in power (Storey 2001). Another vital function territory provides for human society is a sense of identity (Knight 1982, 1999; Soja 1971; Storey 2001). Humans show propensity to identify with particular places, to develop a so-called “sense of place” that may serve as a component of self-identity. People develop bonds with territory based on their memories of events they have experienced in different places, such as places associated with childhood, love, death, and others. Knight (1999: 215) states that “human societies create ‘territory’ out of meaningless ‘space’”. Although territory is real, in the sense that it can be measured and touched, people’s attachment to place is socially mediated through their experiences of place. In this sense, territory is:

“… also something of the mind and people impute meaning to, and gain meaning from, territory. …Such beliefs are psychologically and culturally based and therefore exist, at one key level, simply as parts of the ‘geographies of the mind’” (Knight 1999: 215).

Underlining the socially constructed nature of territories, Paasi (1991, 1996, 2003b) charts the process of “institutionalization of territories”, as he calls the process through which territories become part of the socio-spatial system. He identifies four stages that illustrate the process of territory formation. First, there is the acquisition of a territorial shape through the construction of boundaries. Second, there is the creation of the symbolic shape through discourses and social practices. The third key component is the institutional shape, acquired through the creation of institutions such as administration, economy, culture, and others, that produce and reinforce boundaries and territorial symbolism. Lastly, there is the acquisition of a territorial identity that operates in the larger territorial context and helps distinguish a territory

from others. These stages of “becoming” of territory point to the fact that territories are historical processes that are made and maintained through human practices. Once created, these territories act as containers of social life in the sense that they influence the social relationships they contain (Sack 1986). The constructivist view has been criticized for its tendency to overemphasize the imagined side of human territoriality while minimizing existence of any real and concrete signification of territory for human societies. Grosby (1995) maintains that even if we accept that territoriality is a product of human imagination, territoriality is not all imagined, but it is in part objective (although not genetically motivated) since it acquires reality by the significance people attribute to bounded patterns of relationships in a territory. Thus, territoriality is a primordial, life-sustaining feature of all human societies. Another critique to territorial constructivism comes from an insider position and intends to sharpen the constructivist argument by borrowing from realism. In an attempt to correct the perceived excesses of the constructivist literature, Forsberg (1996, 2003) warns against understanding territoriality only in negative terms, and offers a more positive interpretation. He claims that territorial identities are not necessarily bad and exclusionist, as demonstrated for example in multicultural societies, and that territorial power can be more egalitarian than personalized systems of power (Forsberg 1996). In a later work, he argues for paying more attention to the distinction between material and symbolic boundaries and between real and virtual space, affirming that: “there is a reality beyond the discourses” (Forsberg 2003: 5). He goes on to argue that what may explain how territories are socially constructed are the associations between territory and the female body on the one hand, and private property on the other hand. The former is exemplified by the perception of military aggression as “rape”, and superpowers without buffers as “naked”, while the latter is exemplified by the perception that the state has the right to do whatever wants inside its territory, and that stolen territory must be returned. In Forsberg’s opinion, these associations might explain why people fight over territories even in irrational situations when apparently there is no strategic or economic value in possessing them. The most familiar and pervasive form of territoriality today is political territoriality. This means that most political power in society is organized territorially in bounded portions of space. Territory is so important for political governance because it provides a locus for the exercise of

17 political authority over a range of interests. It is difficult to construct an enduring system without a territorial base (Murphy 1996). Location within a territory defines membership to a group instead of, for example, kinship relationships or similarity of interests among the members of the group. However, territoriality can occur in various degrees in numerous social contexts. Some of the effects of political territoriality are universal and occur in any social context and social organization. Others are specific to particular periods and organizations (Sack 1986). Primitive societies, for example, while employing territoriality for a few purposes, such as delimiting and defending land, rarely used territory to define belonging to a community. Instead, primitive societies had a social definition of territoriality, which was based more on kinship relations. Modern societies, however, have a territorial definition of society, using territoriality for a wide range of purposes in order to define social relationships (Soja 1971). The review of contemporary conceptualizations of territory and territoriality shows that the social organization of space can take various forms at various times in various cultures. In these circumstances, the reterritorialization of social relations appears as a normal process that is driven by the way human relationships to territories are imagined. The building of transborder regions today follows the same logic of social construction of territories. Such territories are simply another way of making sense of territory and territoriality.

1.2. The Sovereign Territorial State

The embodiment of the political territoriality principle is to be found today in the modern state. The state is generally associated with political authority within a territorial limit (Kazancigil 1986). According to Paasi (1996), in an empirical understanding the state is a specific region with recognized borders, whereas in a theoretical understanding the state is a set of institutions aimed at producing and reproducing society. Today, the whole land space of the world (excluding Antarctica) is parceled into neatly delineated political units represented by states. The state came to represent the basic division of space. This points to the omnipresence and omnipotence of the state for social life in our world. Given this colossal importance of the state in contemporary human society, it is no surprise that there are numerous scholars, such as Agnew (1994), Paasi (1996), Brenner (1999), Taylor (1994), Mann (1984), Lefebvre (1991), Harvey (2000), Giddens (1987), Murphy (1996, 1999 a), Ruggie (1993), Kratowchil (1986), Forsberg (1996, 2003), and Anderson (1991), to mention only a few, who have tried to make

18 sense of the territorial sovereign state from various theoretical perspectives. What is common for all these authors is the acknowledgment of the links between political territoriality and the state, as well as the historical nature of the state concept. To understand the importance of the emphasis on territoriality in trying to make sense of the state, we need to take a brief look at the historical context of the state and of the formation of the international system of states. The idea that there is a necessary connection between political community and territory is an old one in western thought, which can be found in classical Greece, in Plato and Aristotle (Gottmann 1973). Mann (1984) observes that the only stateless societies were primitive societies. Various forms of states existed since antiquity, such as the Greek city-states, the Roman Empire, China, and others, but their relationship to territory was different from the one that the modern state attained. While all traditional states had a territorial aspect to them, they did not function on strict territorial principles. Instead, they were essentially segmented in character since the administrative reach of their political center was low and they had porous frontiers rather than strictly enforced borders (Giddens 1986; Paasi 2003b). During Middle Ages Europe, the territorial structure of states was complex and overlapping, and no hierarchy of governance dominated (Anderson 1996). Territory was a contested space where lords and kings vied for control (Murphy 1999a). A variety of political- territorial arrangements coexisted during this period. It was common, for example, for one king to posses land inside the kingdom of another king. Political, military, religious and other forms of authority overlapped and interpenetrated (Brenner et al. 2003). The territorial frame of reference was the local commune, and the elites thought in terms of royal or ecclesiastical territories with fluid boundaries (Murphy 1996). The ultimate allegiance of the population was to their rulers rather than to any territorially defined large-scale political community. The only loyalty that transcended group attachment was the Church. In medieval Europe people lived in a quasi “Respublica Christiana” (Vincent 1987; Heffernan 1998). However, during the medieval period the nature of the state began to change in Europe. This change is often traced to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, considered the basis of the formation of the European system of states since it established equality among states based on the principle of sovereignty over territorial units (Agnew 1994; Murphy 1996; Paasi 1996). This first international system of states was the result of the religious wars in Europe in the wake of Reformation and Counterreformation. The crucial issue then was the lack of order and stability,

and the politically centralized territorial state was seen as the appropriate solution (Gottmann 1973). The concept of state sovereignty over a bounded part of the Earth’s surface made state territory impenetrable to foreign armies; therefore the state became the ultimate unit of protection (Hertz, in Taylor 1989). The most important imprint that the Treaty of Westphalia made on the process of modern state formation reside in the formalization of the principle of territorial sovereignty that uses territorial demarcation and control as its organizing principle (Albert 1998; Murphy 1999a). This had a twofold outcome. First, the political authority (the state) that governs a territory was entitled now to govern it without outside interference. The impersonal power of the state became the ultimate repository of authority, replacing the personal authority of the sovereign. In this way, all other institutions or groups became subordinated to the state. At the same time, state territorial sovereignty influenced significantly the notion of borders by recasting their meaning and making borders integral parts of the territorial state. Claiming absolute control over everything that falls inside state territorial limits set the spotlight on state borders that now “fixed limits to the spatial extent of sovereignty and outlined the size and location of it” (Gottmann 1973: 49). The meaning of state limits changed from a network-like structure of diffuse and permeable frontiers to a grid of exclusive territorial boundaries (Paasi 1999). In political thinking and in international law, boundaries become fixed lines of territorial sovereignty that separated states and contained the totality of social relations inside a state’s territory. Second, the Treaty of Westphalia led to the creation of an international system of mutually exclusive territorial states. The new system of states was based on reciprocal recognition of territorial autonomy (Giddens 1987). It was not enough for a state to declare sovereignty over a territory, but that sovereignty had to be recognized by other states as well (Taylor 1989). This formula was intended to maintain some measure of equality among states and to insure that each individual state’s sovereignty would be respected. Gottmann (1973: 49) characterized this concept of sovereignty as a predominantly negative one, since it relies on the “authority and exclusivism of the state within the established territorial frame”. Other authors, such as Giddens (1987) and Eva (1999a), contend that territorial state sovereignty is in fact a formula of anarchy. Since the system lacks any institutional authority higher than the state, each state gains acceptance of its own sovereignty from other states and at the same time acknowledges that of other states.

The transition to the new state system did not take place overnight. It took centuries for the principle of state territorial sovereignty to replace old patterns of allegiance, and in some instances it never totally eradicated them but rather they cohabited. In addition to this, Sack (1986) shows how the discovery of the New World boosted the use of political territoriality as a way to circumscribe social relations. Europeans perceived the New World as a vast, unknown, and empty space that had to be conquered, and they found that territoriality was the most appropriate strategy to make sense of it. The system of states that resulted after Westphalia represented a long-term enclosure of political, economical, and military power within a global patchwork of mutually exclusive, yet contiguous, state territorialities. The nature of state territoriality was transformed in light of the above-mentioned theory of sovereignty. The consolidated independent sovereignty of each state was at the same time part of a process of overall state integration in an international system of states (Giddens 1987). This situation was often described as the “bundling of territoriality to state sovereignty” or as the “territory-sovereignty nexus” (Brenner 1999). However, it was not until later, during the eighteenth century, when the modern form of the state - the nation state - appeared. The nation-state brought together ideas of group political identity and territoriality (Knight 1982). The nation is often defined as a community of people with a common identity, usually based on shared cultural values and attachment to a particular territory (Paasi 1996). A nation state is a sovereign state, inhabited by a group of people who see themselves as one (Paasi 1996). Nation states are not natural entities but rather are socially constructed phenomena. The process of nation building takes place through the ideology of nationalism, which can be seen as a territorial ideology that binds the political community and the state, and serves to maintain political control over territory (Murphy 1996). Nationalism had been built on territorial foundations because it required a territorial base upon which the sovereignty of the nation could be applied (Gottmann 1973). In this way, territory becomes constitutive of national identity (Smith 1991). Modern nationalism posited that the borders of the nation and the borders of the state have to correspond (Paasi 1996; Taylor 1989). As such, the ideal situation for representing a people’s identity would be a single nation in a single state. The nation state became naturalized as the ultimate political expression of the will of a people (Knight 1982; Taylor 1989). However, while nationalism can be traced back to the French revolution, the idea that state and nation

21 should territorially overlap was expressed for the first time at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and culminated at Versailles after the First World War, when the principle of national self- determination became the benchmark of the European political order (Taylor 1989). Nonetheless, the chief territorial principle of nationalism proved difficult to apply in practice. Virtually all European states were composed of more than one group of people that had a common identity (now called nations). Thus, the nation-state concept needed much help to take root. In order to generate the homogeneity that was necessary to build unitary nations to fit inside state borders, a host of practices had been used to instill a feeling of common identity among the otherwise heterogeneous populations that inhabited European states. In order to create a sense of national identity, nationalism created myths and symbols to account for the “glorious” common past of the nation in the cultural realm, while it produced and enforced a territorial division between “us” and “them” in the political realm (Paasi 1996; 2003a). As such, nations can be better understood as “imagined communities” rather than primordial entities that contain social life (Anderson 1991). In spite of the sustained effort to create nation-states, nations still fail to conform to the theory of nationalism, falling short of matching state borders more often than not. The generalization of the nation state model as the building block of the world’s political order constituted a further entrenchment of the sovereign territorial state in the life of society. The nation state, at the conceptual level, glued group identity to bounded state territory to an unprecedented degree. Citizenship became territorial, requiring that everyone be a citizen of a state (thus to have a territorial identity) in order to move through the international state system. With respect to the relationships between human society and territory, the nation-state represented a change from the time when a group defined the territory it inhabited, to a time where politically bounded territory defined the group inhabiting it (Knight 1982). This situation meant that societies were now conceptualized as enclosed by the nation-state borders, and social life outside the state was deemed undesirable by nation-state rulers and unattractive for ordinary citizens. Many scholars, such as Anderson (1991), Agnew (1998), Giddens (1987), Lefebvre (1991), Harvey (1989), Cox (2002), and others, consider the spread of capitalist relations of production as the key to the consolidation of the world system of states and to the emergence of the nation state as the uncontested modern political form of the organization of territory. While it is generally accepted that capitalism preceded the nation-state, it is also acknowledged that

22 capitalism and the nation-state had a symbiotic relationship in the sense that they reinforced each other by serving each other’s needs (Wallerstein 1999; Cox 2002). Giddens (1987) goes even further, arguing that it is the process of industrialization, with its change in the nature of production and markets, which is responsible for the rise of the nation-state. The homogenizing needs of large-scale industrial production were facilitated by the authority of centralized governments that could provide access to markets that extended beyond locality. Still, today capitalism is the most important force in teaching territoriality at a worldwide scale. In the second half of the twentieth century, the nation-state expanded on a global scale. The modern state imposed itself as the center of (national) societies and spaces (Lefebvre 1991). Each new state form introduced its own way to partition space. The territoriality of the state was taken for granted for the most part, based on Weber’s view of the “normalness” of state as a community that claims a monopoly of use of physical force within a territory (Brenner et al 2003). The state was naturalized and conceptualized as an autonomous actor, whose autonomy flows from its unique ability to provide a territorially centralized form of organization (Mann 1984). According to this line of reasoning, the nation-state’s grounds for autonomy and legitimacy in society resided exactly in its territoriality. In analyzing the sources of state power, Giddens (1987: 120) finds that the nation-state became the preeminent “bordered power container” of modernity. Nation-states achieved this power by obtaining the monopoly over the means of violence. In the modern state, violence is only indirectly applied, more as a threat than as a permanent fact of life, mostly due to other means of population control that the state can use, such as surveillance. For example, the invention of deviance as a source of social control enhanced the capacity of state control over society by transforming an offender from a rebel into a deviant who has to be adjusted to state’s norms (Giddens 1987). This argument, of societal control through discipline and punishment, is articulated at large in Foucault’s (1977) notion of panopticism. Taylor (1994), used the metaphor of the “state as a container” to theorize the relationships between the sovereign nation-state and territoriality. He contended that the supremacy of the modern state is embedded in the successful territorialization of four types of power that expanded state functions. Therefore:

“…the state has acted as a vortex sucking in social relations to mould them through territoriality. In this way states have graduated from warring states through to welfare

states as we consecutively witness the construction of power, wealth, cultural and social containers” (Taylor 1994: 152).

First, the function of the state as power container is acquired through the state’s right to wage war on other states. Second, the function of wealth container is generated by the role of the state as the manager of the economy. Third, the role of cultural container is acquired by fostering a sense of national identity. Fourth, the role of social container is achieved by delivering welfare to its citizens. So pervasive was the centralization of these functions in the institution of the nation- state that it obscured for many their socially constructed nature and it engendered a perception of naturalness of the state as the container of society. Perhaps the most illuminating characterization of the approaches that dominated modern thinking about the international system of sovereign territorial states is captured by Agnew’s (1994) metaphor of “territorial trap”. Although Agnew’s metaphor is intended primarily to describe the conceptual approaches underlining traditional international relations theory, it can also be applied quite literally to the system of nation-states that is caught in an operational “territorial trap’ given nation-states’ critical connection to boundary-delineated territoriality. Since (almost) all the world’s land space is already divided into national territories, most changes in the system are made primarily through violence, through violating the sovereignty principle. Underlying the territorial trap are three key geographical assumptions (Agnew 1994): 1. The reification of states as having exclusive sovereignty over their territory. 2. The national/international (domestic/foreign) distinction that has served to obscure the interaction between processes that operates at different scales. 3. The view of state boundaries as determinative of the boundaries of society. This triad of state-centric account of spatiality was called also the “modern geopolitical imagination” (Toal 1996). The outcome of this mode of imagination is a sort of circular thinking where geographical assumptions interact to produce reinforcing accounts of international politics in which territorial states are taken for granted as the natural units of analysis in the world. The implications of the state-centric understanding were, and are, paramount. State- centric approaches define how we understand and represent the world (Paasi 1999), from the definition of political identity in state territorial terms, which in turn leads to the view of non- governmental forms of political organization as threats to state sovereignty; to the production of the “us/them” distinction that constructs the “Other” as an enemy of the state; and to the taken

for granted nature of the principle of state sovereignty, which leads to denying alternative possibilities for political organization (Agnew 1994). In addition, the state-centric approach freezes state territoriality, views territoriality operating as a static and timeless container of historicity. States become economically self-propelled entities, with state territoriality understood as the basic reference point in terms of which all sub and supra state processes are to be classified. As Brenner (1999: 48) puts it:

“The result of territorialist epistemology is the transposition of the historically unique territorial structure of the modern interstate system into a generalized model of socio- spatial organization, whether with reference to political, societal, economic, or cultural processes”.

What the territorialist epistemology missed was the fact that the territorialization of social life in the sovereign state was a historically contingent process that had to be continually produced and reinforced through a myriad of practices that ranged from the use of nationalist ideology to create national identity to the claiming of a monopoly over the means of violence. State territorial sovereignty was never fully achieved in practice, precisely because of the utopian principles on which was based: social life cannot be completely contained within “containers” or within territorial borders.

1.3. State Territoriality under Contemporary Globalization

During the last three decades, the unprecedented global expansion of the capitalist economy challenged state territoriality (Sassen 1999; Tuathail and Luke 1994; Murphy 1993; Lefebvre 1991; Ruggie 1993). With the acceleration of globalization in the 1970s, the international system of states came under pressure from various phenomena (Newman 1999; 2001). Electronic financial flows easily cross national boundaries; awareness of environmental issues generates transnational international solidarity; non-territorial threats to the nation-state, such as international terrorism and Internet-based crimes, are increasing; ethnic minorities broke- up various states and formed their own states; borders became more challenged and permeable; and external interference in the domestic affairs of another state became ‘acceptable’ if ‘humanitarian’ reasons required them. All these globalization-induced “leaks from the containers” (Johnston 2001: 685) are calling into question the primacy of the nation-state as the main entity of the political-spatial division of the world. The traditional understanding of the

state, as the ultimate repository of sovereignty over a bounded portion of the Earth’s surface and the society that inhabits it, is at odds with the current world of cross border flows of capital, people, and ideas. Ruggie (1993) describes this condition that characterizes the transition from modernity to postmodernity, as the “unbundling of territoriality”. The state-centric and panoptic type of reasoning is not able to account for these changes. These developments require a much more subtle account of state territoriality.

The central question to ask now is if these “leaks from containers” will lead to the forming of new transnational social spaces (Paasi 2003a). If the answer is yes, then what will they look like, what shape will they take, and will the sovereign territorial state survive? Searching for answers to these questions may provide the tools that can help us understand the nature of the changing relationships between political territoriality and social relations. Such concerns materialized in the development of two main schools of thought. One school interprets the unprecedented deterritorialization of politics and economics as signaling the long awaited demise of the nation-state and the emergence of a global society where the sense of space is superseded by time (through speed), while the other maintains that a more accurate representation of the emerging architecture of the political territoriality is captured by the concept of reterritorialization, in which the territorial state survives but will be stripped of much of its territorial sovereignty that will be shared with a host of multi-scale, multi-task organizations resulting in a crisscrossed pattern of geographical units where social life will unfold.

Mitchell (2000: 278), citing Held (1996: 408-412), summarizes challenges to the territorial state by showing the contemporary world as constructed out of a series of growing disjunctures, or gaps, between the power of nation state as the container of social life, and the actual practices of the state and economic system at global level. First, there is a gap between “the formal authority of the state and the actual system of production, distribution and exchange”, which translates into a mismatch between the scale of the nation-state as a political entity and the scale of capitalism. Second, there is a gap between “the idea of the state as an autonomous […] military actor and the development of a global system of states characterized by the existence of hegemonic powers and power blocks”, which translates into a sort of new imperialism. Third, there is a gap between “the regulatory power assumed traditionally by states and the regulatory power assumed now by transnational governing bodies”, which translates into

the attenuation of the states’ abilities to control transnational economic flows. Fourth, there is a gap between “the idea of national membership, i.e. citizenship, and the development of international law, which subjects individuals, governments and non-governmental organizations to a new system of regulation”, which translates into a growing crisis of identity. Mitchell concludes that global space is being restructured and the role of the nation-state is up for grabs.

Mann’s (1984) view that the infrastructural power of the state relies on providing territorially centralized services to its citizens that other institutions are not able to provide because of their lack of territorial centralization, is challenged in the contemporary world by other organizations that can provide centralized services, such as supra and sub regional institutions. Agnew (1998: 56-60) remarks that the growing deterritorialization of the means of production and communication places states in a position to manage cross-border economic flows, rather that control them as they tried to do before. This state of affairs may signal the coming into being of a transnational hegemony, where sovereign territorial states are no longer the main building blocks of the system, but they are “challenged by new spaces of networks and flows where speed and access are more important that command over territory” (Agnew 1998: 56). The extreme mobility of capital today makes states compete with each other to attract and retain investments inside their borders. As a consequence, markets have acquired powers that before belonged to the nation-state. As such:

“The ’market access regime’ ties local areas directly into the global markets. Successful places are the ones who can enhance their position by increasing their attractiveness to multinational firms. A patchwork of places within a global node and network system therefore coexists with but is slowly eroding the territorial spatiality with which we are all familiar” (Agnew 1998: 60).

According to McGrew (1995), the growing disjunctures between the principles of state territorial sovereignty and the actual practices of states confronted by overlapping regional and transnational networks and power structures, indicate the recasting of the nature of sovereignty and the reconfiguration of the international political space. McGrew (1995: 49-50), contends that “globalization has stretched social relations across territorial space, dissolving the boundaries between the domestic and the external realms”, to the point that “it is possible to think of the political space in functional rather than territorial terms” where different regulation regimes regulate a specific field of activity across national territory. This possible intricate territorial

architecture of society led scholars like Castells (1996) to think of the possibility of people living as nodes in a network society rather than in national societies. It appears that there is enough evidence that the conditions that led to the development of the territorial sovereign state are now slowly disappearing. As Camillieri (1990) (in Anderson et al. 1995: 63) elegantly puts it, “Historically, state sovereignty may turn out to have been a bridge between national capitalism and world capitalism, a phase in an evolutionary process that is still unfolding”. The point here is to understand that the territorial sovereign state represents only one way power and authority can be exercised, but not the only way. This context has led some scholars to believe that we are witnessing an “end of geography” marked by deterritorization of the state and the emergence of a borderless world (Ohmae 1995). Some “end of the nation-state” proponents pose that the world will be a homogenous, not-too-democratic McWorld, and social reproduction will be more a product of homogenized commodity consumption (Mitchell 2000). Deterritorialization, state attrition, and borderlesness came to represent the new postmodern geopolitical imagination. Yet, in overemphasizing deterritorialization tendencies and ignoring the nation-state there is the risk of overlooking new forms of state power that may emerge. Nonetheless, this vision still remains the prisoner of modern times given its conceptual propensity to layer transnational phenomena on a state-centric and territorial framework (Toal 1999; 2000). There is a need for modes of analysis that do not naturalize state territoriality and its associated Cartesian image of space as a static block (Brenner 1999). While indeed, globalization is changing traditional state-centered territoriality, it leads to transformations in the nature of state power. The territorial state is far from fading away; rather it is undergoing a process of change in order to cope with the changes induced by globalization (Newman 1999). Although the process of deterritorization does signal a break with the traditional state centrism, the total negation of the state seems not to be the outcome, rather we are witnessing emergent reterritorialized forms of state power (Brenner 1999). This may signal the relocation of some components of state sovereignty to supranational bodies or private corporations, a sort of “denationalizing of state sovereignty” (Sassen 1999: 160). Globalization seems to be complementary to the nation state rather than in conflict with it (Holton 1998; Wallerstein 1999). The nation-state is part and parcel of the process of globalization. Lefebvre’s (1991) “mode de production etatique” is still at work in a global

economy, delivering the territorial infrastructure for production, transport, and communication. The territorial state remains the basic geographical framework within which the production of new configurations of territorial organization unfolds. Indeed, the functional meaning of territory is in flux and we will witness territorial changes; however this will not likely lead us to non- territorial states. State formation and dissolution can be better understood today in terms of the processes of globalization/territorialization (Harvey 2000). In a Marxist reading, contemporary globalization is only a phase in the long history of capitalism as a producer of social space. The current geographic reorganization of space at a planetary scale is the outcome of capitalism’s search for solutions to its systemic crises. The “spatial fix” achieved in the modern era through the bordered territorial state is becoming now obsolete for the needs of a world of flows, and as a consequence it has to be deterritorialized and replaced with other types of territorial organizations that are more movement friendly. This means that processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization are continuously at work through the historical geography of capitalism (Deleuse and Guattari 1977; Albert 1998). Every deterritorialization creates conditions for a reterritorialization using fragments of the old beliefs, customs, and practices (Toal 1996). As such, the nation-state lost some traditional powers of control over its territory, but the nation-state is not dying (Lipschutz 2000). For the neo-liberal doctrine of globalization to work, the state has to penetrate even more into certain segments of political-economical life, and to be in some instances even more interventionist that before (Harvey 2000). Giddens (1987) also understands that the recent development of global connections over borders should not be regarded as a withdrawing of sovereignty. On the contrary, globalization is the condition of the worldwide extension of the nation-state system. The world system is formed not only by transnational economic connections but also by the global system of nation states, neither of which can be reduced to the other. Transnational companies (TNCs) do not control the world. Given the fact that the nation state occupies the entire globe TNCs have to exist somewhere, therefore they must resort to either be subject to a state power or become one. In this context, the nation state is becoming universal exactly as an outcome of those very transnational forces that are thought to signal its demise (Giddens 1987).

Eva (1999a) attempts to synthesize the contemporary world order and finds four principles of transition: 1. Stability: keeping existing states within their borders. 2. Strategy of territorial containment: border-based principles of stability. 3. Territorial configuration of our world is undergoing functional rather than spatial changes: boundaries remain important lines of demarcation. 4. Western democracy: the modern state insists on undisputed land, surrounded by undisputed borders. The mode of regulation at the global scale is constituted largely by actions of states, and therefore the state remains the prime unit in geopolitical analysis. The state itself plays a role today in its own reterritorialization as an institutional interface between sub and supra national scales (Brenner 1999). Despite globalization, the state will continue to exist. States may have now less control over ideas than before but they remain in control of their borders and movements of people across them (Paasi 1999). In addition, given the increase in regional autonomy demands, secession movements, and regionalism, it seems that a large majority of world people still prefer nation-states. As yet, there is no global myth to make people identify with the World rather than with their national states (Taylor 1995). Globalization does not mean homogenization (Agnew 1994). Flows of capital and commodities do not simply produce homogeneity. Rather they are increasingly marked by radical geographical and social unevenness (Appadurai 1990, in Mitchell 2000). In these circumstances, the nation-state remains one of the prime defenses against raw market power, and also a key to defend ethnic and cultural identities in the face of global commodification. The nation-state is the locus of the “backlash” against globalization (Harvey 2000; Immerfall et al. 1998). The world is not a network society where deterritorialization rules, but we need to understand that every deterritorialization is at the same time a reterritorialization (Mitchell 2000). Globalization did not generate the end of the territorial state, but rather the reconfiguration of power in which the nature of the state sovereignty has changed. To look for the demise of the system of territorial states, we need to look to see if what Taylor (1995: 14) called “trans-statedness and its associated transterritoriality” - forms of global agendas that are oblivious of state territoriality - are appearing in the world. Taylor believes that in the long run states will indeed fade away in their current form, yet they will not be replaced by

a cosmopolitan transnationality either. However, for now, “the territorial state remains a crucial geographical infrastructure upon, within, and through which this multi scalar dialectic of de and re-territorialization is currently unfolding” (Brenner 1999: 63). Although it seems paradoxical, there is plenty of evidence that states continue to be of importance in understanding the functioning of contemporary society. The current state of affairs with regard to the territorial system of states is better captured by the concept of “reterritorialization”. To escape the territorial trap we do not need to deny the state’s relevance as a locus of social power, but to rethink the meaning of state territoriality and political space. Globalization can be better understood as a multi-scalar process of reterritorialization in which the state plays crucial roles (Brenner 1999). The reterritorialization process aims to create a more flexible, multi-scale set of political-territorial structures where states will coexist with other political territories organized along different lines of competence, such as ecological or cultural socioeconomic regions (Murphy 1999; Agnew 1994; Toal 1999; Anderson 1996).

Such “unbundling” of territoriality seems to bear more resemblances with the territorial organization of the medieval period. It is no surprise that this possible territorial configuration of social life entered social science theory as “Neo Medievalism” (Anderson 1995; 1996). In essence, the medievalist metaphor suggests the end of “modern” exclusive state territorial sovereignty and the emergence of a “post-modern” more inclusive territoriality, characterized by shared and overlapping authorities between different institutions at different levels and by contested loyalties between nation-states and other organizations (either based on supra or sub- national regions, or defined more in non-territorial or functional terms). A return to territorially overlapping authority, which characterized the medieval period, does not imply a sudden replacement of nation-states by macro or micro-regional scale replicas. Instead, the changes are more partial and ambiguous, “diffusing but not clearly relocating sovereignty as it is presently understood” (Anderson 1995: 98). The overall results could be more complex than a ”new medievalism”, and could look more like a “messy mixture of old and new hybrid forms, with ‘territorial’, ‘transterritorial’ and ‘functional’ forms of association and authority co-existing and interchanging”(Anderson 1995: 99).

It is commonly agreed that there are two major scales at which the devolution of the modern nation-state occurs: on the one hand, the state devolves powers to the supranational level

and on the other hand, to the sub-national level (Anderson 1996; Knight 1982; Hassner 1997; Storey 2001; Brenner 1999; Eva 2001; Blatter 2001). As such, on the supranational scale organizations such as the European Union, NAFTA, and the International Monetary Fund emerged in the world system. At the sub-national scale, the nation-state is under pressure from nationalist, ethnic, and cultural secessionist movements, and has increasingly devolved certain powers to its regions. The ability of the state to cope with globalization-induced pressures by rescaling upward and downward some of its exclusive powers, even if the state loses some of these powers in this process, constitutes the mechanism by which the state succeeds not only in maintaining itself but also to retain its hegemony. Understanding this strategic mechanism is critical to making sense of the process of reterritorialization as a state-managed and dominated process. Consequently, an important task to be undertaken later in this chapter is to discuss some of the possible outcomes of state reterritorialization and to try to envisage what shape they will take at the transborder level.

2. Coming Full Circle? From Frontiers through Boundaries to Borderlands

2.1. Frontiers and Boundaries: The Traditional View

The 1990s witnessed a dramatic increase in the boundary studies literature, both across a broad range of academic disciplines, such as geography (Hakli and Kaplan 2002; Paasi 1996; 1999; Kolossov and O’Laughlin 1998; Newman and Paasi 1998; Newman 1999), international relations (Ruggie 1993; Yarbrough and Yarbrough 2003; Albert et al. 2001), anthropology (Pellow 1996; Wilson and Donan 1998; Donan and Wilson 1999; Conversi 1999; Michaelsen and Johnson 1997), political science (Anderson, M. 1996), sociology (Kearney 1991; O’Dowd and Wilson 1996), and history (Sahlins 1989; Martinez 1994), as well across interdisciplinary academic boundaries (Williams 2003; Buchanan and Moore 2003; Anderson, et al. 2002a, b; Eskelinen et al 2001; Shapiro and Alker 1996). However, in spite of the abundance and diversity of approaches in recent border studies, a unified theory of boundaries and bounding processes has failed yet to emerge (Anderson 2001; Newman 2003).

Given the enormous amount of literature on the subject, this section surveys the main trends and approaches in the interdisciplinary study of boundaries, with a focus on the developments taking place in political geography, where the emphasis on political boundaries is of major relevance in this research. Boundaries are instrumental in defining borderlands, and borderlands form transborder regions. Boundaries are sites where state transborder reterritorialization takes place. This unprecedented revitalization of interest in the study of boundaries can be attributed to challenges and changes unleashed by the contemporary round of globalization. At an empirical level, the creation of many new borders and the dismantling of some of the seemingly well-established ones since the early 1990s (especially in Europe) created an impetus to understand the continued appeal of the practice of making boundaries. At a theoretical level, a discrepancy began to take shape between the vision of a dynamic de-territorialized world of flows focused on mobility and exchange, replacing the static world of places focused on bounded territoriality on the one hand, and the reality of the selective role of boundaries, allowing flows of capital but stopping flows of labor, on the other hand (Anderson et al. 2002a). Given these circumstances, various lines of research in contemporary border studies show how understanding borders in the broader context of territoriality and of their role in the production and reproduction of territorial entities contributes to the understanding of the fact that borders are one key site where the contested world system is constituted (Anderson et al. 2002a). The concepts of frontiers and boundaries have a long history that can be traced back to antiquity, where the Roman limes marked the limits of the authority of the empire (Roman 1993; Bailly 1996). At that time, an area rather than a linear understanding of frontiers and boundaries was prevalent (Whittaker 1994). According to Sahlins (1989), the ancient conceptualization of boundaries did not carry a political connotation. There is still some uncertainty regarding the meaning of the terms frontier and boundary (or border) in antiquity. It is generally accepted though that the term “frontier” comes from “front”, which suggests contact, and an outward orientation, while the term “boundary” comes from “bounds”, which means territorial limits and separation, and suggests an inward orientation (Kristoff 1959). For most of history, state limits were constituted by frontiers, flexible areas of variable width where state authority faded away. The differentiation between frontiers and boundaries began around the fourteenth century in Europe and continued until the beginning of the

eighteenth century, when the concept of boundary as a line separating two different political entities gained even more importance due to the formation of nation-states (Sahlins 1989). Giddens (1987: 50-51) shows how the frontiers of the traditional state, mobile and permeable, were altered to become the linear borders of the nation-state that demarcate a state’s sovereignty. Further, Giddens contends that the nature of state territoriality itself became transformed in light of the new significance territorial demarcations acquired. Today, the most widely accepted definition of a “boundary” is that of dividing two territorial entities, or that of marking the limit of a territorial entity. Borders can thus be regarded as discontinuities in territory. At the same time, it is also true that a boundary serves to bring into contact economic, social and political systems. Combined, these properties result in a double meaning of borders, as separation lines as well as contact lines. Traditionally, the academic study of boundaries conceptualized borders as fixed and stable and this was the case across disciplinary lines (Conversi 1999). In geography, border studies have traditionally been a major subfield of political geography since borders were thought to mark the limits of political organization (Prescott 1987). Given political geography’s focus on the territorial state, boundaries, as expressions of the power of the territorial state, were understood as palpable political geographical phenomena (Minghi 1963). The concerted development of the state and of boundaries meant that common concepts were used for their theorization. Consequently, the earliest approaches to the study of boundaries owed much to the organic and environmentalist worldviews that were used in the conceptualization of the territorial state. At the turn of the twentieth century, the assumption of “natural boundaries” of the state dominated thinking about borders, with the implication that not all political boundaries were “correct” (Agnew 2002). According to Darwinist-informed Ratzelian political geography, the state was an organism and the border areas formed the epidermis of this organism that both provided protection and allowed exchanges (Murphy 1996; Prescott 1987). This was a dynamic understanding of borders as an expression and measure of state power (Giddens 1987). In Ratzel’s view, the political balance between countries was dependent on the character of the borders between them. His laws of territorial growth stated that the borders of the larger areas embrace the borders of the smaller ones. Although today Ratzel’s conceptualization of borders is

long obsolete, it is worth mentioning here in order to emphasize the actual importance border studies had in the social sciences. Much of the literature on boundaries was written during the two world wars or in their aftermath, and was concerned with the nature of boundaries as “good” or “bad” in military terms. Boundary studies were part of a search for causes of frictions between nations. Minghi (1963) categorized these studies as “utilitarian”. The main preoccupation in border studies in this period was the concern for various border classifications, ranging from the artificial vs. natural division of boundaries, to the functional classification of boundaries, to relating the border to the landscape it passes through (Prescott 1987). Typical was the analysis of boundaries at the international scale. Boundaries were understood above all as geographical limits of the nation- state, and the existence of the nation-state was taken for granted. To this, Anderson (2001) adds an ideographic preoccupation, since borders were considered unique phenomena. As a consequence, the traditional approaches to boundary studies were rich in empirical and morphologic studies, but not in economic and structural studies (Paasi 1996). Most of these approaches were descriptive and naturalist, given the desire to place boundaries along natural features and seeing state divisions as natural separations between people (Hakli and Kaplan, 2002). After World War II, there was a call for more attention to historical boundaries. The “geopolitical” (organicist) idea regarding boundaries was rejected as representing just a transitional expression of the power of adjacent countries. The most fruitful area of research was boundary change: before and after studies that illustrated how boundaries affected the organization of the same piece of territory (Minghi 1963). In addition, in this period, there were attempts to introduce quantitative approaches to the study of borders. For example, Ritter and Hajdu (discussed in Hakli and Kaplan, 2002) tried to provide an account of the influence of the border between West and East Germany through a statistical analysis that shows the decline in human links between the two states. Even as late as 1987, when Prescott published Political Frontiers and Boundaries, he cautions against the “danger of subjectivity” in border studies, and further writes that geographers’ interest in borderlands can only be understood through the analysis of statistics. In these circumstances, it became obvious that the traditional approaches and the resultant methodology produced findings that were in conflict with each other (Mingi 1963). It

35 seems that at that time there was more a concern with the measurement of borders than with critical questions about their nature and meaning. If border disputes existed, this was because the borders were not delineated well enough, and not because power relations existed between states and between different social groups. Agnew (2002) summarize the traditional essence of boundary making, showing how specific boundaries were justified in the name of “universal” principles of delimitation and no attention to context was paid. Ironically, eventually these “definite” boundaries were to create their own realities.

2.2. Borderlands and the Social Construction of Borders

In the late 1980s the social sciences became more sensitive to social theory and to poststructuralist theories of culture. As a consequence, in boundary studies the emphasis was now placed on the multidimensional character of diverging social, cultural, and spatial frontiers and boundaries, with the aim of contributing to the “ongoing debates in social science as to the meaning and societal role of difference, since by definition, borders both express and symbolize difference” (Bucken-Knapp at al. 2001: 229). At the same time, these approaches utilized social constructivist insights to explore how changing patterns of social interaction affect the role and the meaning of borders (Deleuse and Guattari 1977). The “political” turned out to be important in shaping the diverging role of boundaries and to highlight the political dimension that is inbuilt into various large-scale social practices as well as into the spatial practices of daily life of individuals (Paasi 1996). At the same time, there was an increasing awareness of the role of language in the social and political construction of the world. This, in turn, led to a revival of the boundary studies role as a means of interpreting these social constructions. This postmodern/poststructuralist turn found its way into boundary studies in the late 1980s and 1990s, inducing major breakthroughs in the conceptualization of borders. Perhaps the main insight was the conceptualization of the connection between collective identification and boundary drawing, which led to a view of boundaries as undetermined, mutable, and socially constructed (Paasi 1999; Pellow 1996, Williams 2003). Boundaries were considered now in their multidimensionality and were approached contextually (Paasi 1999). At the same time, there was a broader preoccupation with the ethic of making boundaries, with the process of bounding in general (Moore and Buchanan 2003; Newman 2003; Wilson 2003), that led to the idea that even invisible borders matter because they are perceived by subjects who experience and then enforce

and reproduce them (Conversi 1999: 580). Boundaries and borders were approached now not only in their spatially identifiable nature, but also in their symbolic, less tangible, meaning (Conversi 1999), which led to the understanding that boundaries mean different things for different people in different circumstances. One of the first approaches that reflected these new concepts was Rumley and Minghi’s (1991) attempt to overcome the problems of traditional approaches to border landscape studies, where geographical areas were identifiable by mapping visible cultural elements produced by unitary cultural groups. They moved away from the fixation with visible functions of the boundary to see border landscapes as a product of a set of cultural, economic, and political interactions that occur in space. They called for border studies to take more interest in the symbolic qualities of landscape, emphasizing the social meanings attributed to them in the form of actions and perceptions, and to stress the comparative approach that sees border landscapes and their problems from the viewpoint of contiguous states and their inhabitants. The interest in border landscapes contributed to the crystallization of the idea of borderlands and border regions in border studies. The concept of borderlands (or border regions) poses that a boundary, because of the role it plays, creates its own distinctive region, making an element of division also a vehicle of regional definition (Rumley and Mingi 1991). This phenomenon is known as the “border effect”. Therefore, in order to make sense of borders there is a need to go beyond the preoccupation with borders per se and to take into account broader areas (the borderlands) where social processes induced by borders, such as perceptions, stereotypes and actions, are experienced (Michaelsen and Johnson 1997; Bucken-Knapp et al. 2001; Newman 2003; Martinez 1994). Conceptualized this way, borderlands, or border regions, resemble more the frontiers of the pre nation-state era. The advantage of focusing on the changing nature of the human patterns of interaction in borderlands is that it may yield findings that can shed light on the workings of the political process at all levels between and within states (Rumley and Minghi 1991). Understanding such workings in the context of borderlands affects our ability to understand contemporary processes of reterritorialization. Today it is difficult to neatly categorize the multitude of approaches to the study of borders and borderlands that exist in the multidisciplinary field of border studies. However, in order to illustrate the variety and depth of these approaches, in the following section I sketch the main directions of border research that are of interest in understanding the contemporary changes

taking place in the international system of states. The four broad directions that I present here are by no means exhaustive or mutually exclusive. In fact, most of the themes are interrelated, and more often than not two or three themes can be identified in a single study. These themes are: 1. The discursive construction of boundaries and the relation between borders and cultural and political identity;

2. The links between boundaries and power;

3. Borders as institutions and their historicity;

4. Globalization and its economic, social, cultural and political impacts on society.

One of the most notable contributions by geographers to this literature is Anssi Paasi’s book Territories, Boundaries and Consciousness (1996), a sophisticated analysis of the role of boundaries in the construction of territories and in the representation of “others” seen through the lenses of nationalist discourse. Paasi combined two perspectives usually pursued separately in geographic research: a structural analysis of the construction of boundaries as part of the nation- building process, and an interpretive analysis of local and personal experience of this process. Paasi’s work (1996; 1999; 2002a, b; 2003a) closely mirrors most of the main contemporary directions in border and borderland studies as identified above. The key ideas Paasi brings into the study of boundaries and border regions are the social production of spaces and the changing representations of boundaries in varying social practices, and how these representations are linked in discursive practices with the social context in which they were produced and maintained (Paasi 1996). Boundaries are seen as discursively constructed and they are to be understood not as lines, but from a broader socio-culturally grounded perspective. Such approaches stress the production and reproduction of the idea of boundaries, and their symbolic meaning in various social practices. In this context, borders emerge as collective representations that can be regarded as texts and interpreted inter-textually (Paasi 1996). Boundaries are not mirror-like reflections of the shapes and the physical-cultural landscapes of territories and their boundaries, but are fabrications people made to reflect social relations that aim at signifying and legitimating distinctions between them (Paasi 1996; Kramsh 2002a). Consequently, the production of boundaries is a spatially and historically contingent process, and therefore the study of boundaries has to be contextual. Paasi (1999) suggests that the proper context for the study of boundaries is situated in fact not only in the adjacent

borderland areas but also in the continual process of nation building, the process that provides a narrative account for the identity of the community. The idea of the discursive creation of borders prepares the grounds for the conceptualization of the “’chicken and egg’ mutually enforcing relationship” (Newman 2003: 130) between territorial borders and identity, where borders are viewed as identity constitutive, yet at the same time they can be also erected as a result of discourse constituted identity. Drawing on Said’s (1978) conceptualization of the role of spatiality in the construction of Otherness, current literature on borders stresses that the social construction of territorial representations typically exploits the idea of “us/them” in the production and reproduction of territoriality and boundaries. Paasi (1996) establishes an analytic framework to explain how territorial identities take place in relation to certain social distinctions. He identifies four discourses: 1. We/here – used for integration within territorial units such as the nation-state; 2. We/there – intention to integrate social groups beyond borders, such as separated minorities, etc; 3. Distinction we/they within a territory – designates refugees and Others, in a territory; 4. Other/there – of key importance in construction of Otherness, pointing to socio-spatial distinctions between territorial groupings. These discourses show how identity is achieved through the inscription of boundaries. Collective identity is socially constructed by the construction of boundaries (Campbell 1998; Albert et al. 2001; Donan and Wilson 1999; Pellow 1996; Michaelsen and Johnson 1997; Wilson and Donan 1998). The implications for the further understanding of social phenomena, such as nationalism and ethnicity, for example, are paramount. Borders and border regions emerge as central sites for exploring the construction of various collective identities and of the way they influence and are influenced by their interactions with the constitutive elements of border regions (Bucken-Knapp at al. 2001). The second theme in border studies is the preoccupation with the links between boundaries and power. Boundaries are sites of power where different political, economic and social systems come into contact. Border landscapes with barbed wire, watchtowers and checkpoints are a very visible aspect of this power (Donan and Wilson 1999). However, not all

power is visible in border landscapes. Borders may be present in various cultural and social practices in which power is invisible (Paasi 1999). Borders may conceal power resulting from political or economical factors that belong to a multitude of scales beyond and below the national scale. The key question to ask in order to unearth boundary power is whose interests are being served by the imposition and maintaining of various borders (Bucken-Knapp et al. 2001). In contemporary border approaches, boundaries are understood as means of reifying power, which render visible power emerging from social and spatial relations (Paasi 1996: 28). They may be perceived as “flows of power” (Paasi 1999). Boundaries are expressions of power relations and they embody norms and regulations that make them constitutive of social action (Paasi 1999). Borders embody a variety of contradictions and conflicts that are the result of the arbitrary circumstances of state boundary making (Anderson et al. 2002a, b; Newman and Paasi 1998). As a result, understanding boundaries as sites of power helps us to understand the forces behind various social conflicts and this, in turn, helps us to better manage or prevent them. Another significant theme in border studies consists of exploring the institutional aspects boundaries embody and the historical becoming of borders as institutions. Underlining this approach is the idea that territorially delineated borders are only one facet, one stage, in the boundary making process. At the same time, borders are the institutional outcome of the boundary making process that shapes their surrounding regions (Bucken-Knapp et al. 2001). Paasi (1996) maintains that the construction of spatial boundaries is part of the construction of territorial units in space, and that through the institutionalization process territorial units receive their borders and symbols that distinguish them from other territories. Borders manifest themselves in institutions such as education, mass media, ceremonies, and others. National education in history and geography for example, produces the iconography of national boundaries (Paasi 1999). The institutional approach to boundaries stresses the multiple and changing meaning of boundaries in different historic and spatial circumstances. Borders are evolving institutions that acquire their meaning in relation to a host of events that may or may not originate locally, and that develop their own history. At one point in time state borders may be relatively open, such as before World War I, at another they may be relatively closed, such as during the Cold War, yet at another they may reopen again, such as seems to be the case (at least in part) after the end of the Cold War (Anderson 2001).

In addition, the institutionalization of borders brings about a certain multiscalar spatial hierarchy of borders. Different levels of government can be, and usually are, present in border areas, imposing different jurisdictions on the inhabitants of borderlands. Newman (2003) points out how while attention is paid out in general predominantly to the all too visible international borders, the regional and local boundaries, such as administrative or municipal borders, although less visible and more perceived, may often have a key importance in the lives many of people. According to Paasi (1999: 80):

“Boundaries are both symbols and institutions that simultaneously produce distinctions between social groups and are produced by them. As symbols, boundaries are mediums of social control and construction of identities. As institutions they link the past, present and future, => they construct continuity for social interaction”.

The last direction of analysis in boundary studies presented in this section seeks to determine the role of borders as barriers affecting the potentially free flow of various economic transactions (Hakli and Kaplan 2002). This approach resonated in arguments for and against globalization and also raised the question of the future role of the state as a political organization in face of growing power of transnational economy and global cultural influences (Newman 2003). Much of the globalization literature tends to view borders as relics from the past marked by features such as the nation-state, industrialization, and control of national economies (Hakli and Kaplan 2002). Consequently, globalization is understood as leading to deterritorialization of the territorial system of states and boundaries as fading dimensions in socio-spatial transformation rather than fixed lines (Newman 1999). However, others contend that the more spatial barriers disintegrate, the more the world’s population clings to place, nation, and religion as markers of identity, because of the reduction in power of spatial barriers to separate and defend against others (Harvey 1989). According to Anderson et al. (2002b), if the “space of flows” is replacing the “space of places” this would imply the apparition of a global state and an end to territoriality as a mode of control; neither of them seems plausible in the foreseeable future. In reality, both spaces have coexisted for a long time without one totally replacing the other. Boundaries exist simultaneously on various spatial scales, in a myriad of practices and discourses included in culture, politics, economics, or education. If some of these discourses de-emphasize borders, this does not mean inevitably the disappearance of boundaries (Newman 1999; Brunn 1999). Instead, Anderson (2001) suggests

that we are witnessing a selective lowering of the role of state borders rather than their disappearance. Dalby (1998: 147) contends that while “postmodernism suggests the decline of the importance of state boundaries, the celebration of difference also suggests the contemporary political importance of cultural distinctions and identities”. Anderson (2001) focuses on the distinction between politics/economics, and private/public whose separation/integration constitutes a contradictory unity specific to capitalism, and makes this central to a Marxist understanding of the links between borders and globalization. This disjuncture impinges directly on border regions. The key argument here is that while political control most often stops at national borders, the “non-political” economic activities easily cross borders and escape democratic control. The politic/economic separation explains why global markets coexist with a multiplicity of states. For Anderson (2001), this provides the best shell in which capitalism functions and signals that state borders are here to stay. In a global world, borders create problems and borders are required to fix them. State borders are becoming more complex and differentiated rather than withering away. Borders are pivotal to the process of globalization since “they are where the “space of flows” meet (or collide?) with the space of places” (Anderson et al. 2002b: 10).

Anderson (2001) and Newman (2003) both call for a new theory of boundaries and bounding processes. Their suggestions that such a theory can incorporate notions such as the ones mentioned here in the four main border research trends, is answered by Hakli and Kaplan (2002) and echoed by Bucken-Knapp et al. (2001), who consider that we need an approach to boundaries and borderlands from the perspective of locality, that is, showing how boundaries are revealed in particular contexts and locations, and how borders produce and are themselves products. This view justifies a variety of perspectives on borderlands since they seek answers to questions that stem from very different backgrounds and purposes. However, most authors agree that although every boundary and border region is unique, there are themes that cut across individual borders that can be theorized on more general levels.

Contemporary border studies, drawing on critical social theory, contribute to the understanding of complex issues concerning the reterritorialization of our social life. In contrast with the previous understanding of borders as physical lines of demarcation, scholars now focus predominantly on the role of borders as social and cultural demarcations across a variety of spatial scales, ranging from the individual to the global. Borders and border regions, because of

their double meaning of separation and contact, are central sites where social life is produced and reproduced. They are worth studying because, be they spatial or symbolic, they are “a central constitutive element of our contradictory world system” (Anderson et al. 2002b: 7), that could shed light on the innermost workings of human society.

3. Regions, Regionalism, and Transborder Regions

3.1. Regions

Since the late 1980’s the study of regions and of regionalism has enjoyed renewed attention in the social sciences (Thrift 1983, 1990, 1991, 1993; MacLeod and Jones 2001; Storper 1995, 1997; Keating 1995; 1997, 1998a; Paasi 1996, 2002a, b, 2003a; Gamble and Paine 1996; Fawcett and Hurrell 1995). The reasons behind this revitalization are similar to the ones responsible for the interest in border studies – namely social changes and challenges introduced by globalization. In the context of increased economic and cultural flows across international borders, one way the devolution of nation-state powers to the supra and sub-national scales materializes is in the emergence of new supra or sub-national regional projects and in the “rediscovering” of the role of existing regions as spaces for social life (Joffe 2001). The significance of the study of regions and regionalism in the context of contemporary globalization resides in the fact that it can provide clues to understand the possible directions and forms that political territoriality may take in the future, and thus contributes to the understanding of the processes of state reterritorialization. Regions are territorial entities where social life unfolds. Their precise definition is elusive and contextual, varying according to the criteria used for classifying patterns of human interaction (Schulz et al. 2001). In the context of scale there is some confusion between large- scale regions that could reach continental size, and small-scale regions that can be as small as a metropolitan area, as to what is the “appropriate” size for a region. In general, in the modern era the most common spatial frame of reference was that of the nation-state. While regions come in all sizes, when compared to the scale of the nation-state, regions are often categorized as supranational and sub-national. In geographical research, the concept of region has been most frequently used to designate a territorial unit smaller than the state (MacLeod and Jones 2001).

This is also the sense in which the term region is used throughout this research. Nevertheless, this choice does not imply that there is a deep conceptual differentiation between supra and sub- national regions since in reality they are mutually reinforcing, one engendering the conditions for the production of the other. The academic preoccupation with regions is not a new phenomenon. In geography, the study of regions has a long history that can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth century (MacLeod and Jones 2001). The concept of region has been, and continues to be, one of the major categories in human geography. However, in the meantime the conceptualization of regions changed. Initially, regions were seen as frameworks for collecting data, and as neutral backgrounds for classifying and analyzing empirical phenomena (Paasi 2002b). During the interwar period regions come to be seen as objects and “building blocks” of geographical inquiry (Johnston et al. 2000). This view contributed to the naturalization of the concept of region, transforming it into a “logical” and taken for granted spatial division of social life. Perhaps one of the most representative works of regional geography in this period is Vidal de la Blache’s (1903 [1979]; 1918 [1926]) conceptualization of the “essential unity” of a region. Examining a series of regions in Eastern France (which at the time were disputed with Germany – thus note the nationalist underpinning), Vidal de la Blache found an intimate, almost metaphysical (transcendental), connection between the inhabitants of a region, their culture, and the landscape of the region. Local cultures, together with their connections to other places in the French nation, intimately impressed themselves in the local landscapes to produce the unique identity of a region (Johnston et al 2000). Although this view can be seen as more progressive when compared to the previous approaches, the problem with such conceptualization of regions resides in the fact that it depicts the region as a stage where social relations are played out and obscures the fact that regions are themselves an integral part of these relations (Murphy 1996). In addition to this, the intimate unity of regional processes translated into an idiographic and nomotheic preoccupation in regional geography with the uniqueness of regions that discouraged the use of insights gained from the study of particular regions to be used to theorize broader processes of region formation. After World War II, the quantitative revolution permeated regional geography and transformed it along the lines of spatial science and location analysis to search for laws of spatial behavior. Regions were now studied predominantly for their functional aspect, often divorced of

their natural environment, in order to find laws to plan and predict spatial human behavior in society (MacLeod and Jones 2001). During the 1970s, dissatisfaction with the lack of the explanatory power of previous approaches prompted several geographers to call for a re-conceptualization of the spatial processes of region formation and variation (Pudup 1988). These calls, according to MacLeod and Jones (2001), resulted in a variety of alternative approaches to the study of regions, grounded on the one side in a Marxist inspired understanding of regions as embedded within historic-geographical processes of capital accumulation (Harvey 1969; Massey 1984), and on the other side in humanistic inspired approaches concerned with more intimate qualities of place such as personal experiences and meanings, or emotional attachment to the surrounding environment (Tuan 1977). As such, the debates in social sciences at that time between the primacy of social structure or of human agency as the movers of social life resonated in regional geography in views of regions as outcomes of broader structural social processes or as outcomes of the actions of the daily lives of inhabitants. Yet, according to Paasi (2002b) a critical regional geography should ideally combine politico-economic approaches and questions of identity formation. However, in spite of the diverse ideological origins of the these new conceptualizations, several common themes run through them, including the rejection of the uncritical acceptance of regions as natural stages for social life and the understanding of regions as socially constructed. These theoretical developments heralded the emergence, in the 1980s and 1990s, of the “new regional geography” that advocated for the critical understanding of the processes of region formation (Gilbert 1988). Thrift’s (1983) calls for a new regional geography were initially rooted into a structurationist view of regions as “the ‘actively passive’…meeting place of social structure and human agency” (1983: 38). This view led Thrift (1983: 38) to affirm that “a region is lived through, not in”, implying that far from being simple containers of social life, regions are both sources and outcomes of spatial social relations, and that they develop from the continuous and mutually reinforcing interaction of the inhabitants of a territory with the institutions that are present in that territory. Thrift’s subsequent attempts (1990; 1991; 1993) to establish the bases of a renewed regional geography explicitly placed the subject at the center of the new regional geography, and emphasized the need for more spiritually (affectively) sensitive accounts of regional processes that could lead the way toward a non-representative regional geography.

MacLeod and Jones (2001: 676) tried to further the theorization of regions, arguing for an understanding of regions as “lived through as well as in”, pointing towards a post-disciplinary “geography of regions” approach where “we do not need regional geography but we do need regions in geography” (Johnston 1991: 67). Current efforts to theorize regions are grounded in the belief that the production and reproduction of regions is part of a broader network of political, economic and cultural processes of production of space (Paasi 2002b). In these circumstances, the understanding of processes of region formation and differentiation became a nexus between the acknowledgement of the historically contingent nature of regions; an awareness of the discursive construction of the identity of regions and of power relations embedded in these identity discourses; the recognition that once a region is defined by surrounding it with borders, it will subsequently affect the unfolding of social life inside the erected confines; and an awareness that processes of region formation may be located outside the region, in a multi-scalar web of political and economic spatial relationships. The socially constructed nature of regions as territorial entities is created by multi-scalar actors through the production of a variety of historically contingent social practices and discourses, as well as material practices, in order to give meaning to bounded material or symbolic territories (Paasi 2002b: 804). In a non-representational sense, regions are to be understood as transient, porous, and hybrid agglomerations of people, objects, and institutions that are the product of complex networks of social relations (Johnston et al. 2000). Such concerns regarding the understanding of the formation of regions are best revealed in Paasi’s (1986; 1991; 1996) work. Paasi uses a geo-historical approach to unravel the material and imaginative emergence of regions by identifying four mutually constituting instances that are constitutive of what he calls the institutionalization of regions:

“a socio-spatial process during which some territorial unit emerges as a part of the spatial structure of a society and becomes established and clearly identified in different spheres of social action and social consciousness” (Paasi 1986: 121).

The first stage in Paasi’s (1986; 1996) deconstruction of the institutionalization of regions consists in the assumption of territorial awareness and shape. This is the stage in which spatial social relations crystallize in some sort of territorial shape and the region becomes identifiable as a distinct spatial entity. The second stage consists in the formation of the conceptual or symbolic

shape. This is the stage in which power-holding actors strive to assign a certain meaning to a territory through a plethora of social practices, ranging from the very naming of the region to the production of representations such as flags, songs, and monuments, in an attempt to define social membership in the region. In the third stage we witness the emergence of institutions, such as local political parties, schools, local media, local sport clubs, and others. These institutions serve as mediums of reproduction of the identity of a region. The fourth stage of this process consists in the establishment of the region in the larger system of territories and in public consciousness. The institutionalization of regions exemplifies how regions are the product of a myriad of power relations and practices that manifest themselves in various social practices to produce a common territorial identity. Through the process of institutionalization, territories acquire their boundaries and their meanings that distinguish them from other territories (Paasi 1996). Regions do not exist within rigid, atemporal and neatly delineated geographical or symbolic boundaries, but are often overlapping and their existence and shape is highly historically, politically, and economically contingent. The process of contemporary transborder reterritorialization can be understood in terms of institutionalizing regions across national boundaries.

3.2. Regionalism

Geographers’ concerns regarding the processes of region formation is paralleled in other social sciences, such as political science and economics, by the discourse of the “new regionalism”. The processes of emergence and the strengthening of the role of regions as settings for the organization of social life is often called regionalism (Schulz et al. 2001a). Regionalism is generally perceived as a political phenomenon, where local and/or non-local political actors try to mobilize regional features for a variety of endeavors. The contemporary world political and economical realities seem to be better expressed in terms of regionalism, as attributes traditionally associated to nation-states seem increasingly to be expressed through regional constructs in which states are now embedded. Regionalism has become a prominent feature of the international system and it may become the preferred medium through which globalization is mediated in a postmodern world (Joffe 2001; Schulz et al. 2001a). In this context of heightened awareness of the importance of the region for the political and economic organization of contemporary society, previous Cold War era conceptualizations of regionalism as a strategy for achieving security and prosperity were one-dimensional and

narrow, and failed to adequately explain processes of regionalization (Schulz et al 2001a). Keating (1995; 1998) characterizes this type of regionalism prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s as a top-down enterprise where the nation-state introduced various regional development policies in an attempt to improve the economic and political management of the national territory by exploiting under-utilized resources in peripheral regions and enhancing national cohesion by securing support for the state regime from peripheral regions (Keating 1995: 2). Since the late 1980s a new type of regionalist politics can be identified; one that emerged from the tensions between the previous forms of state-driven regional policies and the needs and objectives of local society in the context of globalization. The “new regionalism” is customarily described as a bottom-up regionalism that emerges from local actors “in the form of regional political and economic mobilization” (Keating 1995: 2). This “new regionalism” advocates for a constructivist understanding of regionalism as a multifaceted, modernizing, and forward looking phenomenon that engages state as well as non-state actors, and covers economic, cultural, political aspects (Schulz et al. 2001a). From this perspective, globalization and regionalism are understood as symbiotic and mutually constitutive as global processes materialize in regional issues and vice versa. Most often, the new regionalist agenda is couched in terms of economic restructuring, emphasizing the significance of the so-called “soft assets” of regions, such as regional social networks and production systems, local environment, regional cultural assets, regional knowledge, and others, “in the development of globally competitive regional economies” (Painter 2002: 104). In early 1980’s it was asserted that the region might be a basis for economic and social life “after mass production” because new forms of production were emerging in some regions but not in others (Storper 1997). The subnational region (including the transborder region) was increasingly regarded as a level of economic policy making for this reason and not only as a way to address domestic political issues emerging from peripheral regions, as it was traditionally the case with regionalist policies (Storper 1997). The “secret” behind the economic success of some regions, from Silicon Valley to Emilia-Romagna, seemed to lie in the “soft” specificities of the regions. In this view, the international competitiveness of the firms that are the “doers” of globalization is rooted in their home base that they for resources, for market strategies, and for related industries (Jonsson et al.

2000). The regional scale seems most appropriate to fulfill those conditions since nation-states are so large that they obscure important aspects of economic landscapes. In these circumstances, Storper (1997) contends that the region emerges as the locus of “untraded interdependencies” – the region-specific assets in production. The key idea is that in a world of flows regional features become competitive advantages and therefore regional organizations are emerging as international actors not only economically but also politically. The challenge for regionalist policy now seems to consist in finding mechanisms through which to replicate in other areas the success of the wealthiest regions (Painter 2002). The relationship between transborder regions and the new regionalist agenda lies in the fact that transborder regions are seen as possible sites of capitalist accumulation if the barrier function of the border is removed. However, Keating (1998) points out that one of the most consequential features of the new regionalism consists in pitting regions against each other in competition for global investments, thus generating new patterns of spatial inequality. In this context, it is important to mention that the most successful regions today are wealthy regions, a fact that has prompted some to call this economic inspired regionalism as “bourgeois regionalism” (Harvie 1994; Keating 1997). From a more political perspective, contemporary regionalism can sometimes take separatist aspects, making use of regional identity as a base for demanding political independence that could lead to the break-up existing nation-states, and/or could represent a constitutive element of localized resistance to globalization. Confronted with such issues, nation- states often choose to resist bottom-up regionalization and to marginalize overtly politically assertive regions. These realities lead some authors to believe that while regionalization may be an answer to globalization, the regions are not alternatives to nation-states, but seem to be better understood as instruments to complement the power of states in an interconnected world (Schulz et al. 2001a; Le Gales 1998) As Veggeland (2001: 140) puts it, “neo-regionalism means the emergence of national competitiveness by empowered regions”. Acknowledging the pervasiveness of the regionalization process in the conditions of increased globalization, social scientists became preoccupied with issues of regional governance (Le Gales and Lequesne 1998; Bukowski et al. 2003). As regions became increasingly important as a level of government (Keating 1995), understanding their capacities as institutions of governance has come to be of central importance in making sense of the regionalization process.

The common belief is that new institutions of governance are required to manage the emerging regionalization processes (Telo 2001a; Schulz et al. 2001a). These views are informative of the “new institutionalism” approach in social sciences in general and in political science in particular. It is important to mention here the differences between Paasi’s “institutionalization of regions” and “new institutionalism” approaches. While the former deals with the broad processes of region formation, the latter is concerned with the region as “an institutional system either in the form of a regional government or as a set of institutions operating in a territory” (Keating 1997: 383). Institutions are an integral part of processes of government and governance. As opposed to regional government, which can be considered a hierarchical administrative structure, regional governance at a territorial level implies the rather transversal capacity of regions to formulate, implement, and coordinate policies (including collaborating with the state) that could integrate and mold local interests (Le Gales 1998; Keating 1997). Le Gales (1998: 243) defines governance as:

“…a process of co-ordination of public and private actors, social groups and institutions in order to attain clear aims which are debated and defined collectively in uncertain and fragmented environments”.

The presence of these governance capacities in regions can transform them into meaningful political actors. In this context, regional governance takes place through institutions that are able to articulate regional networks of interests. Bukowski et al. (2003: 1) consider institutions as political or social rule structures, and contend that institutional structures are best understood as the accumulated product of political choices made by individuals over time. The new institutionalism takes into analysis not only the formal institutions of the state but also the informal patterns of political organization. One line of argumentation in new institutionalism, represented by Putnam (1993), starts from the premise that the history and the context of social action shape institutions (Bukowski et al. 2003: 6). The implication of this view is that, in the absence of strong historical traditions, there is little governments can do to improve the wellbeing of regions. Another line of argument maintains that social action is determined by institutions and that the patterns of action so created are self- reinforcing (Bukowski et al. 2003). These divergent views reflect the agency-structure debate in

the social sciences: are the institutions determining action in space, or are the regional actors that determine institutions? New institutionalism seems to have surpassed this dialectic through a sort of structuration-based approach in which more attention is paid to routines, norms, and emotions in shaping policies, and in which most authors acknowledge that there is a circular relationship between actors and institutions; actors have available a range of choices for social action that are engendered by the institutions they are embedded in, and at the same time institutions can affect the interests and strategies of actors (Perkmann 1999: 661). In this context, there are actions that governments can take to affect positive change in their regions, and the fate of their regions is not sealed by their history (Bukowski et al. 2003). A more dynamic approach to the understanding of regionalism and governance consists in considering the “institutional thickness” of a region (Amin and Thrift 1994 in Keating 1997) that reflects the density of formal and informal regional institutionalization embedded in local social networks and strong regional identity. This could allow for a better appreciation of the degree of institutionalization of a region and of its capacity to affect social life in the larger constellation of territories. Institutions are important in the understanding of reterritorialization processes because they have the capacity to shape patterns of spatial social action. Territorial government and governance provide a bond between institutions and territories. Institutions are means of governing and governance of territories, and therefore means of establishing, organizing, maintaining, and exerting authority over territories.

3.3. Transborder Regions

Some of the most interesting evidence of regionalization induced state reterritorialization is coming from the perspective of borderlands (border regions). The nation-state based global territorial system, with its characteristic centralization of power in core regions and capital cities, often relegates borderlands to a subordinate status, in which they are traditionally perceived by central governments as peripheral areas (Perez 1996; Jonsson et al. 2000; Murphy 1993). In this context, in the Westphalian system borderlands were often marginalized, nation-states’ policies and development strategies regarding their border regions being less sensitive to the interests of

51 borderland inhabitants, especially in situations where relations with neighbor states were tense, or where politically assertive ethnic minorities inhabited borderlands. Yet, in spite of these circumstances, regions can exist across state borders too. On the one hand, social processes constitutive of regions historically exist irrespective of state borders. While it is true that the emergence of the territorial system of nation-states with their rigid linear management of borders critically affected previously existing regions in a number of ways, this situation did not totally obliterate the existence of these regions. In most cases where strong regional social cohesiveness and identity and/or developed regional institutions preceded the establishment of state borders, a sense of shared similarities and interests remained in the memory of borderland inhabitants, even if this was predominantly in the form of shared myths and symbols. On the other hand, the very imposition of the nation-state borders generated the emergence of new transborder regional social relationships, often based on the differences borders induced in the local environment (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999). Regardless of their genesis, it is important to understand that regional processes that lead to region formation can take place both in spite of and because of the existence of national borders. These processes are often known today as cross-border or transborder regionalization. Conversely, the resulting regions are called cross-border, transfrontier, or transborder regions. In this research, the terms transborder regionalism and transborder regions will be preferred to other terms. Transborder cooperation is not an entirely new phenomenon. Various forms of transborder cooperation existed historically in the system of territorial national states, as implied for example by the term “international”. However, this was primarily the competence of national governments, and it may be better captured by the term “intergovernmental cooperation”. The current meaning of transborder cooperation is significantly different than this former understanding. A series of changes intervened in the Westphalian territorial system during the last decades, such as the building of continental-size supranational institutions, the end of the Cold War and its worldwide repercussions, and the acceleration of global economic transactions (Jonsson et al. 2000; Perkmann and Sum 2002), that significantly changed the nature of transborder cooperation by acutely amplifying the need to collaborate across borders. This led to the opening up of processes of transborder regionalism. While these changes are perhaps most dramatic in Europe today, they are by no means limited to that continent. In fact, transborder

regionalization processes can be seen in various contexts across the world, as this section will reveal. Transborder regionalism can be defined as a process of spatially integrated political, economic, and cultural cooperation among adjacent local and regional authorities across state borders that attempts to create or re-create a feeling of cohesiveness and interdependence that transcends national borders (Scott 1999c; Perkmann 2003). According to Scott (1999c:1), transborder regionalism is “a process of co-ordinating action between communities of interest within changing global economic and political contexts”. Moreover, transborder regionalism is “more than mere interaction at the border, but is defined by a process of institution-building, agenda setting and strategy definition within specific regional contexts” (Scott 2002b: 205). Perkmann (2003: 156) offers a systematic account of transborder cooperation as characterized by several features. First, it displays strong public agency of subnational authorities in various countries that are usually not subjects of international law, and therefore are lacking the right to conclude international treaties with their counterparts in foreign countries. In these circumstances, transborder cooperation often involves informal or “quasi-juridical” arrangements among the participating authorities. Second, transborder cooperation is concerned primarily with “practical problem-solving” in various spheres of everyday life. Third, it requires some degree of “stabilization” of transborder interaction over time. Based on these characteristics, transborder cooperation is often regarded as a case of “paradiplomacy” (Duchaceck 1986), where local and regional governments develop and maintain contacts bypassing central governments. Nonetheless, transborder regionalism is the outcome of a host of processes of institution building across state borders that often display strong involvement of non-local actors. While some authors correctly stress the horizontal (borderland authorities to borderland authorities) dimension of transborder cooperation (Jonsson et al 2000), it seems that a more accurate image of this phenomenon is in fact fuzzier than the cliché of local authorities taking advantage of the central governments limitations and filling the governance gap by taking over their tasks at the local transborder level. A more fine tuned characterization has to take into account the vertical dimension too, that involves institutional actors implied in transborder cooperation that range from the supranational, to the national, to the municipal scales. In these circumstances, transborder cooperation institutions can be better understood as transnational multi-level policy networks

that do not have precise and consistent objectives, but they rather function on a problem-specific blueprint and with little involvement of the private sector in general (Perkmann 1999). Therefore, the outcomes of transborder cooperation throughout the world are highly contingent on the institutional contexts in which they operate, and they can range from isolated contacts across borders to complex forms of integrated regionalism (Scott 1999a). According to Perkmann (1999: 665), transborder cooperation is “a process of institution building involving a complex network of networks that simultaneously constrains and empowers participating actors”. Along the same lines, Scott (1999c) develops a theoretical framework to further our understanding of transborder regionalism. In his interpretation, both formal and informal institutional contexts provide opportunities and limitations for transborder cooperation. As institutions provide norms and rules that form the overarching cooperation regime for transborder actors, they are also slowly influenced by the changes that are taking place at the global level, as well as by the cooperation routines and conventions developed among local actors in the framework provided by their respective cooperation regime. The result is a gradual process of institutional change where the activities of transnational actors that develop new cooperation realms gradually influence the supranational and national institutional transborder cooperation regimes. Transborder regionalism attempts to create new spatial contexts for social action (Scott 1999c). There are several types of transborder cooperation regimes, some more institutionalized than others, among which perhaps the oldest and most known are intergovernmental commissions. However, during the last three decades, and in particular since the 1990s, chief among the consequences of institutionalization of transborder cooperation is the creation of transborder regions. Transborder regions are the main focus of this research since they constitute one of the most interesting and illuminating examples of territorial rearrangement in the Westphalian state system. Transborder regions are at the forefront of the globalization-induced process of state reterritorialization, constituting perhaps one of the most visible forms of state reterritorialization. Their significance for state reterritorialization consists in the fact that their emergence questions the very foundations of the traditional nation-state – total territorial sovereignty delineated by boundaries. Transborder regions (also known as Euroregions in Europe) are territorially delineated regions situated on both sides of a state border, where planning is done irrespective of state

borders to the benefit of the civil society (Murphy 1993; Foucher 1991). A unitary theory of transborder reterritorialization has not yet been produced. At the heart of the attempts to theorize transborder regions is a sense that we are witnessing a changing meaning of space. The overwhelming majority of work in this field consists of empirical case studies. Most of the contributions to the theoretical understanding of transborder regions are in fact very new, dating from the late 1990s. Given the newness of the field, it is futile to differentiate now between past and current approaches in the study of transborder regions. Instead, it seems more insightful to look into various trends of research in this field. In general, research on transborder regions draws on the larger interdisciplinary field of border studies that since the 1990s has experienced a poststructuralist turn that induced major breakthroughs in the conceptualization of borders and border regions (Hakli and Kaplan 2002). The literature on Euroregions relies on these poststructural theoretical developments to conceptualize issues of transborder reterritorialization. In political geography, the engagement with the phenomena of transborder regionalism is credited for the shift in focus from the study of physical borders to the concern with social interaction within unstable spatial configurations, and for the integration of issue-specific research on border regions, such as functional or cultural aspects of borders, to a more multilevel, multi-issue approach focused primarily on the regional concerns and on geopolitical strategies of nation-states (Scott 1999c). In anthropology, ethnographic methods are used to examine how borders are involved in the identity formation of social groups and how borders are negotiated and shaped by social routines and discourses (Perkmann and Sum 2002). However, both political geography and anthropological approaches share the understanding of transborder regions as socially constructed spaces. Economically-inspired studies of transborder regions are concerned for the most part with functional aspects, such as the effect of borders on economic transactions, where borders are perceived as barriers to trade that raise the transaction costs of transborder cooperation, leading to economic peripheralization of borderlands (Perkmann and Sum 2002). In these circumstances, transborder regions become spaces where economic actors take advantage of the differences induced by the presence of borders. However, with the global tendency to open up borders, the focus on the economics of borders shifted to understanding the processes that are taking place when the barrier or filter effect of borders become less relevant to economic transactions, yet a

55 situation of economic growth based on exploiting commonalities fails to materialize (due to the institutional embeddedness of the economy) as predicted by neoclassical location models (Perkmann and Sum 2002). Numerous authors recognize that given the complexity and contingency of phenomena at work in transborder regionalization, there is a need to integrate disciplinary approaches in an interdisciplinary or post-disciplinary reasoning in order to better understand transborder regions. Such a stance implies the use of diverse research procedures derived from discourse analysis, identity formation, the new regional geography, new regionalism and institutionalism, political economy, political governance, critical geopolitics, and others, in order to explore the power processes that contribute to the creation of new spaces for social action across the borders of nation-states. A more limited and bureaucratic understanding of transborder regions, such as the one official institutions often adopt (yet this is not limited to official institutions by any means), is characterized by a rather deterministic and naturalistic approach that can be traced back to the concept of “functional regions” of the spatial science. Perkmann (2003: 156), points to formal definitions put forward by the Council of Europe, where transborder regions are understood as territorial units that have to be characterized by homogenous features and functional interdependencies. They are seen as potential regions that are inherent in geography, history, economic potential, etc, but they have been disrupted by the imposition of the nation-state borders. While there is no doubt that there are many situations where national borders disrupted previously well-individualized regions, this conceptualization naturalizes transborder regions as phenomena that exist independent of social action and are just waiting to be (re)discovered. Part of the explanation for this understanding is attributed by Perkmann to the aims and the role of some formal institutions (especially in Europe) as spatial planning agencies that manage the implementation of development policies. A functionalist understanding of transborder regions as apriori existing units with a common identity fails to ground the emergence of transborder regions in social action, and is of little use in explaining regions that emerge from the informal and spontaneous interactions among borderland communities (Perkmann 2003). According to Anderson and O’Dowd (1999: 595), transborder regions can be understood as territorial units for which “regional unity may derive from the use of the border to exploit, legally and illegally, funding opportunities or

56 differentials in wages, prices and institutional norms on either side of the border”. In these circumstances, transborder regions should not be “understood only as a functional space, but as a socio-territorial unit equipped with a certain degree of strategic capacity on the basis of certain organizational arrangements” (Perkmann 2003: 157). They should not be taken for granted, but understood as social constructions. In this conceptualization, Perkmann contends that it is less important if transborder regions are built on some sort of commonalities, such as ethnic identity, economic interdependencies, etc, but that it is the process of construction itself that is of relevance to the understanding of their contingent nature. Supporting this idea, Leresche and Saez (2002) observe that a common identity is not a prerequisite for transborder cooperation, nor the absence of a common identity prevents border regions to cooperate. Yet, Perkmann (2003) remarks that the discursive aspect of transborder regions is usually dominated by all sorts of commonalities, either imagined or not. Several changes at the global scale, such as globalization, regionalization, and the end of the Cold War, and not specific functional necessities within certain borderlands, are usually credited for stimulating the emergence of transborder regions (Blatter 2003). Perkmann and Sum (2002: 4) show how these general trends have modified opportunity structures for the development of transborder regions in several ways. For example, the increased permeability of borders opened up the space for more or less durable transnational configurations through trade networks, various forms of public association, social interactions and so on; the upward and downward devolution of state powers had narrowed the key position of states as primary power containers for public governance; and the dismantling of ideological curtains has enabled various strategies to exploit opportunities in borderland territories considered less affected by capitalism. From a political economy approach, the emergence of transborder regions can be understood as a new form of capitalist uneven development, as suggested by Kramsch (2002a). Sparke (2002a: 205) points out how this view has developed from accounts of the production of space according to which “the territorial organization of capitalism is constantly being rescaled” as various spatial fixes of capitalist accumulation are brought into crisis. He warns against an uncritical embracing of this standpoint as most of the evidence from Europe shows that transborder regions are “hardly the most important sites in which globalised capitalism is currently seeking its spatial fix through the subsumption of new ‘outsiders’” (Sparke 2002a: 206). In another work, using insights from the case of Cascadia, Sparke (1998b: 2) shows how

transborder region building can be seen as an illustration of instances of neo-liberal “glocalization”, where “the nation-state transcending effects of globalization” meet “the local integration effect of regionalized economic networks”. The outcome, Sparke (2002b) fears, can lead to the entrenchment of the neo-liberal “race to the bottom” systems of production (low taxes, environmental standards, wages, etc) in transborder spaces. Examining numerous approaches on transborder regions, Perkmann and Sum (2002) found three major broad themes that guide the academic thrust to understand these phenomena. First, there is the process of rescaling and scalar articulation that leads to a spatial reconfiguration of social processes and governance institutions. The gist of the argument is the understanding that the national scale is only one possible scale for the organization of social life, and that the supranational, subnational or regional-transnational scales are valid frameworks as well for the organization of social life. Furthermore, for a more accurate understanding of human society it is imperative to take into consideration the interactions among these scales since social relations and their outcomes are rarely confined to only one scale. Transborder regions are to be located here, within these inter and multi-scalar complexes. A bifurcated meaning of scale emerges in a more detailed examination of the transborder regionalization literature. On the one hand, there is the understanding of scale as a spatial range of certain phenomena, such as commodity flows, where the global level of analysis is often preferred. On the other hand, scale is understood in terms of territorially bounded spaces that constitute objects of governance. In the former case, we are dealing with a rescaling of certain processes, while in the latter we are dealing with a rescaling of territorial units, that can be also called “de- and re-territorialization or de- and re-bordering” (Perkmann and Sum 2002: 11). Both of these scale understandings are significant to the emergence of transborder regions as the rescaling of various processes, such as global regimes of governance, can induce changes in transborder social relations that could lead to the rescaling of territorial units. A second major theme in the study of transborder regions is constituted by mobilizing discourses and identity. The process of rescaling creates opportunities for new spatial discourses, such as bridgeheads, corridors, growth triangles, and so on, that aim to anchor transborder cooperation into the local-global paradigm. The symbolism of these discourses, used by a variety of actors at multiple scales, employs imagined, potential, or actual commonalities existing in border regions, from ethnic identity, to economic complementarities, to environmental concerns,

in order to generate support for social action at the new spatial scales envisaged, such as transborder regions. The third sphere of investigation consists in the building of transborder governance institutions. Traditional national systems of government provide limited capacities for transborder governance, given their mutually exclusive territorial nature. Regions that straddle state borders expose the limitations of such systems. Transborder regions rarely, if ever, have a formal juridical/legal or political status, therefore they do not have their own governing system, and they are not entirely subordinated to any national administrative apparatus. In these circumstances, Perkmann and Sum (2002: 15) contend that transborder regions are “not governed in a conventional, territorial sense”, but they “are often governed through partial and irregular structures that often operate in a network-like manner. This lack of representative (elected) governance institutions raises the issue of a deficit of political and social rights and duties in these spaces (Kramsh 2001: O’Dowd 2002a). The building of new governance institutions offers an opportunity to cope with these issues. Perkmann and Sum (2002) identify two main scalar models of governance. At the micro scale, the emergence of transborder regions relies on the development of social and economic interaction networks. At the meso scale, transborder governance can involve public-private strategic partnerships that share certain interests in creating transborder spaces. Transborder regions where this latter type of partnership is well developed have the possibility to be governed in ways that resemble subnational units or states. In this case, transborder regions “appear to reproduce the ‘territorial form’ by establishing public or para-public governing bodies and pursuing strategies targeted at a specific territory and its population” (Perkmann and Sum 2002: 15). Viewed this way, transborder governance becomes a nexus between national and local contexts that needs to bridge different institutional systems and construct transborder political communities. Acknowledging the complexity and diversity of transborder regions, Jessop (2002) tries to bring a contribution to the field by systematizing the ways transborder regions emerged. He finds nine possible aspects of transborder region creation that range from the institutionalization of informal small transborder trade and the revival of previously disrupted economic relationships across borders; to the creation of new economic spaces (often by nation-states in a top-down manner) such as special economic zones or “growth triangles”; to the spillover of

metropolitan hinterlands as with the US – Mexico twin cities; and to strategies of nation-state building such as in the case of Catalonia or Quebec. To a certain extent, differences between transborder regions can be attributed to the characteristics of the regional blocs to which they belong due to the fact that those blocks’ specific transborder cooperation regimes have created different opportunity structures for transborder actors (Perkmann and Sum 2002). In Europe, transborder policies are informed by the goal of transnational institution-building and they are dominated by formal institutions at national, regional, local levels, embedded in European and even national structural policies (Scott 1999a). This administrative and bureaucratic domination seems to have deterred public- private partnerships and private sector participation in transborder region building. In North America, there is no supranational policy framework for transborder regions and much less national government support for transborder regionalism (Scott 1999a). In this context, transborder regionalism seems to operate as a set of compensatory local initiatives to cope with issues generated at the national scale. In the case of the U.S. – Mexico borderland in particular, transborder cooperation can be seen as a mechanism of lowering transaction costs in a situation of asymmetric development, where local actors form cooperation networks that function under the central governments basic parameters for transborder cooperation (Scott 2002b). In the North American context, there is a larger involvement of the private sector, together with NGO’s in transborder region building. In East Asia, the emergence of economic-oriented transborder regions known as “growth triangles” is part of the glocalization trend, in which a loosely structured multiscalar network of transborder actors aims to promote regional competitiveness within a global context (Sum 2002; 2003). Here, both public and private networks of actors, as well as public-private partnerships are involved in transborder cooperation (Perkmann and Sum 2002; Brenner et al. 2003).

4. Nation-State Reterritorialization and Transborder Regions

There is ample evidence that the current round of globalization has induced unparalleled changes in the international system of states. However, the outcomes of these changes are not yet as apparent and are subject to intense academic debate. Given that bounded sovereign territoriality has been the grounding principle of the international state system since Westphalia,

60 inquiries regarding the possible shape political territoriality may take in the future are key to understand these outcomes. One identifiable trend consists in a certain deterritorialization of social relations across various fields of activity. The prospect of a social life less circumscribed by the territorial straitjacket of the nation-state that may lead to a borderless world constitutes an appealing intellectual notion. Another trend consists in a certain reterritorialization of social relations. Many authors note processes of deterritorialization are, for the moment at least, neither strong enough nor comprehensive enough to signal a borderless world and an end to the bounded political territoriality. However, reterritorialization should not be understood as separate from deterritorialization. Instead, the selective deterritorialization of social life leads to a reterritorialization of social processes along new normative lines. In these circumstances, many scholars who that work in one or another of the “post” traditions are looking for clues to document the reterritorialization (or/and deterritorialization) of the international state system. To explore possible novel shapes political territoriality may take, it is important to clarify what reterritorialization means in the context of this research, and what are we looking for when we search for evidence that social life escapes traditional state territoriality. Transborder state reterritorialization is one possible aspect of the reterritorialization processes. Other social practices that are less territorially evident, such as market forces, different types of networks, etc, are also actors in reterritorialization. These indicators seem to be very useful in allowing for an assessment of the degree of deterritorialization. Indicators that are more territorially evident, such as transborder regionalization, seem to be more illustrative of what is actually happening on the ground with the territoriality of the state system, and are therefore more appropriate to understand state reterritorialization. While it may be more desirable to have a deterritorialized social life, and while a reterritorialization of the Westphalian system based on non-territorial network-like social processes would represent a complete break with the past, what seems to be happening is that we experience a reterritorialization still based on political-territorial forms of organization (only that in addition to nation-states, regions may partake too), supplemented with some non- or less territorial processes. This seems to be proof that, in spite of recent growing academic imaginations of less or non-territorial modes of political organization of social life, the dominant mindset for social action remains “trapped” in the territorial realm for the moment. Leresche and

Saez (2002: 93) note that “far from witnessing the demise of ‘territory’, we are witnessing the return of territories: fragmented territories, diversified territories, recomposed territories, but nevertheless the return of territories as the subject and object of public action”. Transborder regions, because of their geographically dialectic position at the confines and at the contact between sovereign territories, are at the forefront of state reterritorialization processes. The territorially disruptive potential transborder regions may have vis-à-vis the Westphalian system is acknowledged both by scholars and by policy makers. Jonsson et al. (2000: 147) contend that transborder regions represent “a form of regionalization that neutralizes international borders and nibbles at the sovereign state”, and others contend that transborder regions are post-national spaces where the nation-state is “brought into performative crisis” (Sparke 2002a: 203; see also Kramsh 2002a). For the most, part research on transborder regions focuses primarily on the institutional- governance aspect, while the territorial aspect is somewhat assumed and of secondary focus. Research that directly tackles the territorial aspect of transborder regionalism is scarce, and is often hidden in empirical case studies. Part of the explanation may reside in that territories are often taken for granted in social life, and what is needed are institutions to help govern them. Another part of the explanation may reside in that many scholars of reterritorialization are searching primarily for evidence of the devolution of the nation-state in the form of less or non- territorial social relationships and structures, paying less attention to the territorial aspect of state reterritorialization. Yet, tensions arise between these postdisciplinary understandings of transborder processes and the more “territorially trapped” understandings held predominantly by state actors. Leresche and Saez (2002: 94) contend that we are witnessing the emergence of a “new territorial paradigm embodied emblematically in the regional phenomenon in general and in the cross- border phenomenon in particular”. They note that the new territorial paradigm is forged in the conflict between “the functional or network logics, presented as efficient, and democratic or affiliation logics, relating to traditional political territories” (Leresche and Saez 2002: 94). In their interpretation, transborder cooperation tries to transcend these logics, together with the fragmentation of territories, and to create coherence between these logics and scales. Representative of the preoccupation with the territorial aspect is Blatter’s (2001) article “Debordering the World of States” where the contexts of transborder regionalism in Europe and

North America are explored for evidence whether transborder political cooperation leads to deterritorialization and unbundling of territoriality. Blatter notices a series of differences between the two contexts, such as: a) Different logics of representation; more institutionalized and formal in Europe, and more open to private actors in North America. b) Different modes of territorial demarcation; clear geographically (territorially) defined transborder regions in Europe, and rather vaguely delineated transborder regions in North America. c) Different aims of transborder institutions; more comprehensive policies in Europe, and rather narrow and task-specific programs in North America. d) Different discursive visions; transborder institutions based on territorial identities, resembling the “spaces of place” in Europe, and transborder institutions based on non-territorial identities, resembling the “spaces of flows” in North America. Based on these differences, Blatter (2001) infers that tendencies toward deterritorialization and unbundling are limited to North America, while in Europe we are witnessing a certain degree of unbundling given the additional layer of governance institutions involved in transborder cooperation, but this layer still remains territorial in nature. Blatter concludes by contending that the more territorially fluid transborder institutions in North America are not strong enough to challenge the established nation-state territorial identities, rather they represent complementary, task-oriented non-territorial processes of governance. Thus: “’multi-polity governance’ does not question the Westphalian system of states directly, since the states are not challenged by similar territorial units […], but presents a much more radical path of system change” (Blatter 2001: 202).

Many other authors are cautious when discussing the impact of transborder regions on the territorial sovereignty of the nation state (Perkmann 1999; 2003; Sparke 2002a; Jessop 2002). They point out that transborder regions do not necessarily signal the territorial fragmentation of nation-state sovereignty as in many cases they are institutions generated by state action to implement policies across borders, such as in the case of Special Economic Zones in China, export-processing zones in Mexico, etc. (Perkmann and Sum 2002). Furthermore, in many cases the national administrative units that compose transborder regions “act as relays of national

63 policies and are more oriented to their respective central states than to forging political relations that undermine de jure national sovereignty” (Jessop 2002: 43). Sparke (2002a) cautions against overrating the post-governance prospects for novel political possibilities in transborder regions. While recognizing the territorially disruptive potential released by transborder regionalism, he contends that this potential has been, and is being, re-regulated by the need to perform in the context of the capitalist international system of states. He points out that:

“… the possibilities for political emancipation seem […] vulnerable to […] re-regulatory imperatives. Neo-liberal norms of place promotion based on underlying assumptions about the need to be globally competitive have an uncanny way of providing the basic consensual grounds of cross-border collaboration and they therefore create a strong disciplinary force over cross-border political possibilities […] ” (Sparke 2002a: 208).

Sparke’s argument is not that capitalist interests have hijacked governance in transborder regions, but that this governance is shaped by capitalist practices. Thus the novel political possibilities that may exist in transborder regions are being continually disciplined by the hegemonic tenets of the capitalist discourse. He calls the context in which the knowledge of transborder regionalism is regulated, the “cross-border archive”. Referring to the European context, he observes that:

“We all tend to read the same programme reports and websites produced by the EU, the AEBR (Association of European Border Regions), and the Euroregions themselves. We all troop off to the same offices in Brussels; we interview the same bureaucrats; and we even sometimes receive funding from the same European funding pools. Surely, all this has some kind of structuring effect on what gets included and excluded in our accounts of cross-border regionalism?” (Sparke 2002a: 209).

In these circumstances, Sparke contends that the transborder archive is being dominated by “an ahistorical, EU-centric and geographically absolutist vision of networked space” (Sparke 2002a: 210), that monitors our understanding of transborder regions. The discussion regarding the changing meaning of territorial systems of organizing social life has shown that humans’ relationship to territory is a complex and historically contingent process. Territories, boundaries, and regions are all key elements in conceptualizing any territorial system of organization of society. During modern history, the international system of

nation-states came to be the dominant mode of political-territorial organization of human societies. However, under the circumstances of increased globalization of social relations, the inter-state system is under pressures to redefine its relationship with territory. In this context, the international system of nation-states is undertaking a process of multi- scalar reterritorialization in order to offer solutions to increasingly fluid spatial social relations. At the subnational level, we are witnessing a process of transborder reterritorialization in the form of transborder regions that is aimed to alleviate the barrier function of national borders for social relations. However, it is less clear how these transborder regions affect the reterritorialization of the nation-state mode of political organization of social relations. This chapter has offered a review of the ways in which transborder reterritorialization has been conceptualized in social sciences in order to provide a theoretical background for understanding the current reorganization of social spatial relations.

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH DESIGN

In this chapter, I explain the design of my research on transborder reterritorialization in the LDE between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The discussion of the research design of this dissertation is meant to provide a conceptual map for understanding the technicalities of this research. The chapter begins with a discussion of data collection and of the main types of methodology used for this research. It continues with a justification of the site selection and its relevance for this research, and then moves on to discuss in detail the methods of data gathering. The second section explains the analytical and interpretative framework of the dissertation, addressing issues such as the process and techniques of data interpretation. The chapter ends by addressing issues of positionality of the researcher working in this transnational context.

1. Data Collection

In this research I use qualitative methods to analyze the activity of institutions and individuals who are active in transborder cooperation in the Lower Danube Euroregion. This activity is revealed by concrete actions undertaken by these actors in order to support transborder cooperation initiatives. I conceived my research as a case study of the establishment and subsequent functioning of the Lower Danube Euroregion and its multiscalar impact on state transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe. Qualitative techniques of data gathering are appropriate to grasp the meanings key actors in transborder regions assign to their actions and to incorporate these meanings into an understanding of the process of state transborder reterritorialization. A qualitative methodology allowed me to capture the multiple perspectives and power issues involved in transborder region

building in a cross-national context. At the same time, this type of methodology has limitations. The resulting account of transborder state reterritorialization does not claim to represent either the totality of the views of the actors implied in transborder cooperation in Romania, Ukraine and Moldova, or a definitive understanding of the mechanisms at work in transborder region building in Eastern Europe. However, understanding key actors’ viewpoints is suggestive of the general structure of expectations and the trends transborder state reterritorialization may follow. This study is not designed to produce an overarching model of transborder state reterritorialization, which I deem impossible given the highly contextual nature of phenomena at work in transborder regionalism. Instead, this case study can provide insights and hints that can lead to understanding similar situations, in similar contexts, in Eastern Europe in particular and around the world in general. Therefore, in this dissertation I first provide a rich description of the broader context in which transborder regionalization takes place in Eastern Europe between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Then, I focus on the particular actions and processes that are taking place in the Lower Danube Euroregion and their connection with larger processes of European integration. Finally, I show how the geopolitics of Euroregions worked and works between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, and how state transborder reterritorialization is unfolding in the Lower Danube region. This structure of my case study allowed me to analyze the gathered data by inductive reasoning aimed at understanding the nature of the process of transborder reterritorialization in the LDE and to contribute to the understanding of other reterritorialization contexts that have similarities with the LDE case study.

1.1. Site Selection

To acquire the necessary information to understand the role of Euroregions in Eastern European reterritorialization, it is crucial that this phenomenon is studied at multiple scales. Most research to date on Euroregions has focused on the local scale, on the grounds that Euroregions are bottom-up spaces of governance. I contend that in order to answer my research questions, the national scale is also vital given that in Eastern Europe centralized structures of governance are still strong. In these circumstances, transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe plays out mainly between the national and local scales, to which the EU supranational scale is added. As a

result, a multi-scale research strategy is appropriate to understand the nature of transborder regionalism. My research strategy combines two primary scales: the national and the local. Due to financial and time restrictions related to this dissertation, the supranational scale is of secondary focus. Preliminary fieldwork was conducted during August, 2003 in the Romanian part of the Lower Danube Euroregion. Further extensive fieldwork was undertaken during July and August, 2004 in the three countries that comprise the Euroregion: Romania, Ukraine and Moldova. I chose to focus primarily on Romania given the country’s prominent interest in establishing the Lower Danube Euroregion, and given my position as a native of Romania. In Romania, I gathered information on the national scale in Bucharest. For Ukraine and Moldova, due to fieldwork-related logistical issues, the national scale was represented by the Embassies of these countries in Romania, on the grounds that Embassies are official institutions representative of national policy. Indeed, the Ukrainian and Moldovan Embassies in Bucharest, Romania have personnel who have duties related to Euroregions. At the local scale, I focused on several counties that are part of the Lower Danube Euroregion, such as Galati County in Romania; Reni and Ismail counties of the Odessa Region, in Ukraine; and Cahul County in Moldova. Additionally, the information acquired at both national and local scales provided insight into the supranational EU scale.

1.2. Methods of Data Gathering

My research relies on three main data collecting methods: direct observation field notes, interviews, and archival research (Hoggart et al. 2002; Hay 2000; Creswell 1998). In addition, I used census data. I began my research from the supposition that in order to acquire a deeper understanding of the phenomena that are taking place in my case study area, I first needed to familiarize myself with the Lower Danube Euroregion. By traveling through both urban and rural settings in the three counties that comprise the Euroregion and directly observing the outcomes of the activity of various public and private organizations during the fieldwork sessions of 2003 and 2004, I formed a firsthand opinion about transborder cooperation on the ground. Directly observing and experiencing various aspects of social life in the tri-national Euroregion (such as the state of the roads and public transportation, border crossings, entertainment and tourism facilities, and others) supplemented the information that I acquired through interviews and

archival research, allowing me to form a more accurate understanding of the impact of the complex cultural, political, economic and social context of these borderlands on the performance of transborder cooperation. In addition, I made important contacts with representative members of the community, who later became my informants. As a main method of investigation, I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with key actors who shape transborder cooperation, focusing on the connections between reterritorialization and the role of Euroregions. This type of interview is appropriate for interviewing elites and leaders, since it encourages respondents to get intellectually involved in discussion and allows them the liberty of choosing their own terms for explanations rather than trying to fit their responses into the terms proposed by the researcher (Schoenberger, 1991; Herod 1999). At the same time, in-depth interviews with key informants in complex cross- cultural situations allow for a deeper appreciation of the complex issues involved (Hay 2000). In addition, I conducted informal interviews in various situations and locations, and with various people (taxi drivers, hotel receptionists, etc). Although they may not have academic rigor, these conversations were unexpectedly helpful for clarification of certain issues during the research and for suggesting additional topics to follow in my in-depth interviews. The type of sampling used for my interviews was deliberately opportunistic and relied on the processes of “snowballing” (Hay 2000; Creswell 1998). This sampling scheme maximizes the utility of data needed to answer my central questions by allowing me to select representative informants for my research and to take advantage of unexpected situations that may arise in the field (Schoenberger 1991; Herod 1993, 1999). This strategy proved useful during the first phase of research when most of my interviewees pointed me to other people who they thought might be useful in my research. The interviews targeted key actors involved in the LDE’s development at two different geographic scales: the national and the local. At the national scale, I identified national governmental leaders from Romania, Ukraine and Moldova who are in charge of relations with the LDE. In August 2003 and July 2004, in Bucharest, Romania, I interviewed, among others, governmental leaders from the Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry (Department of Enlarged Europe and the Republic of Moldova), the European Integration Department from the Romanian Administration Ministry, and the General Directorate for Regional Development and the Cross-Border Cooperation Directorate from the Ministry of European Integration.

To asess the national scale for Ukraine and Moldova, I conducted interviews at the Ukrainian and Moldovan Embassies in Bucharest, Romania with embassy secretaries, on the grounds that the members of these embassies are the representatives of their governments abroad. I acknowledge that these interviews are by no means entirely representative of the “official” understanding of transborder regions of these respective governments, given that a unique “official” position may not even exist. However, these interviews did provide me with an understanding of the general direction of development of the approaches to transborder region building at the national scale. From these interviews, I obtained information regarding the national governments’ understanding of the role of Euroregions in reterritorialization. In particular, I gained knowledge on the following issues: • The purpose of establishing the Lower Danube Euroregion and what is the role of the national/regional governments in its governance. • Who, and on what basis, decided what territories would compose the Euroregion. • What are the duties the national/regional government leaders believe the local authorities in Euroregion should have. • How the Euroregion is impacting trilateral Romanian-Ukrainian-Moldavian relations. • What resources the central governments dedicate to support the Euroregion. • In what ways supranational EU policies affect transborder cooperation in the Euroregion. At the local scale, I identified local government leaders and civil society representatives in the counties of the Lower Danube Euroregion to interview. In August 2003 during my preliminary fieldwork, I undertook research in the county of Galati, Romania, where I interviewed two Chairs of the Lower Danube Euroregion Coordination Center: Ms. Camelia Epure (Chair from 1998-2000), and the current Chair, Ms. Isabela Gheorgi. Ms. Ghiorghi proved to be an excellent resource for my research, acting as a gatekeeper by offering to arrange meetings in July and August 2004 with her LDE transborder counterparts and other collaborators in the counties of Cahul, Moldova and Reni and Izmail, Ukraine. In August 2004, I undertook research in the county of Galati, Romania; the county of Cahul, Moldova; and counties Reni and Izmail, Ukraine. In Cahul, I interviewed the Chair of the Moldovan Lower Danube Euroregion Coordination Center. In Ukraine, I undertook interviews with local leaders implied in transborder cooperation at the Regional Agency for Cross Border

Cooperation Lower Danube Euroregion (a governmental-NGO hybrid), in Reni, and at the Izmail Fund for Support to Entrepreneurship, in Izmail. These interviews provided information about the local issues encountered in the functioning of the Euroregion. In particular, I gained information regarding the following issues: • How transborder cooperation take place in the Euroregion. • What forms of cooperation are established and their degree of institutionalization. • The level of administrative autonomy vis-à-vis central governments. • The barriers to transborder cooperation. • How the perceptions of the cross-border neighboring regions changed since the establishment of the Euroregion, and are there any signs of the development of a common identity? • How the role of the international border changed for the local citizens and what is the level of interaction across the border for local citizens. • The level of economic integration across the border. • What the local priorities are for cooperation and how they are established. • How the role of the central governments in the functioning of the Euroregion is perceived by the local elites. • What the perceived effects of transborder cooperation are in the area of the Euroregion. In addition to the local leaders, I interviewed civil society local representatives in nongovernmental organizations, such as from the “Eco Counseling Center Galati-Romania” that deals with environmental issues in the Danube River basin. I deem their perspective on transborder cooperation very important to a bottom-up understanding of reterritorialization in the region. Interviews in Romania and Moldova were conducted in Romanian, including the ones conducted with Moldovan and Ukrainian officials in the Moldovan and Ukrainian Embassies in Bucharest. Interviews in Ukraine were conducted both in English and Romanian. I employed Ukrainian-English ad-hoc translator services in Izmail, Ukraine. One staff member of the Izmail Fund for Support to Entrepreneurship who had a MA degree from a Canadian University translated for me from Ukrainian to English during an interview with the Director of this center. Archival research is another basic research component that I used. The output of Euroregions and national and local governments is mainly in the form of internal reports,

71 newspapers articles, press releases, statutes, websites, brochures, pictures, and radio and television programs. The study of this disparate data requires archival research at multiple locations. Also, I extensively used the resources available in library databases, such as books, articles, and journals. While some of these archival materials were available electronically, the archival research was primarily conducted on-site since most of the relevant archival materials are stored in the buildings belonging to the national and local administration rather than in public libraries. For example, in several cases, upon completion of my interviews with certain interviewees in Bucharest or Galati, I was either directed toward in-house storage rooms where I was able to consult archival materials or I was directly handed archival copies of documents locally available. I also obtained archival documents from the local institutions where I conducted interviews in Ukraine and Moldova. The archival materials obtained from the national sites of research contain documents that are relevant for the central governments’ understanding of the role of the Lower Danube Euroregion in transborder reterritorialization, and for the way supranational European policies shape this process. The archival documents from the local governments and NGO’s of the LDE member counties contained data pertaining to local governance of the LDE. The archival research provided me with a detailed understanding of the background of transborder cooperation in the region and at the same time allowed me to shape the structure of my interviews in accordance with the insights acquired from the examination of the archival documents. Lastly, I used demographic and economic census data for the region, such as the ethnic structure of the population, unemployment, number of border crossings, number of joint ventures, and others, in order to identify research issues that can be answered in interviews or in archival research. Most of this data was obtained from the Romanian Institute of Statistics in Bucharest.

2. Analytical and Interpretative Framework

Qualitative methods are used to analyze the gathered data (Limb and Dwyer 2001; Hoggart et al 2002; Crang 2002, 2003; Hay 2000; Creswell 1998). There are several stages of analysis in my research. First, I transcribed the interviews and reviewed the information provided in them in order to develop a content analysis of each respondent’s understanding of the role of the Euroregion in reterritorialization. I analyzed field notes gained from observation sessions, interviews and archival data through the technique of textual analysis intended to explore how key actors in transborder regions created their worldview (Hoggart et al. 2002). Then, I triangulated data collected from fieldwork notes, interviews, archival research and census statistics in order to check their validity. At this stage the data in Romanian have not been translated into English. Up until this point in my analysis I worked with interview, archival, and field data in both Romanian and English. I consider that analyzing interview data in the language most closely related to the language used by the interviewee offered me the opportunity to understand the answers to my questions as closely as possible to their initial meaning. Second, I organized the information into categories by manually coding sections of text. I found manual coding preferable to software coding because it allowed me to have a closer connection with the data. The exact concepts to be coded were determined recursively throughout the research process. Next, a series of patterns among codes were identified in order to delineate recurrent themes that in turn allowed me to obtain a structure of analysis of the role of the Lower Danube Euroregion in transborder reterritorialization. At this point in my research I translated all recurrent themes into English, and the structure of analysis was produced in English. This structure consisted of contextual discourse analysis focused on four types of actors involved in transborder reterritorialization and the outcomes of their interaction in the Lower Danube Euroregion: 1) local administrators, 2) Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldavian governments, 4) the EU institutions, and 4) the local civil society representatives. This structure of analysis allowed me to identify themes that I used to answer the central questions of the research regarding the role of Euroregions in Eastern European reterritorialization in the context of the EU’s eastern enlargement.

Despite the cross-national nature of this research, language-related issues did not constitute major hurdles for data gathering and interpretation. Part of the explanation for this situation is provided by the fact that Romanian is widely spoken in the three national borderlands that comprise the LDE. Another part consists in the nature of the research design that focuses predominantly on local and national elites who are more likely to have foreign language knowledge, or to work in institutional environments where English speakers are present as well. This was the situation I encountered in Ukraine, where I was able to communicate in English with Ukrainian and Russian ethnics, and at the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest, where I was able to communicate in Romanian. In addition to verbal communication, many of the LDE-related documents from Ukraine were translated into either Romanian or English. The Romanian translations are explained by the fact that both Romanian and Ukrainian are official languages of the LDE. The English translations are explained by the fact that English is used as a lingua-franca in the LDE’s institutions (thus a number of documents are available in English as well). A much more challenging issue in this research was the biased nature of documents that deal with transborder issues according to the interests of the institutions and individuals involved. In order to deal with such issues, I relied extensively on data triangulation. I continuously corroborated data gathered from various sources to check for their accuracy, and I used the Internet to search LDE-related databases such as newspaper archives and others in order to acquire additional viewpoints about the issues I found of interest in my research. Other challenging issues pertained to the difficulty in finding data for sub-national units that make sense in a transnational context. In order to deal with these issues I had to build such databases myself whenever possible, using census data from various sources. In addition, issues related to the transliteration of names of places (cities, villages, etc), physical features (rivers, seas, etc), and people (heroes, leaders, etc) into English was a major issue in the writing of this dissertation. The difficulty consists in the fact that such names can be found in Romanian, Russian, or Ukrainian. At times, the same place can have three or four names according to the ethnicity of the speaker, the time period considered, and so on. As a general rule, all names were used in their English translation as often as possible. However, for names that do not have an English translation, Romanian was used on the grounds that its spelling is closer to English since Romanian is written in a Latin-based alphabet. Transliteration

in English from the Cyrillic alphabet used by Russian and Ukrainian languages was more difficult for a non-Russian or non-Ukrainian speaker as myself. Nonetheless, Ukrainian or Russian names were preserved and transliterated into English in the case of all major places in Ukraine and well-known Ukrainian or Russian people. Another major issue consists in the fact that I was unable to use a tape recorder for my interviews due to the politically sensitive nature of my research. Most of my in-depth interviewees have refused to speak in the presence of the tape recorder, or they have announced to me that they would not be able to provide me with in-depth information if I recorded them. Under these circumstances, I recorded my interviews by taking notes on paper. This state of affairs imposed several limits to my dissertation. First, I can not provide extensive quotes from my interviews, but only fragmented ones. Second, throughout the paper I use explicit names, work-related positions, or places of interview for my quotes in only a limited number of situations. Such identifying information is always provided, but only in general terms. While my interviewees did not object to having their names revealed as taking part in this research, in quotes where information provided by them is easily identifiable, given the fact that they may be the only person I interviewed at a specific institution or location, I decided to use general identifiable information in the citations. An important aspect of qualitative research consists in acknowledging the nature of situated knowledge, therefore of researchers’ biases as expressed in its positionality, and subsequently addressing this issue in the interpretation of the research data (Hoggart et al. 2002; Crang 2002). Positionality implies that the location of the observer in the social structure and the institution she/he belongs to have effects on how she/he understands the world (Johnston et al 2001). A researcher is positioned by her/his age, race, sexual identity, biography, and so on (England 1994). Positionality advocates for locating one’s subjectivity, declaring the positions from which one writes as a means of reaching more sound analyses that are rooted in the authority of experience rather than in false claims of disinterested research. A politics of positionality requires attention be paid to the structures of power that privilege certain voices, while silencing others. Some authors, such as Spivak (1988), reached pessimistic conclusions about the possibility of giving voice to subordinate subjects. The debate about positionality raises complex issues about speaking positions. It requires us to examine our own positionality vis-à-vis various contexts of power and how such power can be channeled in

progressive ways. The argument about positionality has been successful in forcing dominant groups to acknowledge their particular angle of vision, and to accept the fact that we all speak from a particular point of view which is most often ethnically located (Johnston et al. 2000). A set of interesting questions arises from conducting qualitative research in a cross- national environment (Herod 1999). In accordance with the nature of the research, the researcher must deal with complex positionality issues. For example, questions of insider/outsider perception will gain prominence (Schoenberger 1991). In his/her native country the researcher may be perceived as an insider and therefore be expected to know, or to conform to, particular social norms. However, the researcher may live outside his/her native country, a case in which the distinction insider/outsider becomes blurred. In a foreign country, the researcher may be perceived as an outsider, and if the research issues involve contentious political information, then the outsider may be perceived even as a double outsider. However, the outsider position may bring advantages if the researcher is aware of his/her position. For example, foreign elites may try to put more effort into explaining their point of view (Crang 2002) if the researcher skillfully uses his position during an interview or observation process. In reality, the researcher is often a little bit of both, an insider and an outsider, throughout the research process. The key to a successful research process in a cross- national situation is the continual awareness of the positionality of the researcher and a humble attitude that indicates to people that one is ready to learn from them and with them, rather than a patronizing or disinterested attitude which may be considered indicative of exercising the superiority of an academic. The power relations in such a situation of research must be as symmetrical as possible (Hay 2000). As one who has spent most of my life in academic settings pursuing higher education and possessing a longstanding interest in political-geographical issues, and as a native of Romania who had resided for five years in the U.S. at the time of the fieldwork, I had a biased view of the region. First, I imagined the area of research being very similar in all three countries involved in the LDE, especially from an economic and ideological point of view, due to the fact that the historical experience of communism homogenized the regions that compose the LDE. Second, I imagined that from the cultural and ethnic point of view there is a similarity in all the member counties due to the fact that the area was part of Romania until World War II. Third, I imagined that the language most used in Moldova would be Romanian and in the part of Ukraine under

investigation, Ukrainian. From my research I learned that there are significant economic and ideological differences among the Romanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian borderlands, that there is less cultural and ethnic similarity in the area (even ambiguous identity in Ukraine and Moldova), that the Russian language is used in Moldova to a significant extent in addition to Romanian, and that Russian is mostly used in the Ukrainian part. Another form of bias was related to my academic background that informed my perspective on transborder cooperation in particular and state reterritorialization in general. I deemed the emergence of transborder regions and other forms of state devolution of powers as desirable and conflict attenuating, and I deemed western-type institutions of transborder cooperation as the norm to emulate in Eastern Europe. From my research I learned that transborder regions are not necessary conflict attenuating, and that western-style transborder institutions in Euroregions do not necessarily fit the context of Eastern Europe. The specific ways of dealing with bias in this research have been addressed above. However, as a general rule, I addressed bias issues by corroborating my data as often as possible. Also, there have been many instances in which I chose to use data from Ukrainian and Moldovan sources although Romanian data were also available. However, the whole research design for the LDE case study was built to circumvent national bias as much as possible. The research goals of this case study are not to find faults or to assign blame to one side or another involved in the LDE, but to offer an understanding of the complex environment in which transborder reterritorialization takes place among Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova.

3. Conclusion

This chapter has discussed the research design of this dissertation aimed at understanding transborder reterritorialization in the LDE among Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The first part of the chapter addressed data collection issues, the qualitative methodology used in this research, the selection of research sites, and the research methods used for data gathering, such as direct observation, interviews, and archival research. The second section of the chapter has addressed the interpretation of the collected data from two fieldwork sessions that took place during 2003 and 2004. In a first stage of data analysis, the interviews were transcribed and field notes and archival materials were analyzed.

Subsequently, I triangulated the data provided by the observation sessions, interviews, archival documents, and censuses in order to check their validity. Then, I organized the data into categories that allowed me to identify main themes of analysis of transborder reterritorialization in the LDE. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the positionality of the researcher doing research in transnational settings.

CHAPTER 4

EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND TRANSBORDER REGIONALISM

In this chapter, I address state transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions in the broader European context. The engagement with the European space outside the Eastern European context is necessary because the process of transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions originated in EU space. As a result, understanding the origins of this process, as well as the conditions that generated the emergence of Euroregions as preferred frameworks for transborder reterritorialization has to begin within the EU space. It was only later, after 1989, when the concept of Euroregions was transposed to Eastern Europe. This chapter provides an in-depth description of the circumstances leading to the emergence of the EU-led European integration process that generated the re-scaling of state territoriality in Europe. Further, the chapter discusses the changing of political organization of European territory at the supranational and sub-national levels: national states devolve certain powers upward, to supranational institutions, and downward, to sub-national regions. The end result of this re-scaling of state powers generates a political organization of European space with three tiers: national, supra- and sub-national. Nonetheless, a sustainable reterritorialization of the European space can not be achieved without integrating the European states at the transborder level. This process brings national borders to the vanguard of the European reterritorialization process. The barrier function of national borders has to be bridged in order for European space to become a unified space. Euroregions have been imagined as territorial institutions that can serve as vehicles to reterritorialize nation-states across their borders. The chapter concludes by showing how after 1989 Euroregions became one of the favorite means employed by the EU to unify Europe across the former Iron Curtain and beyond. At their turn, East European states adopted transborder cooperation in Euroregions as a vehicle of transborder reterritorialization, but they also adapted Euroregions to the East European

historical and geo-political contexts. Today, there are few borders in Eastern Europe that are not covered by Euroregions.

1. The Idea of Europe and its Conceptual and Geographical Confines

On the world map, the territory located between the Atlantic Ocean to the West, the Ural Mountains to the East, the Arctic Ocean to the North, and the Mediterranean Sea to the South is commonly called Europe. If the western, northern, and southern boundaries of the continent, constituted by large bodies of water, seem unambiguous, Europe’s vast eastern exposure makes it more problematic to determine a clear eastern boundary. While the Ural Mountains have been chosen as a geographical limit to the east relatively recently on the basis that they constitute a major physical landscape feature, the exact territorial delineation of Europe has historically been a tenuous issue. Therefore, it would be more adequate to speak of a Eurasian continent, rather than two separate ones. However, this designation is hardly used outside a handful of geography and geology textbooks. The issues encountered in the territorial delineation of Europe seem even more acute when we focus our analysis on the social aspects of the matter. Finding a homogeneous understanding of the meaning of Europe inside the confines of Europe was always a difficult undertaking (Heffernan 1998). The continent has traditionally been characterized by significant political, economic, ethnic, and cultural fragmentation, which prevented the forging of a common European identity. However, in spite of this fragmentation, attempts to politically unite the populace of Europe, by various means, and even to develop a continental identity are not lacking in European history. Some of the earliest attempts to form a continental sized political community in Europe can be traced back to the Roman Empire, although considerations of European identity were not the driving force behind these efforts. Interestingly enough, in spite of the fact that during the early medieval period the puzzle of overlapping political-territorial allegiances was not conducive to the crystallization of a meaningful concept of Europe, the germ of the idea of “Europe” can be associated with Middle Ages Christianity. According to Heffernan (1998), the first maps to depict a distinct Europe appeared around the twelve century AD, and by the fourteenth century the concept of Christendom, as a geopolitical entity in Europe based on a

common Latin language and Christian religion was a meaningful one, although still confined to a small elite. At this time, the growing threat from the Ottoman Empire in the east generated the first calls for a united Europe and prompted the fifteenth-century Popes to call for a “Respublica Christiana” in Western Europe to oppose the Muslim Ottomans (Heffernan 1998). Furthermore, the idea of a common Christian identity was not limited to Western Europe but also encompassed the territory known today as Eastern Europe. For example, in 1476 and 1477 Pope Sixt the IV wrote letters to support Stefan, the Orthodox king of Moldova (today divided between Romania and the Republic of Moldova), whom he calls “Athletus Christi” (defendant of Christianity), where he urges Catholic communities to help Stefan in his fight against the Ottomans, acknowledging that if the Ottomans conquered Moldova then they would advance deeper into Christian lands (Bogdan 1913; White 2000; Cazan and Denize 2002). Other endeavors to unite Europe can be identified, inspired by ideologies as diverse as the Enlightenment during the Napoleonic era in the eighteenth century, and fascism and communism in the twentieth. What they all seem to have in common is the attempt to impose their worldview by means of violence (Heffernan 1998). In this context, it is apparent that the idea of Europe developed as a response to perceived external threats, by creating a series of Others against whom to define itself (Said 1978). The idea of Europe was never fixed and distinct but rather consisted in certain geographical discourses that shaped various territorial geometries, reflecting relations of power at certain moments in the continent’s history. During the eighteenth century, a core of Enlightenment-inspired values such as civilization, progress, and rationality, together with the inter-state system, gained hegemony over the idea of Europe. These values provided the base for defining a European identity by defining Europe’s limits. In this context, debates over the European credentials of the Russian Empire, which was not perceived as fully European given its contiguous large Asian empire, created the dilemma of establishing a clear border for Europe in the East (Tunander et al. 1997). The indecision about Russia’s European credentials, together with older stereotypes regarding the “otherness” of the Ottoman Empire, helped to crystallize an image of difference towards the eastern parts of Europe, which in spite of their Christianity were now imagined as barbarian and uncivilized, as opposed to the “enlightened” western core. This perception replaced the more traditional North-South divide in Europe with an East-West one (Heffernan 1998).

The very name of “Eastern Europe” raises a series of issues related to the delineation of the region. The meaning of the concept of Eastern Europe widely varies with time. What territories were included in Eastern Europe was still not very clear for many Europeans through time. Initially, Poland and Hungary, together with parts of the Balkans, were “on and off” the imaginary mental map of Eastern Europe, given their geographic proximity to the Russian and Ottoman empires and also given the occupation of these territories at various times by the above mentioned empires (Tunander 1997). By the beginning of the twentieth century, with the growth of German power in Europe, the British and the French increasingly begin to see the utility of the establishment of a East European tier of “buffer states” to prevent a possible German-Russian alliance that was deemed a mortal menace for western Europe (Mackinder, in Heffernan 1998). This territorial vision was accomplished after the World War I, and it points to the contingency of nation-state making in the eastern part of Europe. However, it is not until after the end of the World War II, with the advent of the USSR’s imposed communism, when a layer of explicit ideological differences was added to (and therefore deepened) the complexities of the East-West division of Europe. During this period, a clear territorial delineation of Europe emerges, embodied in the “Iron Curtain”, and lasting for the most of the rest of the twentieth century. The countries of Western Europe portrayed themselves as democratic and prosperous, while the countries situated east of Western Germany, Austria, and Italy constituted the “Other” that was oppressive and backward. Ironically, East European governments portrayed their countries as democratic and prosperous as well, and regarded Western Europe as the oppressive “Other”. For more that four decades, little interaction existed across the European divide and the two ideological halves of the continent pursued divergent paths of development.

2. European Supranational Integration and State Territoriality: From Coal and Steel Community to Economic Community to Union

The idea of a united Europe endured in Western Europe. After the Second World War, in an attempt to prevent war for happening again, the idea of a united Europe gained momentum as the establishment of the Council of Europe in 1949 attests. The building of common European

institutions as frameworks for economic, political, and cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives continued with the establishment of European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, which is considered the crucial moment in the process of European integration. This was an independent, supranational European organization in which six countries in Western Europe pulled together their coal and steel production with the purpose of promoting economic development. This enterprise represented the groundwork that led to a move towards a more comprehensive integration when France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, and Italy signed of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 that created the European Economic Community (EEC). The EEC represented a well-defined European supranational institution with its own decision apparatus and budget, and had a clear mission to further European integration by removing obstacles to trade and the free circulation of capital, goods, and labor. The ultimate goal of the EEC was to achieve a single European economic space, a European common market. The rationale for the establishment of supranational institutions was that economic prosperity would foster peace and that countries of Europe would reach such a level of economic integration that another war would be unthinkable. In this context, it is not a surprise that the main actors of European integration were France and Germany, given the fact that the rivalry between them generated so much conflict in the past (Heffernan 1998). However, behind the economic rhetoric, the Treaty of Rome also served a political purpose to tie European nation-states into a common political system, and to further create a peoples’ Europe and a common European identity that would transcend the nation-state and its ideology of nationalism (Shore 2000). Indeed, the opportunities for cooperation that the EEC offered to member states opened up the possibility for political integration despite the fact that this was rather wishful thinking in the 1950’s, when the nation-states dominated the EEC’s decision structure. Nonetheless, this was the first time that the idea of Europe was implemented peacefully. The importance of the process of European integration for the spatial organization of society resides in its capacity of shaping territoriality and sovereignty as principles of the political organization of social life (McNeil 2004). Europe was the quintessential traditional political-territorial system. The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia created the territorially sovereign state, the French revolution in 1789 developed the concept of nation that solidified the formation

of nation-states, and European colonialism exported the nation-state around the world. In spite of the continuous transformations that the European state system undertook since its inception after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, state territorial sovereignty remained the guiding principle of the international state system (Murphy 1996). Ironically, many people working in European supranational institutions, who where appointed by their national governments, came to see state territoriality as an impediment to a united Europe. The European nation-state and its associated ideology of nationalism were assumed to be responsible for so much warfare over Europe’s history that the traditional nation-state had to be reined in (Shore 2000). The advent of the process of European integration strongly impacted this model of political organization of space by challenging the “sanctity” of the principle of sovereignty. While state sovereignty was never absolute and it can even be considered a “hypocritical” principle since various infringements on states’ sovereignty continually take place (Krasner 1999), the scope and extent of the changes in sovereignty as the constitutive principle of organizing political territoriality introduced by European integration are unprecedented, and may herald a new stage in political territoriality. To be sure, in addition to the desire to avoid war and provide security, other factors facilitated the movement toward European integration. The growing pressures on nation-states from an increasingly fluid and global capitalist economy seemed to be better dealt with in large- scale territorial configurations. Smaller European states feared they would become irrelevant in this new global context, and saw a united Europe in which they would have a say as an opportunity to continue to influence world affairs (Wise 1994; Preston 1997). The European idea’s appeal, as embodied in European supranational integration, resided in the fact that it had the capacity to accommodate many competing visions of Europe at the same time. In European integration many interest groups found an appropriate framework to give meaning to their aspirations. Nationalists imagined a Europe of nation-states dominated by intergovernmental relations; federalists imagined a strong European state, a sort of United States of Europe, in which nation-states pool their sovereignty to transcend traditional territorial jurisdictions; while Atlanticists imagined Europe as a shallow, primarily economic cooperation structure, centered on its transatlantic privileged partnership with the U.S. (Heffernan 1998). In this context, during the Cold War era the European idea developed at the intersection of these visions.

The history of the EEC after the Treaty of Rome appears as a continuous progression toward ever closer European integration in which the primacy of the nation-state as the main unit of territorial organization of social life in Europe is seriously discredited. European integration continued both to deepen, by building new supranational institutions and consolidating the existing ones, and to expand geographically, by admitting new members. As such, in 1973 the first round of extension took place when the U.K., Ireland, and Denmark joined the EEC. In 1979, a European Parliament with representatives elected directly by the European voters was established. In 1981, Greece joined the EEC, followed in 1986 by Spain and Portugal. In 1986, the Single European Act signed in Luxembourg removed most of the remaining technical barriers to the formation of a European common market, and the EEC became the European Community (EC), signaling that the European idea was ready to go beyond simple economic integration. In 1992, the signing of the Maastricht Treaty represents a historic milestone in the story of European integration. Maastricht created a Single European Market, started the process of creating a European Monetary Union (EMU), and changed the name of the EC to the European Union (EU), unequivocally signaling the goals of European integration towards a continental scale economic, political, cultural and social union. In 1995, the EU enlarged again accepting Austria, Sweden, and Finland, reaching fifteen members. In 2002, the EMU came to fruition in what can be considered one of the most significant steps toward European integration: the adoption of a single European currency. Twelve out of the 15 EU members (except the U.K., Sweden, and Denmark) adopted the Euro as their currency replacing their well-established national currencies. In 2004, the EU reached another historic milestone by undertaking an unprecedented eastward expansion to include ten new members situated in a strip of territory that extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the south, most of these being former communist countries (Figure 1). In addition, the EU established 2007 as the date when Romania and Bulgaria would gain membership as well. EU breached the former “Iron Curtain”, reaching continental proportions, with approximately four hundred million people in twenty-five member states. The latest move to date toward deepening the European integration also took place in 2004, when a European Constitution was written and is in the process of ratification at the time of this writing.

Figure 1. The European Union and EU Candidates in 2005.

This impressive history of unprecedented peaceful European integration was not without setbacks and periods of stagnation as the above outline might suggest, and it had and still has its skeptics who do not rally behind the idea of a united Europe. There is a long record of opposition and mistrust toward various issues related to European integration, such as the French opposition to the U.K.’s EEC membership in 1963 and 1967; the period in the 1980’s known as

“eurosclerosis”, when European supranational institutions seemed paralyzed; Norway’s persistent refusal to join the EEC in 1972 and the EU in 1995; and the Danish initial vote against the Maastricht treaty in 1992, to mention only a few. Another significant hurdle for European integration is the lack of a well-defined European identity. The EU has a considerable “myth deficit” when compared to the nation-state that in the long run has the potential to become a menace for the European idea. Because of its novelty, the EU lacks the common history, the heroes, and the glorious past that generate deep feelings of belonging to the nation-state (Smith 1992). While we are witnessing efforts to create symbols of shared interests in the EU, such as a flag, a common currency, an anthem, a Constitution, and so on, these efforts are too recent to inspire the consolidation of a well-defined European consciousness (Van Ham 2001; Shore 2000; Wilson 1996). The nation-state still holds the “identity keys” when it comes to choosing one’s identity. However, despite these setbacks, despite the feeble common European identity, and despite the fact that some feared that the tensions between deepening and widening Europe would seriously jeopardize the process of integration, European integration managed to avoid major crises and maintain its appeal (Preston 1997). The idea of a united Europe proved attractive and flexible enough to accommodate all these changes. The EU today seems to have emerged as the uncontested vehicle toward the fulfillment of the European idea. Significant in this respect is the fact that by 2002 approximately fifty percent of the EU member states’ domestic legislation and eighty percent of the economic legislation was written in Brussels (Pond 2002), and that the decisions taken by EU supranational institutions are binding for its member states (Mamadough 2001). The relationship between the territorial nation-state and supranational integration is of critical interest for this research since it points to the changes that are taking place in territoriality as the principle of organization for social life. Each round of deepening European integration seemed to weaken nation-states by biting into their “sacred” territorial sovereignty. Each round of enlargement brought even more nation-states into this territorial sovereignty-eroding process, thus extending the geographical scope of the process. This phenomenon is called state devolution and suggests to numerous scholars of European integration that the long forecasted “withering away” of the state is only a matter of time, and that the European state system will be replaced by

a multi-tiered political system where power will be distributed across various spatial scales (Davidson 1997). European national governments seem to have found in the process of devolution a solution to the economic and political pressures from above and from below that they are experiencing. Devolving upwards several decision-making powers to supranational institutions in which the nation-states themselves participate gives them the opportunity to shape decision- making in these supranational institutions and allows them to retain a significant share of power over other decision making areas. At the same time, the emergence of a supranational center of power opened up new opportunities for sub-national regions that previously rather unsuccessfully demanded increased autonomy from their national governments. These regions could now bypass their national governments in various spheres of activity and deal directly with supranational institutions (Davidson 1997). In this context, nation-states in Western Europe found it useful to devolve some powers downwards to sub-national units, in order to cope with these pressures from below, yet maintaining under their competency key policy areas, such as defense and foreign relations. While the process of state devolution is generally understood as signifying the decline of the nation-state, it seems at the same time to be an opportunity for nation-states to reorganize in order to continue to be of relevance for social life in the new conditions of globalization. It is in this context of fearing further loss of state power in a federal-like Europe that some politicians and authors (especially in Britain) interpret the principle of “subsidiarity” introduced by the 2002 Treaty of Maastricht as a move that ensures the nation-states will continue to have an important say in EU decisions (Harvie 1994). The principle of subsidiarity asserts that the EU should have authority over an issue “only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States” (Shapiro 2000, in Ansell 2004: 13), and that one should “never entrust to a bigger unit anything which is best done to a smaller one”, thus whenever possible decisions have to be made as closely as possible to the citizen (Heffernan 1988: 220). However, in most European countries the principle of subsidiarity was interpreted as devolution of powers from EU to the sub-national regional level (Harvie 1994), as will be discussed later in this chapter. It is apparent that European integration deeply affected the territoriality of the modern state (Hegg and Ossenbrugge 2002). This raises important questions about the nature of the EU

itself as a system of the political organization of society. What type of system of rule is being created by European integration? Will it be territorial at all or will it maintain territoriality as a principle of control and allocating power in society? According to Mamadough (2001:421), “if territoriality in the European Union reproduces the characteristics of state territoriality, it can be regarded as a state-like entity. But if it produces a new kind of territoriality, it should be acknowledged as a new form of governance”. Mamadough (2001) examines issues related to the nature of EU territoriality and finds several important instances where the nature of territory in the EU differs from that of modern states. As such, the territory of the EU is not fixed as it is the case with the territory of the nation-state; instead its territory varies from one policy domain to another as member states have the choice to opt out of certain programs. Moreover, the EU has no clear boundaries as do nation-states; instead the external limits of the EU are somewhat ambiguous since its territory is expanding as the EU receives new members. Also, joining the EU is not perceived as a territorial transfer, therefore:

“[…] the territory of the European Union is not constituted by transfer of a portion of land from one state to another. The territory remains the territory of the partaking state and EU incorporation is only indirect, through EU-membership of the state. The territory of the EU can be characterized as a secondary territory, an extrapolation of the pooling together of the state territories” (Mamadough 2001: 425).

This contingent nature of EU territory indicates that the EU has a specific form of territoriality that is not merely a larger-scale replica of a nation-state’s territoriality (Murphy 1999b; Jerneck 2000). However, many authors point out that while the EU may be regarded as a new form of political governance, territoriality still remains the main principle of political organization in the EU (Heffernan 1998; Mamadough 2001; Eva 2001), as membership in the EU is mediated through membership in one of its member states. In order to better understand the nature of the changes in political territoriality introduced by European integration, and the ways this state reterritorialization unfolds in Europe, we need to explore the relationship between European integration and sub-national territorial units.

3. European Regional Integration and State Territoriality

Regions and regionalism in Europe are well-documented phenomena and a great deal of scholarly literature has been written about them recently (e.g., Gras and Gras 1982; Harvie 1994; Jones and Keating 1995; Keating 1995; 1998a; Le Gales and Lequesne 1998; Bache 1998; Loughlin 1999; Wagstaff 1999; Telo 2001b). Regions have long played an important role in European social life, well before the appearance of the nation-state (Keating 1998; Harvie 1994; Gras and Gras 1982). Jonsson et al (2000: 138), echoing a common theme in European discourse, calls European regions “the geographic building blocks of [European] history”. They go on to point out that:

“Descriptions of everyday life, residential settlement and commerce in Europe, from the Middle Ages through the nineteenth century, reflect a regional mosaic. This was the framework within which the consciousness, experiences and therefore the identity of individuals evolved” (Jonsson et al. 2000: 138)

The consolidation of the nation-state system, especially from the nineteenth century onwards, tended to overshadow or even erase regional identity in these well-individualized regions by attempting to extend uniformly the national government’s authority to all territories inside their borders, in order to achieve an effective centralization of power as required by the principle of territorial sovereignty (Keating 1999). However, central governments did not entirely succeed in suppressing regional consciousness among their citizens; rather they succeeded in subduing it temporarily and subordinating it to the interests of the nation state. These circumstances often created a centre-periphery territorial predicament in the nation-state, where numerous regions lost their prominent role as key units for organizing social life and became peripheral in the new territorial configuration of the nation-state where central regions, usually centered on capital cities, dominated (Rokkan et al. 1987). One of the main difficulties in trying to make sense of European regions and regionalism consists in the contingency of the definition of regions, which leads to significant variety of European regions, such as administrative, ethnic, historical, geographic, functional, urban, cultural, and so on (Jonsson et al. 2000). This makes it often problematical to tackle regional issues at a European scale. Different countries have different political traditions that engender different relationships between central governments and the regions. For example, in countries

such as Germany, Austria, and Belgium with a federal structure of government, regions enjoy significant levels of autonomy and they have a notable input into national policy, while in countries such as France, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece, with a more centralized structure of government, regions do not play a significant role in policy making, or their existence is not even acknowledged by the central governments (Loughlin 1999; Le Gales 1998). As a consequence, the level of regional identification varies considerably across Europe. Out of the variety of issues concerning European regions and regionalism of central importance in this study is the relationship between European integration and regionalism, and the way this affects nation-state territoriality. Owing to the salience of regions in European history, European integration had a certain regional dimension from its initial stages (Harvie 1994; Bache 1998). However, the relationship between European integration and the regions is a two-way relationship. While the EU understood the need to involve the regions in the process of integration, many regions also understood the opportunities European integration offered them. In addition, we also have to take into consideration the position of the nation-state in this relationship, which constitutes an interface, a nexus between the EU and the regions. This way, a complex picture of the process of restructuring territoriality in Europe emerges, that consists of a multiscalar, multi-level set of relationships between the EU, the nation-state, and the regions. The EU’s interest in supporting regionalization is generally explained by putting forward two broad reasons, one of a functional nature and one of a political nature (Jones and Keating 1995; Keating 1998a; Le Gales and Lequesne 1998; Jeffery 2003). From a functional point of view, the EU had to address severe territorial disparities in economic development existing among various regions of Europe. Also, the successive rounds of EU enlargement accentuated this issue by adding new underdeveloped regions (Bache 1998). The creation of a Single Market, instead of narrowing the unequal development gap, as was previously assumed in neo-classical economics, exacerbated territorial uneven development as capital failed to follow the logic of comparative advantage and continued to concentrate in central, rich regions (Keating 1995). The EU was well aware of the long term consequences of these territorial imbalances and of the need to close the gap between the developed and underdeveloped regions. The theoretical underpinning behind the EU’s regional orientation has been provided by neo-liberal regional economics and its belief that development is better addressed at smaller scales, in localized

contexts. Thus the regions seemed to be in an ideal position to constitute appropriate units of activity for the demands of a global market (Le Gales 1998; Keating 1999). From a political perspective, the EU confronted a significant democratic deficit (Keating 1998a, b; Loughlin 1999; Jeffery 2003). The top-down nature of supranational integration generated a lack of democratic participation and institutional transparency in the EU. European supranational institutions seemed remote from the interests of citizens, bureaucratic, and unaccountable (Heffernan 1998). This unfavorable perception of European integration constituted a major risk for the success of the European idea. The EU understood the need to bring its institutions closer to its citizens by making them more democratic. Reasoning that regional and local representatives that are directly elected by citizens represent the tier of government that is most closely connected with the basic concerns of the citizens, various EU institutions moved toward empowering the regions. As such, the European Commission began supporting the institutionalization of regions throughout Europe, and the creation of an additional layer of institutions at the regional level where locally elected representatives can participate in European policy-making, thus being closely connected to the European level. Moreover, besides reconnecting citizens with the EU, the emergence of a regional tier of government in Europe had broader implications. The EU saw in the regions a useful ally in its attempt to diminish the influence of the nation-state in the process of integration, and to deepen the process of European unification by enriching the institutional environment (Loughlin 1999). The creation of a dense network of regional transnational institutions across European space would secure the integration process by enmeshing supranational and sub-national interests which would add more meaning to the European idea. European regions’ engagement with the EU is also multifaceted. Keating (1995; 1998a), identifies two broad reactions vis-à-vis European integration. In a first stage, many regions opposed the EU fearing that the few powers they retained during the nation-state era would go now to EU supranational institutions. This perception was widespread in the 1970s, predominantly in the more peripheral regions that were experiencing severe economic downturns or that desired increased levels of autonomy from their national governments. However, since the 1980s this opposition to European integration gradually changed into support. Many well-established regions came to see the supranational EU institutions as a potential ally in their quest for a greater role in organizing social life, and they have sought to use

the EU to further their interests. The EU supranational institutions constituted an additional level of authority that could work with the regions to address their agendas in instances where national governments were unwilling or unable to do so. By participating in supranational institutions, the regions could have the chance to influence decision-making at both the European and national levels. The relationship between the EU and the regions initially took place through the medium of the nation-state. There were the national government representatives who endorsed the supranational EU policies that supported the regions and who negotiated the parameters of regional representation in European structures, thus determining the level of powers granted to regions (Bache 1998). The European nation-state renewed interest in regions owes considerably to globalization pressures (Le Gales and Lequesne 1998). In the circumstances of the incapacity of the central governments to generate development in their peripheries on the backdrop of economic crisis of the 1960s and 1970s in Western Europe, many European leaders were ready to try the new neo-liberal economic doctrine of development that involved administrative decentralization and devolution of burdensome policy domains to lower levels of government that were thought to be better positioned to generate local development (Jones and Keating 1995). The result was a top-down process of state managed regionalization in which certain policy areas such as welfare, employment, culture, etc, were transferred to sub-national administrative units. At the same time, the process of regionalization corresponded with a period of growing bottom-up identity politics in several historic European regions, which demanded increased autonomy from the national governments or in some cases even separation. These movements were especially powerful in centralized states such as Spain and Britain, where they created considerable social and political tensions. Devolving certain powers to regions and supporting regionalism were seen by many national leaders in the 1970s as a way to placate separatist tendencies in the regions and to diffuse regionalist movements (Keating 1998a; 1999). This symbiotic relationship between the EU, the regions, and the nation-states highlighted the necessity of a more structured approach to regional development in the EU that would entail the existence of a European regional tier of decision-making. This idea was eventually formalized by the adoption of an official EU regional policy in 1975. Shortly thereafter, the regional policy emerged as one of the key EU integration policies aimed at

reducing territorial economic disparities by endowing regions with the infrastructure that would allow them to compete successfully in a single market (Keating 1995), and enhancing grassroots democracy by allowing regions to have inputs and partake in European decision making (Loughlin 2001). The EU regional policy relied on several financial instruments, among which the most important was the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (Bache 1998). Initially, the EU regional policy resembled the nation-state top-down approach to regional development and the ERDF was used mainly for co-financing national regional policies aimed to eradicate territorial disparities inside member states (Hegg et al. 2002). In this context, it was often argued that the ERDF was predominantly used as a form of compensation for states such as the U.K. that contributed significant funds to the EU budget (Bache 1998; Keating1998a). However, with the 1988 reform of structural funds, the EU’s regional policy undertook considerable changes. The various regional funds were consolidated into the Structural Funds and a structural policy was created to guide their implementation. In addition, the EU (through the EU Commission) gained increased discretion in establishing the beneficiary areas and in deciding how to utilize the structural funds (Keating 1998a). This allowed the EU to strengthen its position as an independent level of decision-making and to apply a European-wide logic of territorial development rather than a country by country one as was previously the case (Hegg and Ossenbrugge 2002). To pursue this logic, the EU had to co-opt regional partners for the design and implementation of the regional policy. This measure encouraged greater involvement of regions in policy making and the creation of more direct links between the EU and the regions, often including the creation of regional Brussels-based offices to lobby the EU institutions on behalf of regions (Keating 1998b). To implement its structural and regional policy the EU created a three level system of regions, known as NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics). The NUTS system is often criticized given the fact that the territorial units created do not overlay cohesive regions with historic identities; rather they constitute aggregates of national administrative units that have little meaning for citizens and function mainly as EU policy implementing institutions that are used by national governments to obtain EU funds (Keating 1998a). Nonetheless, the implementation of the NUTS system created the background for strengthening the political capabilities of regions in general.

The regional policy played an important role in mobilizing regional interests and establishing networks linking regions, the state and the EU (Keating 1999), thus providing the framework for regions to assert themselves in the new European architecture. This, in turn, contributed to the strengthening of regional identity in the EU. Regional interests used the EU regional policy as an avenue of influence in Europe. The EU structural funds constituted incentives that generated a sense of agency in many regions which pushed them to become dynamic actors in developing programs and development strategies in order to attract EU funds. At the same time, more established regions began to use the EU as a framework for gaining international visibility and for developing relationships with other European regions (Keating 1995) by building transnational interregional associations, among which perhaps the most known is the “ Four Motors”, an alliance of Rhone-Alpes, Catalonia, Lombardy and Baden- Wurttemberg. It is also worth mentioning the array of European-wide regional organizations, such as the Assembly of European Regions (AER), established in 1985, which advocate for increased regional involvement in the EU decision making (Wagstaff 1998; Keating 1998b). The EU regional policy culminated in 1993 in the Maastricht Treaty, where the regions were formally granted increased powers in the EU. The Maastricht Treaty is considered a decisive moment in the European integration process mostly because of its achievements in the regional sphere. The formalization of the “regional tier” in a “third tier” of European institutions generated opportunities for inducing radical changes in the EU power structure (Harvie 1994) that ultimately signify the deepening of the European integration. The most significant developments were the establishment of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and the formal incorporation of the subsidiarity principle in the treaty (Jeffery 2002; Wagstaff 1998). When the CoR was constituted in 1994, it had 189 members chosen according to the size of the Member States, and was designed to be an assembly of regional representatives that would have consultative powers in matters falling within its competence such as education, culture, transportation, etc. However, there are certain factors that weaken its role, such as the lack of veto powers over the decisions of the European Commission (it has only consultative attributions), the fact that its membership is decided by national governments that in many cases are reluctant to allow sub-national leaders to play larger roles in EU decision- making, and that in addition to regional representatives it also includes municipal representatives (Keating 1998b; Jeffery 2002). The subsidiarity principle stipulated in the Treaty, although not

explicitly granted to sub-national units (mostly due to Britain’s opposition), provided regional leaders a great opportunity to demand increased powers over various EU policy matters, thus furthering the devolution of nation-state powers and providing legitimacy for a regional level of government in the EU. All these momentous advances in regionalism in the EU integration process during the 1980s and the early 1990s generated much debate about the future nature of the EU as a system of political organization and about the future of the nation-state in Europe. The EU was already more than an intergovernmental organization, but it was not clear if it was going to be a federation of states, a confederation, or a new type of political system altogether. The political, social, economic and cultural effervescence that was coming from the regions led some in Europe to lean toward a federal scenario, and to envision a “Europe of the Regions” that would eventually replace the nation-states as main political actors in Europe and would generate a more homogenous, “three-level”, model of territorial organization (Le Gales 1998; Keating 1995; 1998a, b; McNeil 2004). According to this logic, in a united Europe regional identity would be emancipated from the dominance of the nation-state and would continue to strengthen, providing the basis for a new political-territorial organization. However, this vision failed to materialize, and after the mid 1990s regionalism lost considerable momentum when compared with the 1980s. The CoR failed to provide a coherent and effective forum for articulating strategic regional interests that would have enabled the “regional tier” to consolidate its powers in the European institutions and to emerge as a viable and coherent third level of government across the EU territory. This is attributed in general to its membership mixing powerful historic regions with purely administrative regions and municipal districts which gave rise to conflicting interests that weakened the CoR (Jeffery 2002). In the new European economic landscape of “glocalization”, generated by the economic and monetary union and state devolution, regions often compete with each other in attracting investments for development. This interregional competition compromises the possibility to set up a unified powerful block of regions to offset the power of the nation-state (Keating 1998a; Le Gales 1998). Keating (1998a: ix) maintains that “We are not headed for a Europe of the Regions, in which the states will give way to smaller units, but we are witnessing a new stage in the territorial politics of the European state”.

Under these circumstances, the nation-state seized the opportunity to use the EU framework to recover certain powers previously devolved to the regions (Keating 1998a; Jeffery 2002). After Maastricht, the subsequent EU treaties of Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2002) did not offer the same favorable opportunities for the advancement of the interests of the regions. The EU was concerned mostly with its eastern expansion, and deepening EU integration was not the most important item on its agenda. However, the regions continued to make gains in their quest to establish themselves as fundamental actors in the EU architecture, although not at the same magnitude of the ones made in the Maastricht Treaty. The latest developments in 2004 in the drafting of the EU’s first Constitution seem to strengthen the regions’ status again, as they gained the right to petition the European Court of Justice in matters related to the application of the principle of subsidiarity (Jeffery 2003). Many analysts today take issue with various aspects of the “new regionalism” of the 1980s and 1990s. Harvie (1994) offers a forceful critique of the phenomenon, calling it “aggressive regionalism”. He contends that its main promoters and beneficiaries are powerful, rich, central regions, whose “consciousness is rooted in affluence not in cultural identity” (p. 66), and not poor and peripheral regions for whom the EU regional policy had been initially designed to help. The purpose of this type of regionalism resides in “isolating the more affluent parts of Europe from the elements of solidarity inherent in the nation state” (Harvie 1994: 5). Others noticed that part of the rhetoric in which claims of authenticity of these regions are often expressed include nationalist, xenophobic, and Othering discourses aimed at creating an image of regional superiority and exclusion that has little in common with the idea of a united Europe (McNeil 2004). Among the most common examples are regional political movements such as the Italian Northern League and its invention of Padania, and the Flemish (Belgium) party Vlaams Blok. A more accurate illustration of the current stage of the European subnational integration is captured in the slogan “Europe with the Regions” (Loughlin 1999; Le Gales 1998). While at present the European regions remain weak institutionally and did not succeed in displacing states in importance, not becoming a coherent transnational interregional third level of government in the EU, nonetheless regions are an important factor in the European political-territorial imagination (Le Gales 1998; Bache 1998). The fact that by 1999 EU regional policy, through the structural funds, accounted for around one-third of the EU budget, surpassed only by agricultural

funding (Keating 1999), unambiguously points to the continuous salience of the regional issue for the European idea. The renewed regionalism of the 1980s and 1990s, together with the European supranational integration process, has been interpreted in different ways (Keating 1995). Their relationship vis-à-vis the nation-state has been often simplistically understood in binary terms. On the one hand, the growth of regionalism and integration has taken place at the expense of the nation-states. On the other hand, it was believed that these processes are strengthening the state by alleviating difficulties in times of crisis. Keating (1995; 1998a) points out that the new regionalism should not be understood as a zero sum game where if the regions gain power then the states automatically lose power, but in a more cooperative framework in which both regions and states gain power and work together to enhance their capacity to address various issues. Thinking this way may have the advantage of shifting the focus from seeing increased regional autonomy as the solution for regional problems (therefore in direct conflict with the territorial sovereignty logic of the nation-state) to a more comprehensive view of regionalism, where regional governments acquire governing capacity that translates into the ability to shape local social life by working with other institutions in networks across governmental scales. The developments induced by European integration challenged the traditional Westphalian international system, generating tensions between the national, supranational and sub-national levels of political-territorial authority and stimulating the transformation of the very nature of the systems of political-territorial organization and representation. The EU represents the embodiment of these tensions, and the attempts to make sense of its nature as a political- territorial organization generate opportunities for innovative thinking in the social sciences. It is difficult to ascertain one particular theoretical model that offers a thorough understanding of the EU, due to a combination of reasons such as the diversity of its constitutive elements, its novelty, and its unfinished nature. However, among the several models that have been put forward to understand the EU, a certain convergence seems to indicate the development of flexible, multilevel patterns of authority spread across EU space. This has led many authors to consider whether we are witnessing the emergence of a novel “postmodern” form of political organization in the EU that transcends traditional models of territorial sovereignty (Ruggie 1993; Anderson 1996; Murphy 1993).

The conceptual model known as “Multi-Level Governance” is often advanced as appropriate enough to capture the essence of the EU structure of authority (Marks 1992; 1993; Marks 1996; Hooghe and Marks 2001). At the core of the concept is the idea that European integration has diffused part of the decision making powers across multiple territorial scales. The process of collective decision making among various European institutions appears to lead to the sharing of powers across multiple levels of government at national, supranational, and sub- national scales. This generated a situation where state sovereignty is being indirectly eroded to the benefit of the other two territorial scales of government, thus altering the traditional principles of territorially based governance. The resulting institutional landscape is characterized by the state’s coexistence with other actors, by overlapping competencies, and by shared, or pooled sovereignty. However, it is frequently acknowledged that nation-states remain the major actors of governance in the EU as the capacity of supra and sub-national actors to significantly influence decision-making remains limited (Bache 1998; Le Gales 1998). From the examination of the patterns of spatial interaction opened up by the opportunities offered by multilevel governance in the EU, the concept of networks emerges as a valuable analytical tool to understand the current stage of political organization. The term network is applied in this context to a mode of policy-making that is often issue-specific and has the capacity to crisscross territorial scales of government and spheres of competencies (Jernek 2000). In a multilevel governance context, power is dispersed in networks and multiple spheres of authority (Keating 1998b). Jonsson et al (2000) argue that alongside national, supra and sub- national scales of government, there are autonomous networks that transcend traditional territorial political, social, and economic frameworks and constitute transnational networks. Leaders of self-aware regions often use networks as avenues of influence to bypass the national realm and act in the supranational realm (Jernek 2000). Marks (1993: 402-403) considers EU regional policy as “the leading edge of multilevel governance in which supranational, national, regional, and local governments are enmeshed in territorially overarching policy networks”. In this context, the EU appears as an example of a multi-layered political organization based on networks (Jonsson et al. 2000). Following the implications of network logic of multilevel governance for the political organization of territory, a very interesting form of territoriality emerges in the EU. Jonsson et al. (2000: 8) argue that networks can constitute alternatives to territorial organization “insofar as

they are understood as nodes and links rather than cohesive territory”. They advance the metaphor of the “archipelago” to capture the tendency of EU’s dynamic regions to connect in transnational networks. However, the principle of territoriality as a mode of organization of authority is not replaced with deterritorialised forms of social organization in the EU. The overlapping, network-like structure of governance in the EU signifies the loosening of territorial ties of political organization, which rather suggests a medieval-like territoriality (Anderson 1996). The principle of territoriality is not destroyed through European integration but it is transformed and restructured. What we see at work in the EU is a reterritorialization of political power and social life, where the fixed borders of the nation-states are superseded by fluid multiple scales of social action, many of which remain territorial in essence.

4. European Transnational Integration and Euroregions

Transnational integration represents another key facet of the process of European integration. If supra and sub-national integration can be considered processes that are taking place predominantly at vertical, hierarchical scales, transnational integration (also called transborder or cross-border integration), takes place predominantly at a horizontal scale and is centered on state borders. However, these scales of social action should not be understood separately, since processes and phenomena that are implied in restructuring European space intertwine in practice. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of transborder integration resides in its capacity to render visible and palpable processes of reterritorialization of social life for ordinary citizens. Sub-state regionalism and supranational integration may seem more abstract processes that take place in heavily institutional settings for the most part, and produce fewer visible signs on the ground, thus they may not be readily visible. In contrast, given the visibility, omnipresence, and “sacred” international dimension of state borders in Europe, when border checkpoints are being dismantled, barbed wire fences removed, and some “bizarre” territorial entities, such as transborder regions, are being built to straddle international borders, this view confers transborder integration an explicit sense of territorial reconfiguration. This position is illustrated by Wilson’s (1996: 213) call for more involvement of EU scholars in the study of borderlands of peripheral regions, “because it is there, among many key areas of the EU, […]

100 that the battle for the hearts and minds of the “Europeans” must be won if the EU as a socio- cultural system is to develop in support of further political and economic union”.

4.1 The Changing Nature of European Borders and Border Regions

There is broad consensus today that globalization, European integration and advances in information technology and communications created favorable conditions for a general process of change of European borders and border regions (Anderson and Bort 2001; O’Dowd and Wilson 1996; Anderson and O’Dowd 1999; Knippenberg and Markusse 1999; Kaplan and Hakli 2002; Murray and Holmes 1998). Two broad types of changes can be distinguished among the variety of ways contemporary processes of border change manifest themselves. On the one hand, there are changes of a more physical nature, such as changes in the geographical location of borders that took place in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. On the other hand, there are changes of a more subtle nature, such as changes in the symbolic meaning of borders or in the functions of borders that took place inside the EU from the early 1980s onward (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999). Analyzing these changes requires engagement with the complex environment that led to the creation of nation-state borders in Europe. European national borders were established during various historical periods. In most cases, they are the outcome of wars and are often still contested (Rumley and Minghi 1991; Forsberg 1995). The consolidation of national borders in Europe was a gradual process that spans several hundreds of years. It begins in the seventeenth century after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 that established the principle of boundary delineated state territorial sovereignty; continues in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars with the Congress of Vienna in 1818 that redrew the political map of Europe; was reinvigorated and reinvented in the Peace Treaties following World War I via Wilsonian principles of national self-determination; and endured after World War II, under the Cold War, into the 1990s (Knippenberg and Markusse 1999; Minghi 2002). Each round of national border consolidation gradually expanded the barrier function of state borders, deepening differences on both sides of the border. European borders accumulated a multitude of functions, from the political, to the cultural, to the economic, until they were imposed as borders between societies as well, succeeding in the end to circumscribe the whole spectrum of social life. Boundaries became “containers” of society as Taylor (1994)

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puts it, and they “trap” the political imagination in a territorial logic (Agnew 1994). Knippenberg and Markusse (1999) call this process the “nationalization” of borders and border regions. Most contemporary European national borders are not the outcome of peaceful changes, but of events such as devastation, mass killings, and forced population changes that took place during the two World Wars. The changes that took place after 1945 and lasted approximately until 1989 induced a period of unprecedented border stability. State borders as barriers reached their apex during this period (O’Dowd 2002b). During the Cold War, European borders were “frozen” for 40 years, and no violent border change took place in Europe as a whole. The nationalization of borders meant also that borders were socially constructed to signify difference: inside was the “security” and “superiority” of the domestic “us”; outside was the “danger” and “inferiority” of the foreign “other” (Paasi 1996; Dalby 1998). In this way, a sense of common national identity based on exclusion was achieved behind national borders. Border regions came into being in various ways as a direct influence of border changes. In some cases, they resulted from the division of self-aware regions between nation-states, creating ethnic minorities on both sides of the border, while in other cases they became border regions after the formation of the national states because of their peripheral position at the confines of the new system of national organization. However, the effects of the politics of nationalization of border regions vary. In some situations, nationalization was more effective, as in the case of the French Basques or the Slovenes in Austrian Styria, while in other situations nationalization attempts produced serious backlashes, as with the Basques in Spain or with Austrians in Italian South Tirol (Knippenberg and Markusse 1999). Another important aspect of the nationalization of border regions resided in the centre- periphery dynamics of power in the national states. In the context in which nation-state power usually propagates from the center toward the peripheries, border regions became “the objects rather than the subjects of policies and politics” (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999: 597). Generally, given the fact that territorial sovereignty is often asserted and defended at the borders, nation- states focus predominantly on the political aspects of borders and less on the economic aspects. This situation usually renders border regions economically peripheral. Moreover, where ethnic minorities inhabit border regions, they tend to become cultural peripheries as well. In this context, border regions can become sites of multiple conflict accumulation, which reinforce their image of peripheries. They may be perceived as peripheral areas by their national governments,

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although they might have been better positioned at an international level. For example, Gerd Leers, the mayor of Maastricht, in the region of Limburg, the Netherlands, argued that while the Dutch government in The Hague perceives Maastricht as peripheral in Holland, in fact The Hague is itself peripheral in Europe, since Maastricht is centrally positioned in the EU (personal communication 2002). The remarkable border stability that Europe enjoyed during the Cold War has been contingent upon the “freezing” of the tensions accumulated in border regions and not upon addressing them. However, starting in the 1980s and intensifying since the 1990s, we witness another period of change in European borders, this time characterized by the “unthawing” of borders and the denationalization of border regions. As the product of the state-centric territorial logic, borders have difficulties in performing their traditional barrier functions in a system of flows. These functions have become obsolete and counterproductive in the context of European transnational integration. Underlining the contemporary changes and their induced tensions in European borders and border regions is a situation in which territorial state borders increasingly mismatch the borders of other issues (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999; Anderson and Bort 2001). This means that “economic, social, legal, political, and identity spaces are increasingly bounded separately” (Christiansen and Jorgenson 2000: 62). The “container” seems to be leaking (Taylor 1994), and new spatial frameworks have to be found to accommodate these issues. In the EU, significant transformations in border functions have taken place since the 1980s. The aim of establishing a Single Market provided the rationale for a general lowering of the barrier function of national borders that culminated with the abolition of border controls in much of the EU by the Schengen Agreement after the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. The dismantling of the internal economic borders of the EU and the achievement of a space for the free circulation of goods, people, capital, and ideas represents a milestone in the process of European transnational integration, and it had immense consequences for the process of reterritorialization. It ushered a period of denationalization of borders and border regions, manifested through a diversification in the functions of borders and coupled with an emphasis on their functions as gateways, bridges, and resources, to symbolize the capacity of connecting people, and forging common identities across national borders (O’Dowd 2002b; Sidaway 2001). In the midst of this upheaval in the realm of borders and borderlands, some European enthusiasts began to imagine a “Europe without Frontiers” in which nation-state borders will

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wither away, much in the same way “Europe of the Regions” was imagined. Yet this imagination failed to materialize. State borders were not abolished per se, only border controls were removed. State borders operate more like filters, having selective degrees of porosity (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999); they may be porous for capital but not for labor. The internal borders of the EU will remain important features of the European political landscape for some time to come. The contemporary border changes observed in Europe can be interpreted as mutually constitutive processes of “de-bordering” and “re-bordering” (Berg and van Houtum 2003). The opening up of the internal borders of the EU seems to have generated two important changes with far reaching consequences. On the one hand, as border functions previously subsumed at the national level are now dispersed across various territorial scales, there is a multiplication of intra- state borders in the EU along with their increase in importance as social borders in regional, religious, ethnic, linguistic and other spheres. In the EU, intra state conflict has largely replaced inter-state conflict (O’Dowd 2002b). On the other hand, it seems that an internal/external dichotomy is being created regarding the EU borders. In spite of the “free market” discourse, there is the tendency of reinforcing the external borders of the EU to perform more of a barrier function to “protect” Europe from the “threats” of non-Europeans (Anderson and Bort 2001; van Houtum 2002). Such developments raise the prospect of the emergence of a “Fortress Europe” protected by “walls” behind which Europeans would develop a common identity against the non-European “Others”. However, Christiansen and Jorgenson (2000) argue that a Fortress Europe is an improbable development in the context in which new EU governance practices, such as “flexible integration” with opt-out possibilities for specific policies, engender a more fuzzy membership environment, where individual policies may acquire certain overlapping spatial configurations. This may result in external EU borders with characteristics not compatible with the wall-like border logic.

4.2. European Integration and Transborder Cooperation

Of special importance in the context of EU regional policy are the European border regions. The emergence of a European political-territorial entity that represents more than the sum of its member states challenged the traditional state-centric model of political organization by raising various issues that had to be addressed in new and imaginative spatial contexts. In

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these circumstances, borders were identified as the locus of state territoriality and paramount attention is paid to redefining their role by implementing various transborder cooperation schemes. European integration provided the overarching context for transborder cooperation from the beginning. The history of transborder cooperation can be seen as a process of institution building within the specific context of the European polity (Perkmann 2002b). While the EU institutions and their policies indirectly influenced transborder cooperation, it was the less powerful Council of Europe that for over thirty years provided the organizational support for transborder cooperation and struggled to create an institutional framework for it in the form of a multi-scalar relationship between the EU, its member states, and their border regions (O’Dowd and Wilson 1996). As the Council is not part of the EU, and lacks legal instruments to impose its decisions, this may explain the initial slow progress of transborder cooperation. The main reasons behind European transborder cooperation vary in time but they are grounded in the belief that it can reduce the barrier function of state borders to the mutual benefit of the parts involved. The first forms of transborder cooperation took place in the 1950s and were part of Franco-German reconciliation efforts involving informal transborder contacts between regional and local authorities (Anderson and Bort 2001). A common Rhine Axis of transborder cooperation took shape along the western borders of Germany, involving the Benelux countries, France, West Germany, and Switzerland (Perkmann 1999; O’Dowd and Wilson 1996). However, the impetus provided by reconciliation was short lived in the absence of other supporting factors (Anderson and Bort 2001; Jonsson et al. 2000), and by the early 1960s the focus shifted from reconciliation to addressing border-induced issues of economic developments in border regions. During the late 1970s and early 1980s transborder cooperation was embraced by supporters of European integration and acquired a new sense of purpose as some regional and local leaders perceived themselves at the vanguard of the European idea. With the decision to create the Single Market in the mid 1980s, the EU assumed the main role in promoting transborder cooperation, and a functional approach based on economic considerations came again to the fore (Keating 1998a; Jonsson et al. 2000). The new “imaginaries of spatial unification” (van Houtum 2002: 37) required by the economic and monetary union, focused on the treatment of the EU territory as a single unit. This implied escaping the “territorial trap” of national borders in order to allow the management of the entire

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EU space along new functional territorial configurations that grouped regions experiencing common issues. This process is often called the “Europeanization of space” and it has a significant impact on border areas, offering them an avenue to escape the straitjacket of national policies and to look for opportunities for development in a wider European context. In these circumstances, transborder cooperation became a vehicle for integrating the EU economic, and to a certain extent cultural and political, space. From an economic perspective, transborder cooperation could achieve development in borderlands by resolving practical difficulties created by the existence of national borders (Clement et al. 1999; Anderson and Bort 2001). From a cultural perspective, transborder cooperation can promote good neighborly relations by overcoming the negative legacy of the borders (O’Dowd and Wilson 1996; Perkmann 2003) involving the stereotypical “Us/Others” identity divide. From a political perspective, transborder cooperation could address the supranational integration-generated democratic deficit by bringing decisions closer to ordinary people through the application of the subsidiarity principle (Baker 1996; Kramsh 2003a). To achieve these goals, transborder cooperation has the enormous task of bridging previously separated border regions and creating common spaces irrespective of national borders. Developing a culture of cooperation based on concepts such as sharing, solidarity, complementarity, cohesion, and harmonization designed to stress how addressing common problems at the local level in transborder contexts brings increased mutual benefits, becomes the key issue in pursuing transborder cooperation (van Houtum 2002). The early 1990s represented a milestone for transborder cooperation in Europe. Under the framework of the Structural Funds, the EU set up a variety of funding programs, generically known as the “Community Initiatives”, such as INTERREG, Regions and Cities for Europe (RECITE), “Linkage, Assistance, and Cooperation for European Border Regions” (LACE), and others, to implement various transborder cooperation policies (Anderson and Bort 2001; Sidaway 2001; O’Dowd and Wilson 1996 ). The impact of these funding programs amounted to the renaissance of transborder cooperation in the EU. They added more substance and brought further structure to transborder cooperation by creating an institutional framework that deepened the institutionalization of transborder cooperation, engendering a shift in emphasis from ceremonial interaction across borders to the realization of concrete transborder projects (Perkmann 1999).

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Among the EU funding programs, INTERREG is by far the most important instrument of transborder integration. Launched by the EU in 1990, it was designed to facilitate the economic integration of the EU territory in the aftermath of the creation of the Single Market by assisting border regions in overcoming their peripheral status (Baker 1996) and helping them to take advantages of the new opportunities generated by European reterritorialization. To this end, INTERREG funds various transborder cooperation schemes, as well as transborder networking among various actors in border regions (van Houtum 2002). Its significance for European reterritorialization resides in the fact that it is the only EU funding program whose budget is not administered by the member states. Instead, it allows representatives from border regions to apply directly to the EU for project-oriented funding (Murphy 1993; 1999; Baker 1996). After the completion of INTERREG I, which lasted between 1990 and 1993, two other stages followed: INTERREG II (1994 – 1999), and INTERREG III (2000 – 2006). At the same time, the program was broadened to cover more areas of cooperation as well as more territory, and was massively financed: INTERREG II had a budget of 2.9 billion Euro, and INTERREG III had a budget of 4.9 billion Euro. In these circumstances, INTERREG has become the largest program within the “Community Initiatives” that themselves account for over ninety percent of the wider EU Structural Funds (Sidaway 2001; Kramsch 2003a). This fact points to the significance transborder cooperation acquired in the EU spatial imaginary. The most important spheres of transborder cooperation for which the EU provides funds are predominantly oriented towards economic development, and include transportation and communication infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports and so on. Other important spheres are environmental protection, cultural exchanges, healthcare, education, tourism, (Jonsson et al. 2000; Davidson 1997; Baker 1996). However, the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) considers that in order for transborder cooperation to reach its integrative goals, it needs to broaden its scope to include all aspects of daily life in border regions, such as business, work, leisure, culture, social facilities, housing, and it should become a daily routine that involves partners from all areas and social groups from all sides of the border (AEBR 1997: A2, 2). Transborder cooperation in the EU involves a variety of actors across multiple spatial scales. Local, regional, and national governments, and supranational institutions (the EU Commission) seem to predominate, but important as well are planning and development agencies, universities and research institutions, chambers of commerce, NGO’s, and AEBR. All

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these actors are incorporated in a formal network of information, expertise and knowledge (Sidaway 2001) that generates the institutionalization of transborder cooperation. They interact both vertically, from local authorities to national governments to the EU Commission, as well as horizontally, between local authorities across borders, and between local authorities and public bodies, forming a loosely coupled network structure of multilevel governance (Perkmann 1999). There are a variety of forms the institutionalization of transborder cooperation may take. These range from less institutionalized Working Communities, such as the “Working Community of Eastern Alps”, which constitute simple frameworks for regular meetings of local authorities across borders, to rather complex institutional structures such as some Euroregions on the Dutch-German border (Anderson and Bort 2001; Scott 2000). Blatter (2001) notices the trend toward single-purpose policy networks in managing transborder cooperation that focus on a specific function or policy issue. Further, he identifies four types of ideal transborder political institutions that range from formalized Intergovernmental Commissions, which are highly regulated in territorial scope and goals and are made up of experts; to Connections, whose goal is to reduce transaction costs; to Coalitions, in which subunits of governments join forces with other political actors to achieve specific goals; to Consociations, whose goal is to mobilize public and private actors to undertake transborder cooperation by creating symbols for a common identity. However, it is not uncommon for these institutions to overlap both spatially as well as functionally given the structural flexibility of practices of transborder cooperation, as the example of Euroregions with Working Communities in Alps demonstrates. Christiansen and Jorgenson (2000), note that by the early 1990s transborder cooperation had become the one of the most dynamic areas of EU regional policy. By the late 1990s there was not a single border in the EU that was not covered by some type or another of transborder cooperation scheme. However, despite these remarkable efforts to integrate border regions the outcomes of transborder cooperation are uneven across the EU, and the peripheral status of borderlands has not always been changed (Knippenberg and Markusse 1999). In transborder areas where economic, social, cultural and political multi-scalar factors lined up to form a closely knit socio-economic system, the active pursuit of transborder cooperation helped with the emergence of what Martinez (1994) calls “integrated borderlands”, as in the case of the Geneva region between Switzerland and France, or of the Basle region, among Switzerland, France, and Germany. In borderlands where interdependencies are present to a lesser extent and transborder

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cooperation has been less active, spatial integration across borders remains feeble, as in the case of the Spanish-Portuguese borderlands. Furthermore, borderlands that occupy a central position in the EU tend to benefit more from transborder cooperation, while borderlands that are peripheral in the EU seem to experience a less successful integration. Yet there are examples of peripheral EU borderlands with remarkable transborder cooperation, such as the northern border regions between Sweden and Finland. In these circumstances, an overall assessment of transborder cooperation in Europe would do little at this point to illuminate the contingent nature of the mechanisms that engender and sustain territorial changes in Europe. A much deeper and contextual analysis of transborder cooperation is undertaken below in order to provide the necessary insights that allow for a critical reading of European reterritorialization and its implications for the European political- territorial order.

4. 3. The EU and the Phenomenon of Euroregions

In the EU, transborder regions, commonly known as Euroregions, Euregios, or Regios, have been created across state borders in order to decrease their role as barriers, in an attempt to re-define fixed, border-induced state territoriality to better address challenges of a world of flows. Euroregions emerged out of the institutionalization of transborder cooperation schemes (Perkmann 2002a, b; 2003). Today, transborder cooperation is circumscribed to the framework of Euroregions to a considerable degree. Kepka and Murphy (2002) even argue that Euroregions have come to describe any sub-state cooperation framework that has a transborder character, irrespective of its organizational structure. While Euroregions as a phenomenon are not new (they first appeared in the late 1950s), their number increased tremendously after 1990. They account for almost fifty percent of the EU territory and comprise about ten percent of its population (Ferrera 2004). Expressive of this “vogue” of Euroregions is the fact that they number in the hundreds and that there is no single border in Europe today that is not covered by a Euroregion (Jonsson et al. 2000) (Figure 2). In these circumstances, there is an impressive amount of work lately that tries to make sense of Euroregions (Perkmann1999; 2002a, b, 2003; Perkmann and Sum 2002; Kramsh 2001a, b, 2002a, b, 2003a, b; Kramsh and Hooper 2004; O’Dowd 2002a; Scott 1999a, b, 2000, 2002b, c; Sidaway 2001; Sparkle 1998a, 2000a, b, 2002a, b; Yoder 2003).

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Euroregions emerged as a response to the incapacity of central governments to cope with increased cross-border flows and the need for cooperation. Euroregions are territorially delineated regions situated on both sides of a state border, where planning is done irrespective of state borders to enhance political cooperation and economic development to the benefit of the civil society (Murphy 1993, Foucher 1991). From a political science perspective, Perkmann (2002b: 104) defines Euroregions as “a more or less institutionalized collaboration between contiguous subnational authorities across national borders”, and he distinguishes between two understandings of Euroregions: 1) as territorial units made up of the aggregate territories of the participating authorities, and 2) as organizational entities, usually identified with the Secretariats of the Euroregions. Given the wide variation in the shape and nature of Euroregions, it is difficult to ascertain a typical model of a Euroregion. Their functioning seems to occur rather on a case-by-case circumstance. However, several common features can be witnessed. Generally, the defining elements are modeled after the well-established Euroregions along the German, Dutch, and Belgian borders. They are organized between transborder municipalities, their size ranges between fifty to one hundred kilometers in width, they are inhabited by a few million people, and have an organizational structure that include a council, a presidency, a secretariat, and working groups (Perkmann 2003). Also, Euroregions are often implemented across border regions that functioned as a unitary entity in the past but are now divided by borders. Usually they share cultural characteristics and ethnic populations that constitute minorities in one state or another (Deica and Alexandrescu 1995; Anderson and O’Dowd 1999). However, many Euroregions depart from these principles: their size may reach over a few hundred kilometers in width; participating authorities may be regional authorities, in accordance with the administrative structure of the nation-state they belong to; and they may not share any common past or a common identity.

Figure 2. European Euroregions in 2000.

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There are many contextual factors and actors situated at a variety of scales, vertical as well as transversal, that are involved in the surge of Euroregions after 1990. There is considerable consensus that the EU institutions played the most active role in the creation of Euroregions (Perkmann 1999; 2003; O’Dowd 2002b; Kramsch 2003b). One way the EU envisions European integration is to promote transborder cooperation in the form of Euroregions, based (at least in theory) on the principle of subsidiarity which maintains that local authorities are better prepared than central governments to address the needs of local inhabitants. Particularly after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Euroregions became an integral part of the European “imaginaries of spatial unification” (van Houtum 2002: 37). Since then, the EU has spared no effort in supporting the development of Euroregions, as perhaps best illustrated by the decision to make them eligible for EU funding through the INTERREG program. In these circumstances, the EU made Euroregions the central element of its transnational integration strategy aimed at achieving the social, political, and economic territorial integration of Europe, thus fulfilling the old “Idea of Europe”. However, while the EU can be considered as the driving force behind the unprecedented interest in Euroregions after 1990, EU-related factors alone do not constitute a sufficient explanation for this phenomenon. On the one hand, Euroregions were established in the EU space long before the EU institutions took any serious interest in them, and on the other hand, there are long-active Euroregions that involve Swiss cooperation (not an EU member). This situation points to the fact that other, deeper factors that may also account for the renewed interests in building transborder spaces reside in the incongruencies that exist in the territorial system of nation states, as well as between the nation state and its border regions. Consequently, forces interested in building Euroregions can be found at the national scale, as demonstrated by the establishment of intergovernmental commissions that were aimed at dealing with various inter-state, border-induced issues that required transborder cooperation. Confronted with the limitations of the intergovernmental commissions to effectively address transborder issues, various central government leaders increasingly came to regard Euroregions as appropriate frameworks for addressing these issues (Perkmann 2003). Yet, the attitude of the nation-states towards Euroregions varies vastly, ranging from active support, as in the case of Germany, to grudging acceptance, as in the case of Italy regarding Tyrol, and even to open resistance (Minghi 2002; Delli Zotti 1996).

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There are also local factors that played an important role in the initial emergence and the subsequent development of Euroregions. In spite of the fact that these actors may be considered the less powerful and influential among other actors, they played and continue to play a key role in the development of Euroregions. Many Euroregions are the result of bottom-up creation by the local and regional elites as a response to growing transborder functional interdependencies. They sought to create conditions to efficiently deal with issues of (under)development in border areas by eliminating functional barriers for transborder cooperation (Perkmann 2002a; 2003). Other forces that had a considerable impact on the development of Euroregions occupy a transnational position. AEBR stands out among these forces, as a transnational organization that provides advice to its members and represents Euroregions’ interest vis-à-vis national and international organizations (Loughlin 1999). AEBR also collaborates closely with the EU in promoting transborder cooperation, being implied in the management of INTERREG programs (Perkmann 1999). The various actors implied in transborder cooperation and their specific interests produced a crowded agenda for Euroregions that was often contradictory. As mentioned previously in this research, while the rationale behind establishing Euroregions varies in time and space, the dominant thinking behind the establishment of Euroregions after the 1990s seems to be based on functional integration. The complementarities as well as asymmetries existent in border regions constitute potential interdependencies that in the absence of the barrier effect of the border will generate a variety of connections and flows that will build up an integrated region. In these circumstances, Euroregions are supposed to solve numerous issues, such as helping to reduce tensions among states, alleviating regional disparities, undertaking extensive economic development, and managing environmental pollution (Negut 1998; Bailly 1996). Yet, the fifteen years of experience of transborder cooperation in Euroregions falls short of achieving many of these goals, in spite of their title as “laboratories of European integration”. The burden of expectations bestowed on Euroregions make their goals unrealistic in the absence of unequivocal support from all forces interested in their functioning (Kramsch and Hooper 2004; Scott 2000). Moreover, commenting on the challenges faced by transborder regions, Clement et al. (1999: 275) note that “Not only must border regions do everything every other region must do in terms of increasing competitiveness, but they must do so in collaboration with

113 the region(s) on the other side, which is likely to be economically and politically organized very differently”. Some Euroregions in the EU have achieved impressive results in regard to transborder reterritorialization. One example is the Maas-Rhine Euroregion, situated at the intersection of the borders of Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands, which has a population of 3.6 million inhabitants who share the Dutch, Flemish, Walloon and German languages and cultures. It began in 1976 relying on transborder cooperation for solutions to deindustrialization in the borderlands, and by 1991 acquired formal Euroregional status, extending the scope of its activities (Kramsch 2001a). The Euroregion has its own governing body with authority over financial matters and other programs, and a Euroregional Council, which functions as a “Parliament” of the Euroregion. Its members meet twice a year, and belong to political parties (in their own countries) and non-governmental associations such as labor unions, Chambers of Commerce, universities, etc. (Kepka and Murphy 2002). Although the Council has only consultative functions, lacking formal legislative competencies, it represents a critical step toward changing the decision making process in the Euroregion from national capitals to the local civil society and toward the creation of a communal sense among the inhabitants of the Euroregion.

4.4. Euroregions and the Dimensions of Reterritorialization

Euroregions constitute central sites to understand European reterritorialization because of their transnational status. They straddle one of the most revered ingredients of the Westphalian system: international borders. The relationship between Euroregions and European state reterritorialization is multifaceted and fluid, and it can be adequately understood only by exploring its numerous aspects and their meaning in different circumstances, and for different actors situated at different spatial scales. On these grounds, there are a series of dimensions that Euroregions introduce into the process of European reterritorialization. These dimensions are the result of the impact on European territoriality of the fluid multi-scalar factors involved in the development of Euroregions. The following sections discuss these dimensions in more detail. a) The legal dimension The establishment of Euroregions across the borders of European nation states encountered problems from the start. There was simply no room either in national or in international law to allow for the establishment of any sort of meaningful (identifiable)

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transborder spatial entities. National laws ended at the borders of states, and international laws regulated mainly interstate relations. There was no legal basis for transborder agreements between sub-national authorities from adjoining states. Sub-state authorities were traditionally banned from engaging in international law reserved only for the national authorities. In these conditions, the legal framework required for the existence of such transborder spaces had to be created from scratch. Initially, Euroregions were established on the basis of less formal agreements that relied mostly on the good will of those involved in their functioning (Perkmann 2003), or in some cases on private law arrangements. According to Perkmann (2003), the classic form of Euroregion establishment was the “twin association”, where municipalities or regional authorities form an association on each side of the border in concordance with their own national legal system, and later, in a subsequent step, they joined each other on the basis of a transborder agreement to establish the Euroregion. Given their quasi-formal legal status, for many Euroregions it was difficult, or impossible, to even have a common bank account. For transborder cooperation to develop, a sounder legal framework was needed, ideally anchored in the public law domain. As Euroregions often straddle two or more systems of national law, the challenge was to create a legal status that will be valid on all sides of a border (Baker 1996). However, the impasse was that in practice such a transborder legal status had the potential to put into question the very legal notion of border-defined state national sovereignty.

The first major steps toward the creation of an adequate legal framework based on public law for the functioning of Euroregions were spearheaded by the CoE, which subscribes to a predominantly legalistic understanding of Euroregions as formal political-administrative entities (Perkmann 2003). These efforts eventually resulted in the signing of the European Outline Convention on Transfrontier Cooperation Between Territorial Communities and Authorities in 1980, better known as the Madrid Convention, where a series of documents were adopted that provided a legal basis for transborder cooperation among subnational local and regional authorities (Kepka and Murphy 2002) in areas such as regional development, environmental protection, upgrading of infrastructure, and assistance in disasters (Anderson and Bort 2001). The main aim of the Madrid Convention was to allow local authorities engaged in transborder cooperation the same opportunities that they would have within a national context. An additional Protocol to the Madrid Convention came into force in 1995. Its aim was to strengthen the Madrid

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Convention by explicitly granting to regional authorities the right to conclude public law transborder cooperation agreements with the condition that these agreements do not contravene the national laws of the states involved. However, the Madrid Convention has been of limited practical use because most signatory states entered a provision to the effect that specific schemes of transborder cooperation had to be within the terms of bilateral treaties with neighboring countries (Anderson and Bort 2001). Notwithstanding this fact, the actual significance of the Madrid Convention resides in the fact that it offered a legal point of reference, a precedent that opened up the European legal system to transborder actors. By the late 1980s and early 1990s, a series of bilateral or multilateral transborder treaties were signed among certain European states. Among these were the Benelux Cross-Border Convention in 1989; the German-Dutch transborder treaty in 1991, the Karlsruhe Agreement in 1996, between Switzerland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, as well as numerous other legal arrangements (Kramsh 2001b; Perkmann 2003). Various Euroregions in places such as the Rhine Valley took advantage of these newly created opportunities and became public law organizations. It could be argued that they literally carry out some prerogatives previously reserved for the sovereign states. However, according to Perkmann (2003) the decisions taken by such transnational bodies are binding only on the public authorities within the transborder areas involved and not on the civil subjects inhabiting these areas. The latter continue to remain in the exclusive realm of national law. The emergence of a transborder legal framework in Europe, although weak and incomplete, has profound implications for the process of reterritorialization of the continent. As Anderson and Bort (2001) noticed, the constitution and legislation of numerous European countries had to be modified to allow sub-national authorities to enter treaty like agreements with partners in other countries. They interpret this as a signal that a certain transfer of sovereignty rights is beginning to take place in Europe. Kepka and Murphy (2002) see how the rise of political, economical, and cultural significance of transborder areas with regard to the dominant political-territorial order of the nation state, can signal the weakening significance of political boundaries as markers of social identity. On the one hand, it seems that the extent to which state sovereignty is threatened by the implications of the transborder legal status of Euroregions is disputable, as the national laws set the parameters of transborder agreements. On the other hand, the very existence of these transborder spaces constitutes a challenge for traditional sovereignty

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from a legal point of view, representing inroads into the long-unchallenged concept of state territorial sovereignty and opening up innovative ways of conceiving of juridical affairs positioned beyond the reach of the traditional legal system, at the fringes of national and international law. b) The political-territorial dimension Establishing Euroregions involves territorial delineation across the borders of the states. In this process, novel types of political spaces are created – transborder spaces. Euroregions are territories in their own right. By possessing a transborder dimension, they are territories that potentially challenge the existing political-territorial order based on state territorial sovereignty, where the power of the state coincides with the territory delineated by state borders. Euroregions are situated outside this logic given their transborder dimension. Their functioning requires an effort of political-spatial imagination on the part of the national, supranational and local actors. Given the conflict-ridden nature of nation-state formation in Europe, the degree of integration of numerous borderlands situated at the peripheries of the nation-states varies greatly. Often, these territories are inhabited by minorities whose national allegiance has a long history of being distrusted by their central governments. Therefore, nation-states have typically been very sensitive to border regions, showing little enthusiasm towards cross-border cooperation, let alone the establishment of transborder spaces. Euroregions are supposed to acquire a certain degree of political-territorial autonomy vis- à-vis central governments in order to function as spaces of bottom-up governance. Central governments have to relinquish to local authorities some of their territorial “sovereignty rights” over the governance of Euroregions. In this process Euroregions become spaces situated to a certain extent beyond the direct reach of state power (Kramsh 2003a), in this way testing the limits of the state. Here is where tensions between nation-states and Euroregions are identified. The degree of regional autonomy that nation-states can tolerate is contingent and contextual. In addition, Euroregions, due to the support they receive from the EU, sometimes bypass national governments and deal directly with Brussels regarding issues that national states are unable or unwilling to negotiate. National states often resent this fact and resist Euroregions, fearing that they can lose some of their unchallenged territorial sovereignty (Griggs and Hocknell 1995; Delli Zotti 1996).

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However, confronted with domestic bottom-up pressures related to regional (under)development, as well as supranational EU pressures for a more European-attuned territorial integration, many national governments recognized the necessity of engaging in the establishment of Euroregions. Different governments pursued different strategies toward the establishment of transborder spaces. Some, generally the ones with a more decentralized structure of territorial administration and that in the past lost territories to their neighbors (such as Germany and Austria), found that the political-territorial nature of Euroregions was favorable in furthering their interests and therefore actively engaged in pursuing the establishment of Euroregions in their foreign policy. Others, generally the ones with a more centralized structure of government and who acquired territories from their neighbors (such as Italy), were more cautious about the possible outcomes of estranging even further their weakly integrated borderlands by establishing Euroregions across their borders, especially in areas where politically disputed borders issues still lingered (Delli Zotti 1996; Anderson and Bort 2001). Given these particular concerns, together with concerns regarding state territorial sovereignty in general, in numerous instances national governments directly engaged in the establishment and the subsequent management of Euroregions in an attempt to monitor their political-territorial capabilities. This was often done by utilizing their domestic territorial-administrative system to craft the composition and shape of territories participating in the establishment of Euroregions, or to influence the size of the borderland territory that will join in the creation of Euroregions. In these circumstances, it is due largely to the existence of the EU as a supranational framework that some member states were able to build the high levels of trustworthiness required to establish viable Euroregions across their borders. Furthermore, the formation of a unified space of free movement of persons and goods through the abolition of border controls inside the EU, by the Schengen treaty, created new opportunities for the development of Euroregions. The presence of Euroregions across the borders of states has important implications for the political-territorial organization of social life in Europe. On the one hand, there is little evidence that Euroregions are emancipating themselves from the political hegemony of the nation-states, as they continue to be weakly politically organized territories. On the other hand, transborder spaces introduce from the fringes (both literally and metaphorically) new challenges for nation-states, as their existence is at odds with nation-state’s exclusive sovereignty “rights” in organizing political territoriality. Euroregions’ nature as spaces aimed at rendering state borders

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superfluous points towards the development of a new and innovative political-territorial order in Europe (Kepka and Murphy 2002). However, while cutting across national state borders, Euroregions create borders of their own given their territorially delineated structure (Christiansen and Jorgenson 2000; Ferrera 2004). Thus, the new political-territorial order may consist less in a borderless Europe, and may continue to be more in tune with the principle of territoriality, including additional political-territorial entities organized along different lines of competence (Leresche and Saez 2002; Murphy 1993) and with different degrees of structural consistency. c) The economic dimension One of the most common rationales in support of Euroregions has been argued on economic grounds. In numerous cases, borderlands suffered economic peripheral status given their location at the fringes of national economic systems. During the 1960s and 1970s, when severe economic recessions hit Western Europe, several national governments embarked on a policy of regionalization characterized by considerable economic decentralization aimed at devolving to regions part of their economic responsibilities in order to cope with economic crisis in capitalism. Euroregions seemed to possess the potential for creating conditions for economic development in border regions, thus relieving pressure from the central governments to deal with underdevelopment issues in these regions, while appeasing bottom-up demands for increased decision-making autonomy. After the mid 1980s, however, the drive to economically integrate the space of the EU provided momentum for the development of Euroregions. In these circumstances, it is worth noticing that the economic rationale for Euroregions is typically the one that generates the most consensus among the actors that have a stake in transborder cooperation, as it is often considered in separation of its broader and more contentious context that include other dimensions as well. The economic rationale for the development of Euroregions is based mainly on a functional logic that understands state borders as obstacles that preclude taking advantage of the complimentary assets existing in neighboring border regions (Keating 1998a). Moreover, state borders increase the marginal costs of transborder economic exchanges (Perkmann and Sum 2002). In these circumstances, it is often believed that the removal of borders for economic exchanges turns border regions’ peripheral status into an advantage by making borderlands attractive for a range of economic activities that can generate economic development. Consequently, Euroregions can become new spaces for capitalist accumulation (Jessop 2002).

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To this end, the EU, together with its member states, took a series of steps deemed essential in creating favorable economic conditions for the emergence of transborder economic spaces. Among these steps, perhaps the most important were the implementation of the Single Market in 1992 that created a unified European economic space; the adoption of the Schengen Treaty in 1995 that guaranteed the free circulation of persons, goods and ideas; and the launching of the INTERREG program in 1992, that provides direct financing for transborder cooperation schemes. However, despite these remarkable achievements in creating opportunity structures for the development of transborder economic spaces, the performance of Euroregions as “El Dorados” has fallen well short of expectations (Scott 2000; Sparke 2002; Kramsch and Hooper 2004). While there are a number of partial “success stories” in places such as “Regio Basilensis”, “Regio Genevensis”, or along the Rhine axis (Anderson and Bort 2001; Knippenberg and Markusse 1999), economic asymmetry generally persists in the European borderlands and there has been limited success in achieving economically integrated transborder spaces (van der Velde and van Houtum 2000). Neighboring border regions that share similar economic structures do not necessarily have to cooperate once the barrier effect of the borders is removed (Keating 1998a). They may as well choose to compete with each other if they could further their economic interests elsewhere. Also, in neighboring border regions that have different economic structures transborder economic integration is even more challenging. It has often been noticed that numerous Euroregions have been established more as a strategy for taking advantage of the INTERREG money than as a means of integrating neighboring border regions (Anderson and O’Dowd 1999; Kramsch and Hooper 2004). Generally, Euroregions have had some success in involving the public sector in transborder economic activities mostly in infrastructure projects, but very little success in generating transborder private business networks (Scott 2000). From a Marxist perspective, the economic rationale for Euroregions is embedded in the logic of economic globalization. Euroregions emerged out of capitalism’s search for spatial fixes for new rounds of production and accumulation (Sparke 2002a; Kramsch and Hooper 2004). Thus, Euroregions are part of the continuous process of reterritorialization of capitalist relations of production at various spatial scales. They can be considered new forms of capitalist uneven development at a European scale, and they seem to be more in tune with the logic of

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glocalization in which local resources are positioned to work in conjunction with global developments (Sparke 2002b). However, the less than expected economic performance of Euroregions may point out that other forces, outside the realm of economics, may be at work in undermining the emergence of transborder economically integrated spaces in Europe (Kramsch 2003a). Given the opportunities created by European integration, Euroregions have the potential to become dynamic economic spaces, thus contributing to European reterritorialization. However, to fully take advantage of this potential, Euroregions need to acquire additional decision-making powers that would enable them to devise paths to development that are more representative of grassroots interests. d) The cultural dimension Cultural issues concerning Euroregions revolve around the notion of identity. Traditionally, nation states strived to create nationally centered spatial identities with state borders signifying the limits of this identity. State borders functioned as makers and markers of national identity (Paasi 1996). Beyond them was supposed to lay the space of the frightening “Other”. Moreover, the frequent presence of national minorities stretching the European borderlands and the efforts nation states often undertook aimed at their nationalization adds to the already intense cultural symbolism of borders in Europe. Euroregions are entities that straddle these culturally dysfunctional spaces. In order to function as fully integrated spaces, Euroregions are supposed to enable the creation of territorial identities that bridge the former markers of difference. In this process new spaces with shared social and cultural identities can emerge that stretch across state borders. Often, nation-states hold an understanding of identity as being unique and mutually exclusive instead of changing and multiple, thus they are anxious about the possibility of the emergence of transborder identities, perceiving them as inevitably rivaling national identities. However, bottom-up minority pressures for increased cultural autonomy, together with top-down, supranational pressures for the creation of an integrated European space around a European identity, constituted opportunities for the development of Euroregions. The belief is that cooperation at the local scale across state borders can help develop a densely intertwined web of social interactions based on shared interests that would lead to the crystallization of transborder identities (Perkmann and Sum 2002; Scott 2000). Moreover, in instances where self- conscious ethnic minorities inhabited national borderlands the hope is that the establishment of

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Euroregions will quickly lead to the resurgence of historical territorial identities. Acknowledging this logic, the EU provides financial support for cultural and social projects with transborder character. At the same time, the removal of border controls inside the EU space created conditions for unrestricted circulation in Euroregions. In several instances where populations with common ethnic backgrounds inhabit neighboring borderlands, such as in Tirol, transborder identities seem to have materialized. In most instances, however, there is little evidence that transborder identities emerge (Struver 2002; Anderson and Bort 2001). Paradoxically, while most of the physical barriers to transborder cooperation have been removed in the EU, the mental borders persist in people’s minds. Generally there is little public awareness of the existence of Euroregions as frameworks of transborder cooperation (Anderson and Bort 2001). To remove these representational barriers has been more difficult than anticipated, as the long history of national socialization manifests itself now in indifference vis-à-vis neighboring borderlands and low transborder mobility among borderland inhabitants (Kramsch and Hooper 2004; Struver 2003; van der Velde and van Houtum 2004). Furthermore, the discursive production of border-reliant national socialization continues today in parallel with the new transborder identity discourse, having a strong regulative effect on the latter that has to be carefully couched in non-challenging terms for the former. The outcome is that often each side of the border keeps reproducing its own national stereotypes instead of creating a common identity (Struver 2003). Euroregions do create an appropriate framework for the emergence of culturally reterritorialized spaces in Europe, yet it appears that the creation of densely-knit transborder communities of interest to engender a transborder identity will be a protracted process (Scott 2000). The lethargic impact of Euroregions on the creation of a transborder identity and the persistence of mental borders among the inhabitants of neighboring borderlands may reside in the a priori and often top-down nature of the geographic imaginations regarding transborder regions (Sparke 2000b). A more appropriate context for Euroregions to acquire spatial identities can be created first and foremost by including in their creation predominantly grass roots geographical imaginations, along with granting them increased autonomy from other scales of authority. As the local is the closest scale at which people experience borders both in their discursive and physical forms, only a grass roots anchored pattern of transborder social interaction may create a solid the base for reterritorialized identities in Europe.

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e) The institutional and governance dimension As organized territorial entities that span state borders, Euroregions are also institutions resulting from the institutionalization of transborder cooperation (Perkmann 1999; 2002b; 2003). Traditionally, there were no permanent institutions across European state borders, as the territorial-administrative systems of organization of social life gravitated toward national capitals. State borders constituted the limits of national institutions, separating different systems of political organization. As a result, state borders became sites marking the difference between the jurisdiction of national and sub-national governmental authorities and their administrative competencies. Transborder contacts, when they existed at all, were largely routed through national institutions. However, the increase in intensity of transborder cooperation generated a need for new institutional frameworks of territorial organization beyond the scope of traditional national institutions. Euroregions provided such frameworks designed to bring some structure to transborder cooperation. The institutionalization of Euroregions raised issues concerning the governance of these newly created transborder spatial entities. These issues are important because they play a key role in determining the nature and the role of Euroregions as political-territorial entities in Europe (Kramsch 2001b). The institutional model of transborder cooperation is embedded in the broader framework of European and national policies (Scott 1999a, c; Kramsch and Hooper 2004). Local authorities are considered to be primary actors of transborder governance in Euroregions. They can take advantaged of the opportunities created by European integration and engage in bottom-up community building (Perkmann 2002b). However, despite the fact that Euroregions have their own governance institutions such as presidencies, secretariats, commissions and so on, the broader context in which the local authorities are embedded strongly influence the extent to which they can act as autonomous transborder institutional structures (Perkmann and Sum 2002; Kramsch 2001b). The institutionalization of Euroregions is generally weak and lacks key governance powers that still rest with national and supranational institutions. In these conditions, the structures of governance in Euroregions imply national as well as supranational actors. The interaction between the local, national and supra-national actors results in a novel pattern of networks of multilevel governance in Euroregions.

The extent to which multilevel governance in Euroregions has the capacity to generate autonomous spaces of political-territorial organization is a matter of intense debate. On the one

123 hand, Euroregion’s lack of key political powers will continue to keep them dependent on systems of organization situated at higher territorial scales. Accordingly, even if Euroregions allow some measure of autonomy for local actors to position themselves between the EU and the nation- states, Euroregions function as no more than implementation agencies for EU policies, such as INTERREG, under the supervision of national authorities (Perkmann 1999; 2002b; 2003; Sparke 2000b). Their lack of mechanisms to allow for public representation maintains a “democratic deficit” in these spaces and ensures they remain transborder technocratic networks of governance with limited capacity of generating their own transborder bottom-up political agency. In a few cases when this happens, these governance networks rely predominantly on interpersonal relationships between local leaders across borders and with hierarchically superior levels of national government than on the structural steadiness of transborder institutions (Keating 1998b). On the other hand, the multilevel pattern of governance in Euroregions that confers local authorities certain decision-making powers represents a departure from the hierarchically-based model of political territorial government of national states. While admitting that the current mismatch between the logic of political representation in the nation state and that of contemporary capitalism in the EU has regulative effects on the capacity of Euroregions to become meaningful bottom-up transborder spaces, it is also true that Euroregions have the potential to become new spaces for political organization of transborder communities, thus to possess political-territorial capacities. Euroregions can allow the emergence of more democratic spaces of political representation through the application of the principle of subsidiarity, which implies the devolution of decision-making powers to local authorities that are better positioned to reflect the needs and aspiration of the citizens (Baker 1996; O’Dowd 2002a). The few instances in which certain Euroregions bypassed national governments and went directly to Brussels to negotiate matters of local interest constitute examples of the political potential Euroregions may hold. However, the enhancement of powers of transborder governance comes at the expense of the nation state powers (Kramsch 2001a, b; 2003a). For such reasons, national governments seek to actively reinsert themselves in structures of transborder governance in order to continue to steer the process according to their own interests. The above mentioned dimensions of Euroregion-introduced European transborder state reterritorialization illustrate the nature and the scope of challenges facing current European efforts to forge a new political-territorial order. A series of important questions arise from them.

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Are these changes comprehensive enough to influence state reterritorialization, and if so, to which extent? Are we witnessing the emergence of new territorialities in Europe, and if so, what will they look like? It is difficult and impractical to offer simple and definitive answers to these questions. On the one hand, the new legal basis for transborder cooperation, together with newly created transborder institutions, and with the new powers devolved to local authorities, constitute concrete signs of departure from the former system of political-territorial organization, pointing toward the possibility of the emergence of a new system. On the other hand, the degree of autonomy and the amount of power these new achievements amass are feeble and do not represent a definite break with the territorial state system, as national states still hold the inhabitants’ citizenship rights (Agnew and Corbridge 1995). Examining these complex developments at the heart of the territorial changes Europe experiences reveals the image of a rather state-directed and centered reterritorialization in which states themselves are main players, and less of a reterritorialization in which other political- territorial entities will replace European nation-states. In this type of reterritorialization nation states remain the hegemonic form of territorial organization, but they do not enjoy absolute power anymore over their own territories, in this case over their borderlands. Additional territorial entities such as Euroregions acquire some measure of autonomous decision-making power as well, and national governments have to engage in multilevel negotiations with local actors in these territorial entities and with actors at the supranational scale. Thus, we are witnessing a process of transborder state reterritorialization in the sense that the circumstances of the political-territorial organization of social life are changing as a result of multiplication of the actors with territorial management capacities. Furthermore, transborder state reterritorialization in Europe is geographically uneven. There are some areas in Europe where this process is more advanced and other areas where it has hardly begun. Generally, this situation points to the emergence of a series of “border regimes” that differentiate between the internal EU space where freedom of movement across state borders has been achieved and the external EU space where the EU borders are strengthening (Kramsch and Hooper 2004).

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5. Transcending the “Curtain”: The Persistent Dilemma of the Territorial Confines of Europe

The unanticipated events of 1989 that resulted in the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the fall from power of the communist governments in Eastern Europe suddenly opened the way for the removal of the Iron Curtain and for the re-unification of the two halves of the continent, thus towards the fulfillment of the Idea of Europe (Anderson and Bort 2001). The break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 furthered this opportunity, and at the same time revitalized the old debate over the eastern limits of Europe. Most of the new East European governments affirmed their pro-European orientation and vowed to rapidly re-integrate their countries into “Europe”, under the EU umbrella. A short-lived euphoria dominated among East Europeans regarding their prospects for rapid EU integration. They tended to underestimate the difficulties of the transition process from totalitarian state institutions and planned economies to societies based on the rule of law and market economies. Decades-long suppressed political, ethnic, social, and economic issues, domestic as well as international, resurfaced to disturb the transition period in many East European societies. Central for understanding Eastern Europe is its patterns of state formation. The complex political, economic and cultural context of the emergence of the East European states contributed to the heterogeneity of the region as a whole. The process of national unification through nationalism plays a paramount role in the formation of East European nation-states. For many centuries, multiethnic, multinational empires politically occupied the territory that was to become Eastern Europe. In general, the traditional patterns of governance of these empires, unlike in older states of western Europe, did not attempt to erase the ethnicity of their subjects or minorities, rather they relied on these minorities to help the center to rule, i.e., the “millet” system during the last stages of the Ottoman Empire (Schopflin 2000). As such, in Eastern Europe, the early states were often subordinated to external rule that separated the civic and ethnic elements from one another precluding their intermingling, as it happened in Western Europe. As a consequence, in Eastern Europe the civic element of national identity was weak while the ethnic element of identity came to dominate. To this situation, a degree of economic backwardness as compared to Western Europe can be added (Schopflin 1995).

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This was the environment found in most of the countries of Eastern Europe when Romantic nationalism (Giddens 1987) penetrated the region during the nineteenth century. Nationalist movements throughout Eastern Europe in this period were often characterized as both unification nationalism, where nationalism provides the justification to unite, and separation nationalism, the most successful nationalism in the region, that involved the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires, and the emergence of most of the states in Eastern Europe (Taylor 1989). These types of nationalist movements have been characterized by a particular variety of nationalism based almost exclusively on ethnicity. Given its particular exclusivist nature, ethnic nationalism is often identified by scholars as being at the roots of many conflicts in Eastern Europe. As a consequence of both the fact that in Eastern Europe ethnic nationalism claimed a state for only one ethnic group when the territorial realities were multiethnic, and that state borders were in most instances imposed by outside powers, numerous minorities were left out of the borders of the newly emerged states and were placed in the territories of neighboring and often hostile national states (Tunander et al. 1997). The introduction of communism to Eastern Europe after 1945, with its internationalist orientation (in theory only), had the effect of freezing at the international scale most of the unsettled issues confronting the states and borders of the region. On a domestic scale, this meant a free hand for the East European governments in their attempts to produce ethnically pure nations by de-nationalizing, assimilating, or even ethnically cleaning ethnic minorities inside their borders. Examples such as the uprooting of the Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia; the deportation of whole populations from Ruthenia, Ukraine, Moldova, and so on, in the USSR; the attempts to denationalize Hungarians in countries neighboring Hungary; and others, stand proof for the new issues generated in Eastern Europe during this period (Schopflin 2000). After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, many of the unsolved and newly added issues resurfaced with a passion, such as the war in former Yugoslavia and the break-up of Czechoslovakia and the USSR, taking by surprise most political leaders. The determination and intensity of the post 1989 conflicts in Eastern Europe was understood by many as a readjustment of various situations that lingered, in some cases for centuries (Kupchan 1995). Hobsbawm (in Heffernan 1998), metaphorically calls the centrifugal explosion of national separatism in Eastern Europe after 1989, “the unfinished business in 1918”. The problem many post-communist countries in transition faced resided in the weakness of their civil society which did not succeed

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in filling the public sphere. This deficiency prompted, as an easy solution, to call upon ethnic nationalism to decide issues of power, and to attribute the lack of success domestically to external enemies of the nation. In this context, symbolic politics that used ethno-nationalist themes acquired an enormous importance at the expense of “practical empirical thinking” (Schopflin 2000). The “readjustment” of ethnic and national fault lines in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s generated approximately 8000 miles of new state borders in Eastern Europe (Foucher 1998), frightened West Europeans about the insecurity coming from east, and almost shattered East European politicians’ favorite discourse of “return” of their countries to Europe. Yet, even as thousands of miles of new borders were being created in Europe, most East European governments tenaciously persevered in their goal of becoming part of an integrated Europe. From a geopolitical perspective, a general anxiety of remaining buffer states between the EU and a yet not clearly defined “East” fueled those countries pro-European drive. From an economic perspective, only integration into the dynamic EU economy was believed to assure their prosperity. In these circumstances, they embarked on an unprecedented program of political, economic, and social reforms intended to allow them to catch-up with EU member states in order to facilitate their European integration. At this time, the EU was experiencing a process of “deepening” following the 1986 Single European Act and in preparation of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. The initial EU response was to create a European Bank (EBRD) to help with reconstruction and development in Eastern Europe and to prepare association agreements with potential candidate states (Forster and Niblett 2001; Smith and Timmins 2000). East Europeans considered the EU response as unstructured and vague because it fell short of guaranteeing them full EU membership. For West European leaders, an eastern EU expansion was a challenging issue to tackle. Expansion to include post- communist states had a series of benefits, such as increasing the size and the power of the EU on the global stage, increasing the size of the European single market, providing political stability to Eastern Europe, and others. At the same time, expansion would come with a series of costs, such as considerable transfers of funds from the EU budget toward the countries of the region given their weak economies, the risk of massive unemployment and social unrest in the older EU member countries generated by a low-cost labor force in Eastern Europe in the event of economic recession, and others (Smith and Timmins 2000). In these circumstances, the strategy

128 adopted by the EU leaders was to delay immediate membership and to demand the post- communist countries undergo a period of preparation for EU membership, while at the same time being unequivocal about those countries’ concrete EU integration prospects. The importance of the determined choice of post communist countries to join the EU resides in the fact that they began to follow Brussels policy guidelines although they were not yet EU members (Henderson 2000). Prospective members had to adopt the “Aquis communautaire”, a collection of thousands of pages of EU regulations in order to ensure smoother institutional integration for the joining states. The adoption of the Aquis by the applicant states meant that aspects of the EU regional policy, including transborder cooperation, had also to be engaged by East European governments (O’Dowd 2002a). This way, the “space” of transborder cooperation had been extended to Eastern Europe before any of the countries in the region gained EU membership. At the 1993 Copenhagen summit, the EU leaders formally announced the decision to expand the EU eastwards to include the former communist states. To this end, a series of accession principles were established that linked EU membership to progress in structural reforms towards market economies and liberal democracy (Anderson and Bort 2001). The EU established membership criteria for its eastern expansion came to define Europeanism (Moisio 2002; Kuus 2004), thus defining the identity underlying the upcoming united Europe. Oddly enough, the candidate countries had now to prove their Europeanism, in spite of their geographical position on the map of Europe. By the mid 1990s, thirteen countries had applied for EU membership. The process of fulfilling the “Europeanness” membership criteria resulted in the emergence of a structure of accession with several tiers that were supposed to be indicative of the East European countries’ readiness for EU membership. The most advanced countries on the transition path, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, and Slovenia, formed the first tier. The second tier was formed by Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Latvia, and Lithuania, which lagged behind in fulfilling various membership criteria. There could be identified even a third tier of countries that are seeking EU membership, composed of Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey and others, which do not have accession treaties with the EU, and their prospects of joining the EU anytime soon are at best unclear.

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At the Helsinki summit in 1999, twelve applicant countries were accepted to open membership negotiations, with the exception of Turkey (Moisio 2002). By 2001, the EU decided to accept only ten countries in a first round of enlargement that was established for 2004, and two more in a second round of enlargement scheduled for 2007 (Figure 1). Fifteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, together with Cyprus and Malta, joined the EU in the largest ever EU extension, metaphorically called “the Big Bang”. As of 2005, Romania and Bulgaria had already signed their EU membership treaties, and their 2007 joining date remains unchanged. Other countries such as Turkey, Croatia, and more recently Ukraine and Moldova, remain resolute in their desire to gain EU membership as well. The 2004 expansion created a 25 country EU (27 by 2007) that extends from the Atlantic Ocean in west to beyond the borders of the former USSR space in the east. The Idea of Europe seems to have finally peacefully materialized under the EU umbrella. However, the “Big Bang”, together with the planned 2007 extension, as unprecedented as they may be, still leaves open the problem of the eastern limits of Europe. The existence of the other countries, such as Turkey, Ukraine, Moldova, and others, that continue to demand EU membership, create a complex picture of the eastern limits of Europe and raise questions about the meaning of the Idea of Europe. After the 2004 expansion it seems that the Idea of Europe is moving too quickly for at least some Europeans, as shown by the 2005 French and Dutch referendums that rejected the European Constitution. Cultural and economic factors have gained renewed importance in defining who belongs and who does not belong in Europe, who are Europe’s Others. For the moment, it appears that the EU eastern limits will follow the Finnish, Baltic States, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Greek eastern borders, as none of the remaining East European countries have begun membership negotiations with Brussels. In addition, Russia has not applied for EU membership. It looks like “Europe” will stop, at least for a while, at these borderlands. Increasingly, countries eastward of this line are depicted in the European political discourse as outsiders with little to no foreseeable chance of EU membership. Yet, this limit is strongly disputed, as states situated as far eastward as the Caucasus Mountains, such as Georgia, hope one day to become EU members. In these circumstances, the moving nature of Europe’s eastern limits will continue to confront Europeans well into the twenty-first century.

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5.1. European Unification and Transborder Reterritorialization

In the post 1989 European geopolitical landscape dominated by the European (re)unification discourse, the issue of borderlands became even more salient. On the one hand, after the initial period of border “adjustment” in the first part of the 1990s, territorial and ethnic rivalries seemed to have largely subsided in Eastern Europe. However this was not a general phenomenon, since in areas such as Yugoslavia they lasted until late 1999 and spikes in ethnic violence still occasionally occurred even later, as the 2004 events in Macedonia indicated. Yet, the perspective of the EU’s eastern enlargement provided a stabilizing effect for most post- communist countries and they began to trade potential territorial claims for closeness to the EU (Tunander 1997). Perhaps the examples of Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine are among the most notable ones (Waever 1997), but also worth mentioning is the Polish-Ukrainian partnership, and others. Significant is the fact that the borders among post-communist states were experiencing a period of openness compared with their previous status. For the most part, the circulation of persons was free, in the sense that crossing post-communist borders did not require a visa for East European citizens. In the western part of the continent, with the application of Schengen, the internal EU space was becoming increasingly borderless, suggesting the possibility of a borderless Europe after the enlargement. On the other hand, the perception that the external borders of the EU have to follow a different, much more restrictive regime, gained ascendancy over the policy-makers in EU member states. After the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the main security threat to the EU member states vanished. However, new security threats that could destabilize EU space, such as immigration, organized crime, drugs, human trafficking, and others, were perceived as coming from the East, generated by the acute economic and political asymmetries between the western and the eastern parts of Europe (Anderson and Bort 2001). In these circumstances, the eastern border of the EU emerged as an important issue to be dealt with. The EU policy makers considered that it was imperative to reinforce the eastern border of the EU by initiating a series of measures aimed to contain the new perceived security threats. Yet, reinforcing the EU eastern border is counterintuitive to the logic of eastern enlargement and European integration. The EU tries to walk a tight rope between the desire to reinforce its eastern border and the need to avoid the creation a new Iron Curtain several hundred miles away to the East of the previous one.

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The EU leaders understood early on that European unification required an integration strategy for Eastern Europe. While initial attempts appeared relatively unstructured and uncoordinated, the EU strategy generally consisted in gradually spreading its own organization structure to the applicant countries by encouraging a variety of interregional, transborder, and transnational institutional links between the EU member states and the East European applicant countries with the ultimate goal of creating a cohesive European space (Kennard 2003). At the same time, the EU encouraged the candidate states to start the implementation of a regionalization process in order to decentralize their highly centralized domestic territorial- administrative structure. Faced with the destabilizing potential coming from East European border regions, EU leaders (among whom the Germans were prominent) increasingly utilized the EU regional policy as one of the pillars around which to develop an integration strategy based on transborder cooperation. In this context, transborder cooperation, institutionalized in the form of Euroregions, was intended as a form of practical preparation for enlargement that would achieve the reduction of economic asymmetries and would promote political stability in European border regions and beyond (Scott 2000; O’Dowd 2002a; Kennard 2003). Various funding programs have been established to provide financial resources in support of this strategy. In 1989, PHARE was established as a program to bring structural aid to Hungary and Poland, and was later extended to other post-communist countries. As INTERREG funds were restricted only to the EU territory, a part of the PHARE funds since 1994 have been used to finance transborder cooperation projects in applicant countries to match INTERREG funds allocated for the eastern EU border regions. In 1995, the TACIS program was created to support transborder cooperation in post-Soviet space, to match PHARE or INTERREG funds allotted for the border regions of accession countries or EU member countries (Scott 2000; Perkmann 1999; Kennard 2003; 2004). Although the territorial inconsistency between the allocation of INTERREG/PHARE/TACIS funds hampered the development of true transborder projects in Euroregions, the existence and the management of these funding programs succeeded in bringing east European borderlands in the spotlight of European integration policies and in starting the process of transborder cooperation among East European countries themselves, thus contributing to the spreading of transborder reterritorialization to Eastern Europe. In the context of eastern enlargement, the attempt to balance between transborder integration and the management of security threats emerging from the east generated a certain

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pattern of diffusion of transborder reterritorialization processes that became increasingly defined by the shifting nature of the eastern EU frontier. Initially in the early 1990s, the EU member states relaxed border crossing procedures for the citizens of post-communist states. However, with the implementation of the Schengen Agreement after 1995 this situation changed. Controls at the EU’s eastern borders became stricter and travel visas were introduced for a series of east European states deemed as having a high immigration potential (Wastl-Walter and Kofler 1999; Kennard 2003). The implementation of the Schengen Agreement by the EU countries had negative short term impacts on transborder cooperation at the external borders of the EU. Transborder exchanges between the EU border regions and the border regions of the neighboring candidate countries dropped temporarily, and the ongoing liberalization of the border crossing regime among the post-communist countries was endangered. The Schengen logic of reinforcing the external EU frontiers was counter-intuitive to the EU strategy of promoting transborder cooperation as vehicle to achieve European integration. Among the measures taken to overcome the EU stricter border controls was the increasing institutionalization of transborder cooperation through increasing participation in Euroregions. Yet, the incoherence of the EU eastward policy became apparent. Additionally, as a condition for EU membership, the EU started to require neighboring candidate countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Slovenia, and later the Baltic States, Romania, and Bulgaria, to reinforce their own eastern borders and to introduce, against their will, travel visas for the citizens of their neighboring countries to the east, such as Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, and Belarus (Anderson and Bort 2001). This meant that the EU candidate states had to engage in the implementation of the Schengen provisions even before they became EU members and without even fully benefiting from the Schengen Agreement since border controls were not removed from their western borders and a passport was still needed to cross into EU member states. This policy spatially shifted the eastern EU borders with regard to the free circulation of persons at the eastern borders of the EU candidate states. While the EU official eastern border remained the border of member states, the security border was expanded eastwards. By 2003, all eight East European countries that joined the EU in 2004 introduced travel visas for the citizens of their non-candidate neighboring countries. By 2004, in preparation for their 2007 scheduled

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EU joining, Romania and Bulgaria followed suit. The citizens of other East European states that do not have foreseeable EU membership perspectives remained outside this space of free travel that is increasingly becoming the space of Europe’s new Other as well. This situation will become more acute after the 2007 extension, given the possibility that the “traveling” EU eastern border will stabilize for an extended period of time at the eastern borders of the new EU member states. Well aware of the possible political, economic, and social consequences stemming from these potential future developments, the EU put in place a particular policy, dubbed the New Neighborhood-Wider Europe Policy or European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), toward the East European countries that do not have membership treaties with the EU (European Commission 2003). The intention is to create a comprehensive partnership framework between the EU and its future neighbor countries that would assure the security and prosperity of the entire region by offering structural aid and political partnership (Kempe 2001). In effect, the ENP is intended to trade closer economic integration with the EU for membership in the EU. Transborder cooperation constitutes a major strategy of the ENP that along with bi-lateral and European cooperation aims to create an area of stability along the EU external borders (European Commission 2003). Euroregions will play once again an important institutional role in supporting transborder cooperation along the EU external borders and beyond. However, the EU’s new neighbors worry that the ENP is intended to delay them full EU membership in the future. Furthermore, the reinforcement of the EU borders, together with the strict Schengen visa regime, creates apprehension in EU neighboring countries that another Iron Curtain will be erected at their western borders.

5.2. Euroregions in Eastern Europe

Once the East European countries became interested in joining the EU, Euroregions were established in Eastern Europe as well (Hann 1998; Yoder 2003; Kennard 2003; 2004). In many cases this was done with the example of Western European Euroregions in mind, although the historical and political context of Eastern Europe raised a series of economical, political, and social issues that differed from the ones encountered in Western Europe. The former communist economic approach to development did not favor transborder cooperation, and therefore the development of the border regions usually lagged behind. Instead, the highly centralized

134 economic system of the former socialist countries was oriented toward the interior of the countries. This state of affairs led, in most instances, to poor development of the border regions, therefore hindering the establishment of viable transborder regions after the fall of communism. Moreover, the communist past of the region left deep traces on the political landscape of Eastern European countries and their societies. Although in a constant process of change, the state there remains highly centralized; nationalism runs high, especially when exploited by politicians; sizeable ethnic minorities live in neighboring countries; and trust building among the countries of the region is advancing relatively slowly outside the EU umbrella. In addition, the myth of the “holiness” of state borders as the sole guarantee of national survival remains strong (Thuen 1999). In these circumstances it is not surprising that Euroregions were initially perceived in Eastern Europe as political instruments aimed at detaching border areas from one state and attaching them to another or to extend a country’s political control beyond its national borders. Consequently, they were regarded as direct threats to the territorial integrity of the state (Negut 1998; Baker 1996). Later, these governments internalized the discourse of transborder regions and tried to use it to their benefit in international politics. Often, they envisaged the establishment of Euroregions as political tools for solving unsettled international issues with neighboring countries, thus subverting the goal of Euroregions and reducing them to mere tools in international politics. The EU imagined Eastern European Euroregions as “laboratories of integration” that would familiarize EU candidate countries with the practice of transborder cooperation. Euroregions could help bridge the economic and political gap between the western and the eastern parts of the continent, and would constitute pathways to European integration by carrying out integration at the regional level that would deepen European integration (Yoder 2003). However, given that national governments often reluctantly engaged in transborder cooperation, top-down management characterizes most East European Euroregions. A real devolution of power to the local authorities has not taken place in most cases. Different political, strategic, and economic expectations from Euroregions are often conflicting with each other. Furthermore, the practice of relying on Euroregions to deliver panacea-type solutions to wider-scale national issues is a guarantee of Euroregions’ failure. Although progress has been made in many East European Euroregions, mainly in the “soft” sectors of transborder cooperation such as folk

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festivals, they are far from replicating the success of some of their EU counterparts (Deica and Alexandrescu 1995). East European Euroregions remain mainly the project of the national governments and they express less the worldviews of the local authorities. This process is detrimental to the civil society and to democracy in the region. There can be identified two main categories of Euroregions in Eastern Europe. First, there are the Euroregions that straddle the former Iron Curtain. Most of the research conducted on East European Euroregions is limited to the countries that share a common border with EU states, such as Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia (e.g. Buffon 1996; Hann 1998; Scott 1999b; 2000; Kratke 1999). The Euroregions created along those countries’ western borders with EU member states benefited from German, Finnish, Austrian or Italian investments and expertise, together with significant EU funding from programs such as PHARE that matched INTERREG funds used in the EU member states borderlands. Among these Euroregions with East European participation, the example of the Polish-German Euroregions, such as Pro Europa Viadrina, Nysa, and others, are best documented (Kepka and Murphy 2002; Scott 2000; Yoder 2003). These were the first Euroregions to be established in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, and they benefited from German institutional knowledge and investment. While progress in the economic realm remains limited, there are a series of “success stories” that certain Euroregions across the German-Polish border, such as Pro Europa Viadrina, can boast: a common university called Europa-University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder on the German side, and the Collegium Polonicus on the Polish side; a Euro-Kindergarten; common parks, cultural centers, common sewage plant, and others (Yoder 2003; Kennard 2003). After the 2004 EU expansion the status of the Euroregions straddling the former Iron Curtain changed. They are now Euroregions situated inside EU space (except the ones between Russia and Finland), and their entire territory is now eligible for INTERREG funds. While these changes did not erase structural issues confronting these Euroregions, and they did not translate into rapid socio-economic improvements, the changes brought about after 2004 did create novel opportunities for intensifying the development of integrated transborder spaces in Europe. Second, there are the East European Euroregions created between the borders of the EU candidate countries, as well as between the EU candidate countries and non-EU candidate countries. Among these Euroregions are examples such as the Carpathian Euroregion, between Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine and Romania; Danube-Kris-Mures-Tisa between Hungary,

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Romania, and Yugoslavia; the Bug Euroregion between Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus, and others (Kennard 2004; Anderson and Bort 2001). Their case is severely understudied in spite of their potential for gaining insights in the process of European reterritorialization outside EU space. These Euroregions experience different circumstances when compared with Euroregions situated westwards. They are located between poorer states, they benefit much less from western direct investment, they often straddle tense national borders, and the EU is only marginally involved in their functioning. These Euroregions are the latest to be established, generally in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and they benefit from less financial resources, generally from PHARE funds in the EU candidate countries and TACIS funds in the post Soviet space. Yet, the pace of the establishment and the number of these Euroregions is impressive. By 2005 they covered most of Eastern Europe’s borders between the new EU members and prospective members (Figure 2, page 111). In fact, most of the East European Euroregions will now straddle the post 2004 and 2007 EU eastern borders. Would they be in the same situation and follow the same path as the ones previously situated along the Iron Curtain or will they be different and will follow a different path? These are issues that are addressed in the remainder of this dissertation.

6. Conclusion

This chapter examined the relationship between European integration and the development of transborder regionalism in the context of the process of state reterritorialization. Representations of a unitary European space are not new, and they can be traced back to antiquity. Ever since, various European great powers have been tried to achieve European unity by various means, most usually through violence. The advent of the EU integration process in Western Europe in the aftermath of World War Two is the only attempt to peacefully fulfill the idea of united Europe. The process of European integration in the EU framework went through several stages, at first based on economic rationales, and later gradually incorporating political aspects as well. One of the main dimensions of integration has been focused on the process of regionalization that generated a process of reterritorialization of European space. Confronted with global pressures from above and with domestic pressures from below, the European nation- states responded by devolving certain powers upwards, to the supranational EU institutions and

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downwards to sub-national political-administrative units. These processes gradually led to changes in the European system of states, such as the emergence of the EU as an important supranational actor and of the strengthening of the power of regions at the sub-national level. These additional political-territorial actors increased the complexity of the European decision- making environment, characterized now by a system of multilevel governance which remained under the hegemony of the nation-state. This remains a contentious process, since the pooling of sovereignty is often perceived as being contrary to the established European political-territorial order of the nation states. In order for the EU to achieve deeper territorial cohesiveness, transborder regional integration through transborder cooperation has been emphasized. In order for transborder cooperation to gain more structure and power, it was institutionalized in the form of Euroregions. Euroregions are supposed to be spaces that are bottom up established and managed, and therefore are better positioned to answer to the needs of local inhabitants and to constitute partners in the structure of multilevel governance. Euroregions are unprecedented political entities given their territorial nature of straddling the international borders. They embody a considerable potential for change in the nature of European territoriality. However, this potential makes them also contradictory entities as well. Certain national governments fear that Euroregions’ political-territorial potential could challenge their territorial sovereignty, and they generally resist granting Euroregions increased decision-making powers. However, in Western Europe, because of the existence of the EU supranational framework, member states generally managed to build considerable levels of mutual trust to allow Euroregions to further develop. In addition, developments in the EU such as the creation of the Single Market, the establishment of the INTERREG program to finance transborder cooperation, and the implementation of the Schengen Agreement regarding the free circulations of goods, ideas and persons, created new opportunities for Euroregions as actors in the reterritorialization process. Yet, Euroregions do not appear to significantly challenge the principle of state territoriality, as states manage to remain the main infrastructure upon and through which reterritorialization occurs. The fall of communism in Eastern Europe opened up the possibility of the reunification of Europe. The EU emerged as the main force capable of bridging the forty year old Cold War divide of the continent, by extending eastwards the process of integration. In turn, most post

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communist states displayed genuine interest in joining the EU and engaged in comprehensive structural reforms that would allow them to attain EU membership. Transborder cooperation in the form of Euroregions became one of the pillars of the EU- devised strategy for eastern enlargement. In this context, Euroregions have been created in Eastern Europe since the early 1990s, with the purpose of introducing East Europeans to the dynamics of multilevel governance where they would practice European integration. Yet, in the absence of the EU umbrella, progress in East European Euroregions has been slow. The circumstances for the establishment of Euroregions in East Europe were different from the ones existing inside the space of the EU. However, after the 2004 EU expansion that offered membership to eight post-communist countries, the circumstances for East European Euroregions changed again, and now they are benefiting from direct EU support. After 2007, when two additional post-communist countries (Romania and Bulgaria) are scheduled to join the EU, there are no concrete plans regarding the next round of EU expansion. A lively debate with far reaching consequences regarding the eastern limits of Europe is currently taking place in the EU, and there are signs that the eastern limit of the EU could stabilize for some time at the eastern borders of the new member states. This possible development creates a series of tensions given the fact that there remain East European countries interested in joining the EU. The Euroregions situated between these countries and the new EU members would become the interface where the changes that would take place at the limits of EU space will play out.

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CHAPTER 5

TERRITORIAL BORDERING IN THE LOWER DANUBE REGION: HISTORY, SPACE, AND POLITICS

This chapter explores the East European historical and geo-political context of border institutionalization of the Lower Danube region that spans the borders of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The term Lower Danube region/space is used broadly in this study, and refers to the entire geographical area occupied today by Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and parts of Bulgaria. This chapter provides an in-depth understanding of the specific conditions underlying the processes of population and political institutionalization of the territories surrounding the mouths of the Danube River. First, background of Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian state building and bordering will provide familiarity with the region under study. Second, the examination of interstate relations among the three countries will set the scene for understanding the international political context of the Lower Danube region. Third, I focus on the particular historical, cultural, and geo-political contexts of the Lower Danube lands in order to uncover the local elements at work in the current processes of reterritorialization of the region surrounding the mouths of the Danube River.

1. The Becoming of Romania, Moldova and Ukraine

1.1. Romania: A European Crossroad

Romania is situated in Southeast Central Europe between the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube River, and the Black Sea, at the junction of three European regions: Western, Eastern and Southern Europe (Figure 1, page 86). It has an area of about 92,000 square miles (approximately the size of Oregon), and a population of approximately 23,000,000.

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These data rank the country as the eight largest country in Europe in terms of land area and population. Romania's geographical position as a European crossroad constitutes one of the most important factors shaping the country’s historical geo-political development. In antiquity, the Romanian territory was called Dacia, and was inhabited mainly by northern tribes of Thracians, known as Dacians. In the first century A.D. the Romans conquered Dacia and transformed it into a province of the Roman Empire. Prevalent theories regarding the genesis of the Romanian people maintain that a process of mixture between the Romans and the native Dacians took place following the conquest of Dacia, resulting in a Latin-speaking Romanized population (Turnock 1999). After the retreat of the Roman Empire from Dacia in 271 A.D., a series of migratory tribes from Eurasia crossed the territory of Romania on their way to Western Europe and the Balkan Peninsula. Of these, the Slavs that arrived in the area around the seventh century A.D. are the most significant for Romanians’ genesis. While most of the Slavic tribes settled predominantly north, west, and south of the territory of contemporary Romania, some Slavic elements remained in this territory contributing to the genesis of Romanians. During the Middle Ages, three states with Romanian population - Walachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania - emerged in the territory between the Carpathians, the Danube, and the Black Sea from the merger of smaller political-territorial units. Walachia and Moldova vigorously asserted their independence in the fourteenth century (early to mid 1300s), while Transylvania developed between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries as an autonomous political- territorial entity under the suzerainty of the Hungarian Kingdom (Historical-Geographical Atlas 1996). For the most part, the three states developed independently, although after the fourteenth century constant fights against the advancing Ottoman Empire in Southeastern Europe provided occasions for common action. In addition to the Ottoman Empire, the three principalities had to negotiate their independence, according to the circumstances, with the Austrian Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom in the West, with the Russian Empire in the East and with the Polish Empire in the North (Turnock 1999). During the tumultuous Middle Ages it was not uncommon for Transylvania, Walachia, and Moldova to find themselves in opposite camps on the battlefield. A Romanian national consciousness did not exist at that time (White 2000). During the sixteenth century, the Romanian principalities lost their independence to the Ottoman Empire (Figure 3). Walachia and Moldova made peace with the Ottoman Empire and secured a certain degree of autonomy under the suzerainty of the Sultan. They were not

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nominally incorporated into the Ottoman Empire, retaining the right to have local princes in exchange for an annual tribute paid to the Sultan. After the Ottomans defeated the Hungarian Kingdom and transformed it into an Ottoman province in 1526, Transylvania became an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty, a political status similar to that of Walachia and Moldova.

Figure 3. Romanian Principalities during the Middle Ages.

However, the Romanian principalities’ relationship with the Ottoman Empire remained tenuous, with local princes rising up at times against the Ottomans. One such prince was Michael the Brave, who first paid tribute to the Porte to come to the throne of Walachia in 1593, and subsequently turned against and defeated the Ottoman armies several times, after which he proceeded to conquer Transylvania and Moldova, uniting for the first time in 1600 the three

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Romanian principalities under his scepter. While it is difficult to ascertain a national conscience behind Michael the Brave’s union of the three principalities, nonetheless, the precedent was set and he later became one of the biggest Romanian national heroes (White 2000). The first political union of the three territories inhabited by Romanians was short lived as Michael was killed less than one year after uniting the principalities. Given the European geopolitical environment at that time, in which the Romanian principalities were of special geo- strategic interest for the powerful surrounding empires, such a union that would have created a powerful rival in the region was not tolerable (Turnock 1999). After Michael the Brave’s death, the Ottoman Empire asserted again its power over Walachia, Moldova, and Transylvania. In the eighteenth century, as the power of the Ottoman Empire gradually declined, the Russian and the Austrian (Habsburg) Empires vied for control of the three principalities. Transylvania entered into the possession of the Habsburg Empire in 1699 as an autonomous province, but lost any form of political-territorial identity in 1867 at the formation of the Austro- Hungarian Empire, when it is incorporated into Hungary. Further, in 1775 the Ottomans ceded to the Habsburgs the northern part of Moldova, that became known as Bucovina (Figure 4). In 1812 the Russian Empire annexed the eastern part of Moldavia between the Prut and Dniester rivers, that became known as Bessarabia (Figure 4). After the Russian armies crushed the 1848 revolutions that swept across Eastern Europe, Walachia and Moldova entered under a Russian protectorate enjoying a large degree of autonomy, but technically remaining under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian defeat in the Crimean War in 1856, more distant powers such as France and Great Britain began to show increased interest in the principalities of Walachia and Moldova, mainly because of their geopolitical potential as a buffer against the Russian and the Ottoman control of the Danube and the Black Sea. The Russian protectorate ended, and Walachia and Moldova entered under a joint European guarantee. However, the movement towards Romanian national unification was well under its way at this time, and Romanian leaders from the two principalities voted in 1858 for union in a single state under the name “United Principalities”. The Great European powers, with the exception of France, opposed the union, but the Romanian leaders “tricked” them by electing in 1859 the same person - Alexandru Ioan Cuza - as the ruler of both Moldova and Walachia. Faced with Romanians’

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choice, the Great Powers ultimately recognized the union in 1861. In 1866 the country acquired a constitution and changed its name to Romania. The territory of the newly created Romanian state was significantly smaller then the territories inhabited by Romanians. Transylvania was firmly under Austro-Hungarian rule at the time. Other territories where Romanians formed a majority of the population were Banat and Bucovina, under Austrian administration in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Bessarabia, under Russian rule.

Figure 4. Romanian Principalities during Early Nineteenth Century. (Source: King 2000).

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In 1878, after the participation in the Russo-Turkish war that ended with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the European Powers formally recognized the independence of Romania. A period of consolidation of independence followed and Romania experienced growing economic prosperity. However, the idea of territorial national unity, thus the drive toward union with Transylvania and the other territories inhabited by Romanians, remained the guiding principle in Romania’s foreign affairs. World War I offered Romania an opportunity to “complete” its territorial national unity. Entering the war on the side of the Central Powers, Romania could have regained Bessarabia if they had won the war. Entering the war on the side of the Entente, Romania could have gained Transylvania if the alliance had won the war. Although the prevalent opinion in Romania leaned toward gaining Transylvania, the Romanian leaders maintained neutrality for two years before they entered the war on the side of the Entente in order to obtain firm guarantees regarding Transylvania. At the end of the World War I, in 1918, Romanians fulfilled their national territorial aspirations. Transylvania, together with Banat and Bucovina, joined Romania. Additionally, because the unrest caused by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Bessarabia joined Romania as well (Turnock 1999). Between 1918 and 1940, the vast majority of Romanians from Southeastern Europe lived inside the confines of the Romanian state, also referred to as “Greater Romania”. The country experienced significant economic progress, mostly based on its oil and other mineral resources, and become a regional power in Southeastern Europe. However, with the newly acquired territories numerous non-Romanian minorities were included in the Romanian state as well. This created significant potential for irredentist movements on the part of many of Romania’s neighbors who were seeking to modify the newly established borders in the region. During World War II, territorial issues once again influenced Romania’s choice of alliances. Initially Romania adopted a position of neutrality. In 1939, the foreign affairs ministers of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union singed the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact seeking to redesign Eastern Europe’s political-territorial map. In 1940, Germany forced Romania to cede the northeast part of Transylvania to Hungary, and the Soviet Union re-annexed Bessarabia and annexed both the northern part of Bucovina and the small region of Herta. Also, Bulgaria was granted a small territory in southern Dobrogea. To avoid the fate of Poland, thus to salvage the

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Romanian state, the Romanian government acquiesced. Caught between Nazi and Soviet interests, and far away from France and Britain, many Romanian leaders saw an alliance with Hitler as the only opportunity to regain the lost territories (White 2000; Turnock 1999). Their hope was that helping the Nazi war effort in the East against the Soviets would bring them back Bessarabia and northern Bucovina, and would change Hitler’s mind to return northeastern Transylvania to them. In these circumstances, when Germany declared war to USSR in 1941, Romania entered the war alongside the Axis powers. The Romanian army took control of Bessarabia and northern Bucovina in a campaign that Romanians overwhelming supported. Romanian involvement in the German invasion of USSR continued after regaining the control of the lost territories, based on the belief that helping the German war effort in the East would appease Hitler and convince him to return northeastern Transylvania to Romania. However, after the Romanian army crossed eastward of the river Nostrum (Dniester) that formed Bessarabia’s border, public support for the war began to fade. The Romanian army continued eastward together with the German army, taking control of the Transnistria region in southwestern Ukraine, and further reached Sevastopol on the Volga river and the Crimean peninsula. When Hitler offered Romanian leaders the opportunity to annex Transnistria, that had some Romanian population but had never belonged to Romania, Romanian leaders refused, fearing that this would be interpreted as an exchange for northeastern Transylvania (White 2000). In 1944, when the Soviets pushed back the Axis powers closing in on the Romanian territory, it become apparent to many Romanians that they had to switch sides or risk even further territorial losses. The pro-German Romanian government was replaced and, in an attempt to prevent a Soviet invasion, the new Romanian government declared war on Germany and began to fight German troops stationed in Romania. Despite these last minute efforts, one week after Romania switched sides in the war in August 1944, the Red Army occupied Bucharest unopposed. In the hope of gaining the goodwill of the Soviets, the Romanian army continued to fight the war with the Soviets, fighting in Hungary and Czechoslovakia until the end of the war in Europe in May 1945. After World War II, Romania regained northeastern Transylvania, but the Soviet Union remained in possession of Bessarabia, northern Bucovina and Herta. This territorial configuration of Romania remained unchanged until the present. The current borders of Romania

146 were established at the 1947 post-war Paris Peace conference (Figure 5). After World War II, in the aftermath of the Treaty of Yalta, Romania entered under the Soviet geopolitical sphere of influence and became a communist state for more than forty years. In 1989 the communist regime was overthrown by a popular revolt. Since then, the country has undertaken a process of transition to democracy and market economy that is expected to culminate with the scheduled 2007 EU membership.

Figure 5. Romanian Historical Regions Today.

1.2. Moldova: Cartographer’s Nightmare

Moldova is situated in Southeastern Europe, between the Prut River in the west that separates it from Romania, and the Nistru (Dniester) River in the east that separates it from Ukraine (Figure 1, page 86). It has an area of 13,000 square miles (slightly larger than Maryland)

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and a population of around 4,000,000 which ranks Moldova among the smaller European countries. Historically, the territory occupied by the Republic of Moldova was known as Bessarabia. It is only after 1812 that anything akin to a distinct political-territorial unit can be identified between the Prut and Dniester Rivers (Dima 2001; King 2000; Bruchis 1996). Before this date, this territory was an integral part of the Principality of Moldova that emerged in the mid-fourteenth century between the Carpathian Mountains, the Dniester River, and the Danube River and the Black Sea (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Historic Moldova and Contemporary Romania.

Medieval Moldova reached its apogee between 1457 and 1504 under Stephen the Great (Stefan cel Mare), who successfully defended Moldova from the Ottoman Empire. After his death, Moldova entered under Ottoman suzerainty, keeping its internal organization and local rule in exchange for a yearly tribute paid to the Ottoman Sultan. However, the Ottomans

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incorporated a Danube and Black Sea bound strip of territory in southern Moldova, later known as Bugeac, that was significant for controlling the Danube River (Dima 2001). In 1774, Austria mediated a peace between the Russian and the Ottoman Empires and demanded as a price the northern part of Moldavia, which they later named, “Bucovina” (Figure 7). The peace was short lived and a series of Russo-Ottoman wars follow, for the most part driven by Russian Empire’s eastward and southward expansion to gain control of the Black Sea and further onto the Balkan Peninsula. In these circumstances, the Russian Empire reached the Dniester River in 1793, thus bordering Moldova for the first time (Dima 2001). Following another Russo-Ottoman war, Russia annexed the eastern half of Moldova for the first time in 1812, and called the territory “Bessarabia” (Figure 7). The local Romanian-speaking elites unsuccessfully protested the annexation on the grounds that Moldova was not an Ottoman province but a vassal state, thus the Sultan had no right to dismember the principality (King 2000). In both Bucovina and Bessarabia the Romanian-speaking Moldovans formed the vast majority of the population at the time of their annexation.

Figure 7. Bessarabia and Bucovina during Early Nineteen Century. (Source: Dima 2001).

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The Russian expansion along the Black Sea coast and its dominance of the mouths of the Danube worried other European powers and eventually led to the Crimean War that Russia lost in 1856. In the wake of the war, to stifle Russian control of the mouths of the Danube, southern Bessarabia (the Bugeac) passed from Russia to the Principality of Moldova. After the union of Walachia and Moldova in 1859, Bugeac is lost again to Russia in the aftermath of the Russo- Ottoman war of 1877-1878 (White 2000). Romania gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire after participating in this war, but the Russian troops occupy Bugeac from Romania on their way back to Russia. Bessarabia remained part of the Russian Empire until World War I. The Romanian- speaking Moldovans from Bessarabia missed crucial periods in the construction of the modern Romanian national identity, such as the union of Walachia and Moldova in a Romanian state; the Romanian cultural movements of the 1840’s; the establishment of the Romanian monarchy; the war of independence, and others (King 2000). The lack of a collective memory of these events, as well as the impact of the Russian cultural policies in Bessarabia, played an important role in shaping the collective identity of the Moldovans from Bessarabia. In 1918 at the end of the World War I, representatives of the State Council (Sfatul Tarii) voted in favor of Bessarabia uniting with Romania. The Bolshevik revolution that led to the crumbling of the Russian Empire created conditions for instability in the region. Initially, the Bessarabian State Council declared the autonomy of Bessarabia, but fearing the break up of social order caused by Bolshevik armed bands, and a possible annexation by Ukraine, the council invited Romanian troops into Bessarabia and eventually voted for union with Romania (Dima 2001). Between the two World Wars, Bessarabia experienced sustained development but remained economically behind other Romanian regions. The Romanian administration of Bessarabia was often accused of incompetence and corruption, and national minorities in Bessarabia resented the policies of Romanization motivated by the “need” to reverse previous Russianization policies. In 1940, in the aftermath of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, the Red Army again occupied Bessarabia, and additionally annexed for the first time the northern part of Bucovina and the Herta territory, only to lose them one year later when Romanian and German troops regained their control. However, in 1944 the Red Army reoccupied them.

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After World War II, Bessarabia became a Soviet republic under the name of Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR), and its borders were redrawn in an exercise of geo-political territorial engineering with lasting consequences (King 2000). In the north, northern Bucovina and the Herta region were assigned to the Soviet Ukraine. In the northern portion of northern Bucovina, the Ukrainian/Ruthenian population was the majority, but in northern Bucovina as a whole the Romanians had a plurality of the population with around 44 percent (around 380,000) of the total population compared with around 30 percent for Ukrainians (Dima 2001). In the east, a narrow strip of land situated in Ukrainian Transnistria that was never part of Moldova or Bessarabia, was appended to the MSSR. Here, the Moldovans had a plurality with around 49 percent, but Ukrainians and Russians dominated the cities. In the south, the territory of Bugeac was detached from Bessarabia and allotted to Soviet Ukraine. The Romanians were a plurality population with around 135,000 people, but the Russians and Ukrainians combined accounted for over 200,000 people. The territorially “engineered” MSSR (Figure 8) emerged with a population of around 2.5 million, of which approximately 70 percent were Moldovans, and with a territory that qualified it as the second smallest Soviet republic after Armenia (King 2000). Bessarabia’s territorial gerrymandering had in fact much broader geopolitical significance and events that occurred almost fifty years later in the region would be shaped by this Soviet territorial strategy. The MSSR was stripped of its Danube and Black Sea access, remaining landlocked. At the same time, the southern Bessarabian territory was placed in the hands of a reliable Soviet republic which strengthened the Soviet control of the mouths of the Danube. In the eventuality Romania acquired Bessarabia again, the USSR would still retain control of the Danube. By the late 1980s, the MSSR experienced a strong cultural movement of national “awakening” (King 2000, Bruchis 1996; White 2000). The Romanian identity of Moldovans began to take over their “Soviet” identity. In 1989, the name of the republic was changed from Moldavia to Moldova (similar to the name of the eastern part of Romania and to the Middle Age Principality of Moldova); the official language of the MSSR was changed from Russian to Romanian; the Cyrillic alphabet was replaced with a Latin one; and a wave of Romanian literature suddenly appeared in the republic. This movement culminated with the declaration of independence of the Republic of Moldova in August 1991 in the borders established by the Soviets at the end of World War II.

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Figure 8. The Territory of the Republic of Moldova during the 20th Century.

In 1991 the Moldovan and Romanian states shared the same language, the same flag, the same anthem (later changed in Moldova), the same currency name, and the same ethnic identity for a majority of their citizens. The common expectation was that the two countries would soon unite (Turnock 1999). However, not everybody in Moldova shared the national “awakening” of the Moldovans. The country was home to large national minorities, among which the Russians, the Ukrainians and the Gagauz were the most important. Fearing a possible union with Romania, the Russian-speaking population from Transnistria in the east, and the Gagauz population in the south, declared their own republics in 1990 (Figure 9). While the Moldovan government settled the Gagauz dispute by granting the tiny “Republic of Gagauzia” enlarged autonomy in Moldova, the conflict with the “Dniestr Moldovan Republic” developed in the early 1990s in a full scale war along the Dniestr River. The conflict remains open today, with the break-away republic

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supported by Russian troops and enjoying de-facto independence. Although the Dniestr Republic is not recognized by any state, its existence constitutes an avenue of influence for Russia in Moldova and even Ukraine, and a major obstacle for the development of the Moldovan state. After the early 1990s, the Moldovan government veered away from a union with Romania and began to chart an independent state identity for Moldova. In the years since independence the Moldovan political elites vacillated between closer ties with Romania, and closer ties with Russia and the CIS space, without a clear long term vision of the place of their country in the broader European architecture. Such a political trajectory may be explained in part by Moldova’s need of CIS energy resources and economic markets, as well as by past political affinities (Prohnitski 2002). Yet, Moldova remained the poorest country in Europe, and the Transnistrian conflict was not settled. Only recently has the Moldovan government seemed to opt more vigorously for integration into the European structures of security and cooperation.

Figure 9. Gagauzia and Transnistria.

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1.3. Ukraine: the Unforeseen State and its Quest for a Nation.

Ukraine is situated in Eastern Europe between the Black Sea in South, Russia in the east, Poland, Romania, and Moldova in The west, and Byelorussia in the north (Figure 10). Ukraine’s territory occupies 233,090 square miles (slightly smaller than Texas), and the population is approximately 49,000,000. These data rank Ukraine the second-largest country in land area in Europe after Russia. The first Slavic state, called Kievan Rus, appeared on the territory of contemporary Ukraine from the consolidation of a series of smaller kingdoms during the tenth and eleventh centuries. During this period the Kievan Rus reached its apogee, being considered one of the most powerful states in Europe. The identity of the subjects of the Kievan Rus state is a contested issue today. It is generally accepted that the Rus Slavic tribes that composed the Kievan Rus were a single people to whom the Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Byelorussians) trace their lineage, in spite of a number of differences existing among them. However, others contend that the differences among the Rus were more significant, to the point where the Rus can be considered predominantly a proto-Ukrainian identity (Wilson 2000).

Figure 10. Ukraine in 2005.

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In 1240, the Mongols destroyed Kiev, the capital of the Kievan Rus, and the state disintegrated. Most of the Kievan Rus territory was eventually incorporated into the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth (Kuzio 1995). However, the collective memory of the Kievan Rus constituted the foundation for Ukrainian national conscience through subsequent centuries. Between the fourteenth and the twentieth centuries the Ukrainian lands existed in a state of “borderlandness” between the Polish and Russian Empires (Figure 11).

Figure 11.The Disappearance of Ukrainian Lands.

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During the mid-seventeenth century there was an attempt to unify the Ukrainian Cossacks in an uprising against Poland led by Bohdan Khmelytskyi. He took control of Kiev in 1648 and called the liberated territories (mostly in central Ukraine) the “Hetmanate”. A few years later he obtained autonomy for the Hetmanate from Russia, but the Hetmanate fell short of reaching full statehood and having definite territorial borders. After Khmelytskyi’s death in 1657, the Hetmanate entered a period of decline and its territories were gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire, with Ukrainian elites largely assimilated by the eighteenth century (Wilson 2000; Kuzio 1995). In the west, the province of Galicia that had a mainly Ukrainian (called Ruthenian) and Polish population, remained outside the Hetmanate under continuous Polish rule until 1772, when it was annexed by the Habsburg Empire (later Austro-Hungarian Empire) that controlled it until the end of World War I in 1918. The separate development of the territories inhabited by Ukrainians led to a major cultural, political and economic west-east differentiation with lasting consequences for the area occupied by contemporary Ukraine. In Galicia, the more well-off and educated Ukrainian population developed a strong sense of national identity and sought national self-determination. In eastern Ukraine, under the Russian empire, the local population was subjected to the cultural politics of Russification and the national sentiment was much weaker. An opportunity for the formation of a Ukrainian state emerged in 1917 with the collapse of both the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires. The Ukrainian Central Council (Rada) declared independence from Russia in 1918, and united with western Ukrainian territories that became stateless after the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, control of the government over these territories was tenuous at best and by 1920 the bulk of the territories inhabited by Ukrainians were reoccupied by the Soviets, while a smaller part was occupied by Poland. The Soviets created a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in 1922, but its territory differed from that of contemporary Ukraine (Figure 12). The creation of the USSR meant the appearance of a political-territorial Ukrainian entity, although at the time this was merely an internal division of the Soviet Union and was devoid of any meaningful autonomous political power. Soviet rule was extremely harsh, including ethnic cleansing and artificial famines that took the life of several million Ukrainians (Kuzio 1995).

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In 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland and annexed its eastern part, including Galicia. However, Ukrainian nationalists from Galicia hated the Soviets more than the Poles, and in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union they took the opportunity to form a Nazi- sponsored Ukrainian state. After the end of World War II, the USSR was reestablished and enlarged through new territorial additions in the west: Galicia from Poland; Transcarpathia from Czechoslovakia; and Bucovina and Bugeac from Romania (Kuzio 1998). In 1954, Crimea, previously a Soviet republic in the south on the Black Sea coast that was ethnically cleansed of Tatars, was added to the Ukraine. These were the territorial boundaries in which Ukraine declared its state independence in 1991 (Figure 10, page 154).

Figure 12. Soviet Ukraine’s Territory between the Two World Wars.

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The territorial additions in the wake of World War II considerably increased the size of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, and thus the territorial claims from its neighbors. For example, the Russian minority in Ukraine reached 11 million people. However, the most important issue for Ukraine remained the rift of Ukrainian society between a more nationally self-conscious West and more Russian-dominated East. During the early 1990s another demise of an “Empire”, this time the Soviet Union, gave Ukrainians the opportunity to create their first independent state. An independent Ukraine was declared in 1991 in the borders of Soviet Ukraine. The newly emerged Ukrainian state encountered significant difficulties in building a cohesive nation to fit inside its borders. The inhabitants of the eastern and partially of the southern part of the country continue to display a much more fluid ethnic identity often closely associated with Russia. With independence, democratic, social and economic change has come slowly to Ukraine as the Soviet-era elites managed to remain in power. The state remained rather weak and the Ukrainian politics vacillated between closer ties with Russia justified by the cultural affinities of the eastern provinces, and a more independent course, needed to forge a cohesive Ukrainian nation. However, in late 2004, in the aftermath of the “Orange Revolution”, a reformist government that pledged to integrate Ukraine into the European political-economical structures came to power in Kiev.

2. Interstate Relations in the Lower Danube Space

2.1. Romania and Russia in the Age of Empire

The year 1812, when the Russian Empire incorporated the eastern part of the Principality of Moldova, represents a milestone in international relations between Romania and the Russian Empire (later the Soviet Union). Although the modern Romanian state only appeared in 1856, at the time of the Russian incorporation of Bessarabia, a Romanian national consciousness was already developing, and Bessarabia was perceived as an integral part of the Romanian national territory (White 2000). Prior to 1812, Walachian and Moldovan elites often sought the protection of the Russian Empire against Ottoman dominance, given the Christian Orthodox affinities

158 between the Russians and the Romanians. However, after Romania achieved state independence in 1878, this close relationship could not be taken for granted. The main goal of the Romanian state before World War I was to unite all the territories inhabited by Romanians, among which Transylvania and Bessarabia were principal targets. The desire to achieve national unity dictated Romania’s foreign policy before and during World War I. Since both neighbors – the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian Empires – from which Romania claimed territories were much more powerful, the union of all territories inhabited by Romanians could have been achieved only through a policy of alliances. During World War I, the Romanian government sided with the Entente powers (that included Russia) in an attempt to gain control over Transylvania, Bucovina, and Banat. These territories were much larger than Bessarabia and more economically advanced. The end of the war presented an unexpected and highly favorable context for Romania to fulfill its national territorial aspirations. With the disintegration of both neighboring Empires in 1918, Romania emerged as the most powerful state in southeastern Europe and managed to acquire all territories it claimed before the war, including Bessarabia. After 1918, Romania more than doubled its territory and population.

2.2 Romania and the Soviet Union: Uneasy Neighbors

Although the Russian Empire disintegrated at the end of World War I, its spatial memory continued to inspire the new Soviet power in the Kremlin. The Soviet Union did not give up on the idea of regaining Bessarabia. In 1924 it established a Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (MASSR) on the eastern bank of the Dniestr River in the territory of Ukraine (Figure 13). The territory of the newly formed Soviet republic was never identifiable as a distinct territory and was never part of Romania or Bessarabia (King 2000; Dima 2001). The purpose of the new republic was to stage irredentist claims to Romania, a method also used in the case of Finland for Karelia and Poland for western Ukraine. Moreover, the new Soviet government opposed the return of Romania’s national treasury that was evacuated to Moscow during World War I for fear that the Germans might seize it when they invaded Bucharest.

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Figure 13. The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Source: Dima 2001).

Romania’s government main foreign policy goal between the two world wars was to safeguard the newly acquired territories by formalizing their possession in a series of international treaties. The most difficult task was to sign a treaty of neighborly cooperation with the Soviet Union that would have recognized Romanian possession of Bessarabia. However, the treaty was not signed until the beginning of World War II, when the Soviet Union occupied Bessarabia again. During World War II, when Romania retook Bessarabia from the Soviets, the Romanian army advanced deep into the territory of Soviet Ukraine and established its headquarters in the Black Sea port of Odessa, antagonizing the local non-Romanian population. After World War II, Romania entered a relationship of subordination vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, as communism was imposed by the Soviets in Romania. “Brotherhood” among the communist peoples, supposed to transcend their national identities, became the slogan of the early communist period in Eastern Europe. In this context, the issue of Bessarabia became taboo

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in Soviet – Romanian inter-state relations. All direct contacts between Romania and Soviet Moldova were severed. In Soviet Moldova, the Romanian language was written in the Cyrillic alphabet; history was rewritten to prove that Moldovans from Bessarabia and the Romanians were separate nations; and over half a million Moldovans were deported throughout the Soviet Union only to be replaced by approximately the same number of Russian-speakers (Turnock 1999). By the late 1960s the Romanian leaders began to assert a more independent stance from Moscow (Dima 2001). The Soviet-Romanian relations reached a nadir in 1968 when the Romanian government refused to participate in the invasion of Czechoslovakia, exposing serious fissures in the communist transnational “brotherhood”. The Bessarabian issue, together with the unreturned Romanian national treasury, is among the most significant factors influencing Romanian policy towards the Soviet Union. Although bilateral relations improved somewhat in the 1970s, Romania remained a maverick in the communist camp, among others, avoiding integration into the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet-Romanian relationship continued in uneasy terms, and Romanian historians were allowed to publish scholarship contesting the incorporation of Bessarabia by the Soviets, thus openly challenging the borders of the Soviet Union. As the communist regime in Romania became increasingly dictatorial and nationalist starting in the early 1980s under Nicolae Ceausescu, taboos were broken and the Soviet possession of Bessarabia was publicly challenged by Ceausescu himself several years before he was overthrown by a popular revolt in 1989. At the time, in the aftermath of Gorbachev’s accession to power in Moscow in 1985, Soviet Moldova experienced a period of cultural “renaissance” that would eventually lead to state independence.

2.3. Romania and Moldova: From the Bridge of Flowers to the Paper Wall

Romanian-Moldovan relations qualify for a “special relationship” given the common history and cultural ties Romanians and Moldovans share (King 2000; Bruchis 1996; Dima 2001). In 1990, when Moldova was still a Soviet republic, the Romanian and the Moldovan authorities together organized a highly symbolic cultural event called “Podul de Flori” (the bridge of flowers). The two governments decided to allow free crossing of the state border for several hours across the highly symbolic Prut River that divided Soviet Moldova from Romania. The event was a success, and many divided families came to see their relatives, some of them for

161 the first time in more than forty years. Romanians from both sides of the river threw flowers into the river in order to “bridge” it, and some jumped in the water to swim to the other side of the river-border. The meaning of this event was that the border that separates the two countries was artificial and that Romanians and Moldovans were one single people. Romania was the first country to recognize Moldova’s independence in 1991, and it has since supported the cause of Moldova in the international arena. In the early 1990s there were expectations the two countries would unite following the German example. However, the hopes of union were short lived, as the Moldovan government confronted with separatist movements in Transnistria and Gagauzia chose to follow an independent path (Turnock 1999). The discourse of an imminent union gave way to a discourse of “silent integration” in which Moldova and Romania would continue to exist as separate states but would maintain a privileged relationship that may lead in time to unification. For the most part the two countries succeeded in maintaining such a relationship, although in the early 2000s their bilateral relations reached a nadir (Prohnitski 2002). Moldovan and Romanian citizens did not need a passport to travel between the two countries, and Romania established an annual aid package for Moldova worth several million dollars, that included energy supplies, scholarships in Romania for Moldovan students, granting Romanian citizenship to Moldovan citizens, as well as other facilities. After the 2001 elections, when the pro-Russian communist party came to power in Moldova, the special Romanian-Moldovan relationship abruptly declined. The new Moldovan government embarked on a series of measures aimed to redesign Moldovan identity as independent of Romanian identity. Thus, the Romanian language in Moldova was renamed Moldovan; the Russian language was declared the second official language in Moldova and became a requirement for occupying public office; and history books were reprinted to teach the history of Moldova instead of Romanian history. These measures were highly unpopular with a significant segment of Moldovan society, and massive street demonstrations followed that succeeded in stalling the implementation of parts of these policies. In 2001, bilateral Romanian-Moldovan relations reached an all-time low when in a speech at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasburg the Moldovan Minister of Justice accused the Romanian government of “expansionist policies” in Moldova (Constitutional Watch 2002). The allegations came in the context in which the ECHR ruled in favor of the Romanian-language Bessarabian Metropolitanate (Church) in its case against the Moldovan

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Government. During the Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church in Moldova entered under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia. After Moldovan independence, the Metropolitanate of Chisinau and All Moldova had been formed under Russian jurisdiction to assert control over religious matters in Moldova. The Bessarabian Metropolitanate, that managed religious matters when Moldova was part of Romania, unsuccessfully demanded official recognition as the representative of the Romanian-speaking Moldovans, and in 1998 it took the case to the ECHR. When ECHR ruled against the Moldovan Government, the Moldovan Minister of Justice alleged that the Bessarabian Metropolitanate received financial support from the Romanian Orthodox Church, which in his view amounted to Romanian interference in Moldova’s affairs. However, the issue of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate in Romanian-Moldovan relations is part of a broader set of issues straining the relations between the two countries. Moldova’s geopolitical position in Eastern Europe, its national composition, poor economic performance, and the prolonged territorial conflict in Transnistria, allowed for a limited number of options in consolidating the country’s independence. The Moldovan political spectrum experienced a deficit of political identity and is generally dominated by two main currents of opinion divided between left wing pro-Russian and right wing pro-Romanian forces. In these circumstances, the annual aid package Romania gives to Moldova, together with scholarships for Moldovan students, and other facilities, can be interpreted by leftist political forces as Romanian “expansionist policies” in Moldova. Pro-Russian forces imagine Moldova as an independent state closely integrated into the Russian sphere of influence. Yet, given the influence Russia already has in Moldova, this option casts serious doubt about the extent of Moldova’s independence as a state. Pro-Romanian forces imagine Moldova as an independent state in close cooperation with Romania and with an unambiguous European orientation. They do not exclude a possible union with Romania in the long term under the EU umbrella. Either vision seems to allow limited possibilities for a consolidated Moldovan state. Nonetheless, Moldova’s lines of political dispute are not neatly delineated. An important segment of society seems to prefer a more independent development path for Moldova. As a consequence of these identity dilemmas, Moldovan international politics since independence has vacillated between closer ties with either Romania and the EU, or Russia and the CIS. In spite of the fact that successive Moldovan governments have officially declared

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their goal of European integration, until recently the steps these governments made to deliver on these goals were few and far between (Prohnitski 2002). Romanian foreign policy towards Moldova after the mid 1990s took on a more coherent approach. While the events in Moldova signaled that the perspectives for union have become more remote, many Romanians seemed to accept the idea of “silent integration” as the appropriate path to follow in bilateral relations. Romanian governments focused predominantly on Romania’s integration into the West, and a “wait and see” policy toward Moldova has been adopted. During the period immediately after the 2001 political debacle, the Romanian government’s stance toward Moldovan governmental leaders toughened considerably, and economic sanctions in the form of additional trade tariffs were instituted against Chisinau. However, maintaining privileged relations with Moldova remained an issue all Romanian governments espoused, irrespective of their political ideology. In this context, the annual aid package to Moldova, and support in international organizations continued even during the period of less friendly bilateral relations. For the most part, the Romanian political elite today appears to increasingly imagine the integration of the two countries in the framework of the EU, and less as a direct union modeled after the German example. External events during the early 2000s also influenced the Romanian-Moldovan relationship. As Romania came closer to acquiring EU membership, it began to implement various parts of the EU Aquis Communautaire. Among these new policies, the extension of several Schengen provisions to Romania regarding visa policies meant that the Romanian authorities were obliged to rethink the liberal border regime at their eastern borders. As a consequence, Romania introduced passport-based border crossings for Moldovan citizens in 2001. Indeed, the Romanian government had to be “coerced” by the EU leaders to introduce this measure by conditioning the right of Romanian citizens to travel visa-free to the rest of EU space to the reinforcement of border controls in the east by Romania. Moreover, Romanian membership in the EU, scheduled for 2007, raises the spectrum of visa-based access to Romania for Moldovan citizens. The new border-crossing policies Romania has to implement toward Moldova amounts to the erection of a paper wall between the two countries. Since 2004 Romanian-Moldovan relations have improved again (RFE/RL, January 21, 2005). Moldova faced general elections in early 2005, and fearing a repeat of the events in neighboring Ukraine that brought the opposition to power, the Moldovan communist government

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appears to have experienced a change of heart in international politics and seems to now collaborate more closely with Romanian and EU officials. Additionally, the fact that the pro- Russian orientation did not lead to any solution in the case of the break-away Transnistria, together with awareness of the potential opportunities that may come from the expansion of the EU space to the borders of Moldova by 2007, may have played a key role in the recent improvement of Romanian-Moldovan relations.

2.4. Romanian-Ukrainian Interstate Relations: Suspicion and Pragmatism

Romanian-Ukrainian relations can be characterized as an odd combination of suspicion and political pragmatism. The independence of Ukraine in 1991 in the borders of the Soviet Ukraine raised a series of complex problems for both the Ukrainian and the Romanian governments. On the one hand, the Ukrainian government’s goal was to secure Ukrainian borders from territorial claims by neighboring states by signing neighborhood treaties. While virtually all its neighbors had potential territorial claims to Ukraine, after Russia, Romania ranked second in the hierarchy of potential territorial claimants. On the other hand, the Romanian government faced a dilemma as to how to best approach a host of territorial issues that Romania had with the defunct Soviet Union that were now passed to Ukraine. The Romanians were unwilling to write Ukraine a “blank check” for territories such as Bucovina, Hertza, and southern Moldova (Bugeac) that most Romanians considered “stolen” from Romania by the Soviets in the aftermath of the Ribbentrop-Molotow pact in 1940. However, the Romanian government was well aware that open territorial claims were not an option in contemporary Europe, and moved quickly to recognize Ukrainian independence (it was one of the first three states to do so), and to open an Embassy in Kiev in 1992 (Crowther 2000). Territorial claims aside, there were two main issues that bilateral relations had to address: the presence of a sizable Romanian minority in Ukraine, numbering anywhere from 400,000 to 600,000 people, and the delineation of their maritime boundary in the Black Sea. In the early 1990s various Romanian political forces challenged Ukraine’s rights over the borderlands lost to the Soviet Union after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, generating tensions in Romanian-Ukrainian relations. Additionally, the Romanians from Ukraine, especially in Bucovina, were the only Ukrainian minority not to recognize Ukrainian independence in 1991 (Kuzio 2002). These circumstances made the Ukrainian government anxious regarding

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Romanian intentions towards Ukraine. However, the Romanian government did not openly embrace such claims, favoring instead a rather pragmatic approach in its relations with the Ukrainian government, focused on collaboration on issues of common interest considered to outweigh the existing disagreements. Yet, the two countries were unsuccessful in attempts to agree on a bilateral treaty until 1997. The main issue was the insistence of the Romanian government that the treaty include a clause denouncing the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. The Romanian side insisted that was an “outrageous” act of aggression based on two discredited ideologies (Nazism and Communism), and that acknowledging this fact would constitute moral reparations for the Romanian nation. The Ukrainian side perceived such a clause as a disguised territorial claim and opposed its insertion in the bilateral treaty. After the mid 1990s, when Romania’s prospects of integration in Western security structures such as NATO increased considerably, the Romanian government in 1997 went ahead and, in spite of strong domestic opposition, signed the bilateral treaty that confirmed the existing land borders between the two countries and made provisions for the protection of ethnic minorities (Crowther 2000). While viewed by some in Romania as an unexpected gift to Ukraine, many Romanians were willing to trade potential territorial claims to Ukraine for NATO and EU membership. However, an agreement regarding delineation of their maritime borders could not be reached, and the issue was delayed to be solved at a later date. Nonetheless, after 1997 bilateral relations continued to improve, although unresolved issues related to the maritime border delineation remained a strain in the Romanian-Ukrainian interstate relations. In 2004, general elections resulted in a change of governments in both countries. Bilateral meetings between the two newly elected presidents seem to indicate the potential of a renewed Romanian-Ukrainian relationship. Both countries have common interests in solving the conflict in Transnistria and cooperating toward assuring stability in the region. Additionally, Romanian membership in the EU has the potential to spread economic and political benefits to Ukraine as well, and could make Ukraine less suspicious of Romanian intentions in the region. However, these potential developments should be viewed with guarded optimism. Despite the immense potential for development, the Romanian-Ukrainian relationship possesses, as long as basic issues straining their interstate relations remain unsolved, mistrust will always be close by.

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2.5. Moldova and Ukraine: Partners of Convenience

Moldovan-Ukrainian relations are markedly asymmetric: Moldova ranks among the smallest states of Europe, while Ukraine ranks among the largest (Sushko 2004). After a “rough” start in the early 1990s, Moldovan-Ukrainian interstate relations grew closer during the 1990s and early 2000s. Initially, after Moldova’s independence in 1991, key political forces in Moldova demanded publicly from Ukraine the return of southern Moldova, Herta, and Bucovina that were attached to Ukraine by the Soviets during World War II (Serebrian 2002). These were the same territories many Romanians considered rightfully theirs, but because these territories were historically part of Moldova, and they were annexed simultaneously by the Soviets in 1940, Moldovans claimed them as well. However, with the escalation of the conflict in Transnistria, Moldovan territorial claims to Ukraine gave way to a more cooperative relationship. The two countries found common ground in addressing the Transnistrian issue in which both have a stake. The separatist movement in Transnistria was backed mainly by Russia, which allowed the fourteenth Russian army, stationed in Transnistria since Soviet times, to enter the conflict on the side of separatists. As Russian-Ukrainian relations were tense over the issue of Crimea, the Ukrainian government strongly resented the presence of the Russian army at its western borders. This made the Ukrainian government willing to cooperate with Moldova to solve the Transnistrian issue to Moldova’s benefit. Additionally, it was believed that an independent Moldova that would include Transnistria (thus its industrial base) would have less incentive to unite with Romania. However, Ukraine’s position regarding Transnistria is more complex. Ukrainian ethnics form around thirty percent (around 600,000) of the population of Transnistria, and they sided with the Russian-speaking population supporting the break-away Transnistrian Republic. Under these circumstances, Ukraine’s position regarding Transnistria is generally ambiguous. On the one hand, the Ukrainian government did not recognize Transnistria’s independence and declaratively supports the Moldovan government. On the other hand, Transnistria would not have existed for more than a decade as an unrecognized republic without the tacit complicity of Ukrainian authorities. For example, Transnistrian companies import raw materials from Ukraine and export their products back to Ukrainian markets, and they use Ukrainian ports to import goods into Transnistria.

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As Transnistria became more lawless during the 1990s and transformed into a drug, arms, and human trafficking paradise used by organized crime as a bridgehead to Western Europe, Moldova received more international support for its efforts to find a solution to the Transnistrian problem. In this context, Moldova repeatedly asked Ukraine to organize joint control (on the Ukrainian side of the border) over the common frontier in order to effectively contain trafficking to and from Transnistria. Ukraine resisted these demands, mostly given the vested economic interests in Transnistria of a segment of Ukrainian elites. Yet, Moldova has little choice but to continue to cooperate closely with its large eastern neighbor as Ukraine remains one of the main markets for Moldovan goods. Good Moldovan-Ukrainian relations were confirmed again in 2001 after the ascension to power of the communist party in Moldova, when the governments of the two countries signed a treaty on borders. While the treaty did not solve the issue of control and delineation of the common border in the Transnistrian sector, it did establish a rare precedent for Eastern Europe by effecting some border changes. The southern Moldovan border near the village of Palanca was redrawn for a distance of 7.7 kilometers to accommodate a Ukrainian highway that crosses the territory of Moldova three times. In exchange, Ukraine gave Moldova an approximately four hundred meter strip of territory bordering the Danube River, where the Moldovan government intends to build an oil terminal. In Ukraine, the deal was hailed as proof of maturity on the part of Ukrainian diplomacy, although what ultimately completed the deal was a Ukrainian threat of imposing economic sanctions against Moldova if the Moldovan Parliament did not ratify the treaty. However, the inhabitants of the village of Palanca, opposed the deal, and together with other Moldovan political parties took the issue to the Constitutional Court of Moldova on the grounds that Moldova’s constitution allows territorial changes only if they are decided in a national referendum.

3. Historical and Geopolitical Outline of the Lower Danube Lands

The low-lying region surrounding the three mouths of the Danube River on the northwest shores of the Black Sea covers the territories of the historical provinces of Dobrogea and southern Romanian Moldova, in Romania; Bugeac, in Ukraine; and southern Bessarabia, in Moldova. Historically, the Lower Danube region is an area that displays complex and ancient

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patterns of human inhabitance that a wealth of archeological evidence traces back to the Neolithic. In antiquity the area was inhabited by several tribes such as the Thracians, Getae- Dacians, Scythians, Celts, and Sarmatians. Greek colonists inhabited mainly the shoreline, where they founded several fortresses starting in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. After a brief period of control by the Getae-Dacian king Burebista, in the first century A.D., the Romans advancing on the Danube conquered the region and annexed it to the Roman Empire in 46 A.D. under the name of Scythia Minor (King 2004a). During antiquity, the Lower Danube region was a constitutive part of in the integrated trade-networks of the ancient European world. After the Romans, the region was situated at the center of one of the main migration “highways” from Eurasia to the Balkans (Figure 14). Pecheneg tribes settled in Dobrogea, which after the seventh century came under Bulgarian rule, while Turkic tribes, among which the Tatars, settled in Bugeac, controlled by the Kievan Rus between the tenth and twelfth centuries, followed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. At this time, the Italians from Genoa and Venice founded several trade colonies on the Black Sea shores that helped keep the region connected with West European states during the Middle Ages. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries control of the Lower Danube region went back and forth between Walachia and Moldova and the Ottoman Turks. In 1388 the Walachian king Mircea the Old defeated the invading Ottomans and took control over Dobrogea and Bugeac that become part of Walachia until 1417, when the Ottomans conquered the province. Bugeac, situated north of the Danube, came under the control of Moldova from 1392 until 1484, when two main fortresses in the south were lost to the Ottomans. By 1538 the Ottomans nominally controlled the entire Bugeac, thus the entire lower Danube region, since the Walachian and Moldovan principalities were under Ottoman suzerainty as well. The inhabitants of the lower Danube space during the Middle Ages formed a motley crowd, including Moldovans, Walachians, Tatars, Turks, and Slavs, although after a series of Ottoman-sanctioned migrations and population resettlements, the Turkic-speaking population become prevalent.

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Figure 14. The Lower Danube Region and Eurasian Migrations during the Middle Ages.

The Ottomans remained in control of the mouths of the Danube for several centuries until 1812, when the Russian Empire annexed the eastern half of Moldova (Bessarabia) that included the territory of Bugeac. After 1812, the Russian authorities began a large-scale process of colonization of Southern Bessarabia (including Bugeac) with Gagauz (a group of Turkic origin but subscribing to Christianity) and Bulgarians to replace Turkic-speaking populations that were resettled mainly in Crimea. However, Bugeac was lost by Russia to Moldova in 1856, and became part of Romania after the union of Moldova and Walachia in 1859, only to be re- annexed by Russia in 1878 after a Russo-Turkish war won by Russia. Bugeac was strategically significant for controlling the Danube River and for consolidating Russian hold on the Black

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Sea. Controlling Bugeac meant that Russian land would touch Chilia, the northernmost Danube mouth, thus allowing Russia to partake in Danube’s trade and politics (Dima 2001). Romania was a Russian ally in the 1878 war through which Romania gained its state independence from the Ottoman Empire. The Romanian government strongly protested re- annexation of Bugeac by Russia, especially since Romania granted permission to Russian troops to cross its territory on their way to the battlefields located south of the Danube in today’s Bulgaria. To appease Romanian leaders for losing Bugeac, the Russians granted control over Dobrogea in 1878 to newly independent Romania. Dobrogea provided Romania both an exit to the Black Sea and it re-established Romanian control over most part of the Danube Delta including two (Saint George and Sulina) of the three main Danube mouths. Chilia, the northernmost, was shared by Romania and Russia. With time, Dobrogea became more Romanian, and its multiethnic character faded away. Many minorities have been assimilated or migrated elsewhere. The only territory inhabited by a compact minority is in the Danube Delta, where the Lippovans, old-rite Russians arriving in Dobrogea by the nineteenth century after being evicted from Russia in the eighteenth century on religious grounds, maintained their unique group identity. Romania reacquired Bugeac, together with Bessarabia, at the end of World War I in 1918. Romania controlled the territory until 1940, when Bessarabia was annexed again, this time by the Soviet Union. The Romanians reoccupied Bessarabia, including Bugeac, between 1941 and1944, and after 1944 the Soviet Union retook control. Although additional territorial changes and border corrections have taken place since then, generally the process of bordering in the lower Danube region does not dramatically differ today, except for the names of the governing powers. After the war, the Soviet authorities formally uncoupled Bugeac from Bessarabia, now a Soviet republic, and attached it to Soviet Ukraine (Dima 2001; White 2000). As Ukraine was perceived at the time as fully integrated into the Soviet Union, attaching Bugeac to Ukraine meant that Soviet control of the lower Danube region remained in reliable hands and the Soviet Union would continue to have a say in Danubian affairs. The region maintained its ethnically and culturally fluid and diverse structure until the present, although the proportion of these population groups changed considerably during the Soviet era, when Russian and Ukrainian groups increased significantly in size, especially in the urban areas.

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For Soviet Moldova, deprived of its Danube and Black Sea outlet, the loss of Bugeac meant that it became to a large extent dependent on the central Soviet administration in Moscow, and on its disproportionately larger Ukrainian neighbor that now administered the ports on the Danube. During the Soviet period, the landlocked status of Soviet Moldova had a more limited impact on the republic, as movement among the Soviet republics was free. Nonetheless, with independence, the lack of an appropriate outlet to the Danube and the Black Sea constitutes one of the main impediments in consolidating Moldova’s independence.

4. Conclusion

The Lower Danube space has been populated since the dawn of human history. A large number of human groups settled permanently in this space or traversed it on their way to other parts of Europe. Most of these groups faded away with time, and their presence in the territory surrounding the mouths of the Danube River is known only due to archeological discoveries. During antiquity, peoples such as the Thracians, Getae-Dacians, Scythians, Greeks, and Romans, and others coexisted in this space. Among them, the Romans would arrive to dominate politically most of the Danubian space by the late antiquity, but the region continued to display a high degree of ethnic heterogeneity. During the early medieval era, the lower Danube space experienced a new phase of ethnic mélange generated by large scale migrations from the Eurasian steppes. Many groups were displaced by the newly arrived tribes, while at the same time many newly arrived tribes were assimilated by the existing sedentary populations, leading to further changes in ethnicities and cultures. Generally, the myriad of tribes that arrived in and settled the region during this period were either of Turkic or Slavic origin. Also, at this time, there was no single political power to dominate the region; rather there were a series of small political-territorial entities vying for power. By the fourteenth century, the Romanian principalities of Wallachia, Moldova, and Transylvania emerged in the region, but Hungary, and the Habsburg, Polish, Russian and Ottoman Empires were also important forces. The Ottoman Empire ruled the lower Danube space for several centuries. In 1812, the Russian Empire arrived for the first time at the Danube’s mouths and began to slowly replace the Ottomans as the main power in the region. However by

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1859, the Romanian state was formed, centered on the Danubian region, with crucial interests in the lower Danube space. For the next century, the evolution of the lower Danube region was marked by the struggle for supremacy over the Danube’s mouths between Romania and the Russian Empire that later became the Soviet Union. This is the period when, for the most part, the modern national borders were settled in the region. The lower Danube space continued to display an extraordinary ethnic diversity. Although this diversity was enriched during the Ottoman and Russian rules, this is also the period when state sponsored projects directed toward ethnic assimilation appeared. After the formation of national states in the region during the nineteenth century and the emergence of a national identity, the process of ethnic assimilation in the lower Danube region intensified. The last period of significant change in the lower Danube space came during the early 1990s after the fall of the communism in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union was dismantled, and two newly independent states - Ukraine and Moldova - emerged to share the space surrounding the mouths of the Danube with Romania. The dynamic of the relations between these three states is strongly influenced by the rich history and geography of the region. While territorial and minority issues in their borderlands often strained inter-national relations among these three countries, their national governments also found common grounds for close cooperation.

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CHAPTER 6

TRANSBORDER COOPERATION IN THE LOWER DANUBE SPACE: LIMITATIONS OF THE TERRITORIAL STATE IDEA AND THE QUEST FOR UNCONVENTIONAL POSSIBILITIES

This chapter examines the context in which transborder cooperation currently takes place among the countries situated in the Lower Danube region. Specifically, this context is defined by the multi-scalar relationship between transborder cooperation and the territorial national state in the circumstances of a changing geopolitical environment in Eastern Europe. The first part of this section will discuss the transborder cooperation environment in the region and its relationship with the stages of border regime change between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Forces generating changes in the role of national borders also initiated a quest for readjustment of traditional state territoriality in order to find novel spatial configurations that are appropriate frameworks for solving contemporary problems which nation-states face. The second part analyzes the mechanisms through which transborder state reterritorialization unfolds in the region. Euroregions emerge as territorial/spatial innovations to manage some of the current changes nation-states face. Multi-scalar forces ranging from supranational, to national, to local, intertwine to produce the geopolitics of Euroregions in the Lower Danube space. The EU and the nation-states are the main actors in this process, but important as well are local conditions and factors. A geopolitics of Euroregions is emerging from the encounter between the EU’s goals of building a unified European space and its perceived need to reinforce its external borders on the one hand, and the interests of the nation-states in preserving their territorial sovereignty and their need for institutionalized transborder cooperation on the other hand.

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1. Superseding the Confines of the National Space: The Romanian-Moldovan-Ukrainian Trilateral

1.1. Borderland Outline

The complex history and geography of modern nation-state formation in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova left sizeable ethnic minorities living in the borderlands of the neighboring states, while abrupt territorial changes led to contested borders throughout the region. Historically, borderlands in the region changed hands repeatedly between Romania and the Russian Empire, and later the USSR, or between the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the USSR, as is the case in the western sector of the Ukrainian-Romanian border region. The current borders between Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine were established by the USSR during and after World War II, and are composed for the most part of territories that previously belonged to Romania and were lost to the USSR after the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (Bruchis 1996; King 2000; Dima 2001). The latest border changes took place after the break up of the USSR in 1991. The border itself remained unchanged, but the adjacent borderlands that belonged to the USSR became Ukrainian and Moldovan borderlands. The Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borders have an approximate length of 1330 kilometers. The Romanian-Ukrainian border measures approximately 650 kilometers, divided into a northern sector 440 km long and a southern sector 209 kilometers long, while the Romanian-Moldovan border has an approximate length of 680 kilometers. The emergence of Ukraine and Moldova in 1991 as independent states preserving the same territorial configuration they had as Soviet republics significantly changed the geopolitical context of the borderlands in the region. Ukraine and Moldova inherited many of the borderland issues that remained unsettled during the Soviet Union. Frequent territorial changes created sizeable Romanian ethnic minorities in the border regions of the Soviet Union that constantly strained Soviet-Romanian relations. Unsettled issues regarding the civil rights of these minority populations were passed on to Ukraine and Moldova after 1990. Moldova has a population of about four million, of which approximately seventy percent are of Romanian descent (Biroul National de Statistica 2004). The population of Romanian descent in Ukraine in the last Ukrainian census was 409,000, divided between Romanians (151,000) and Moldovans (258,000)

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(State Statistics Committee 2001). The majority of these people inhabit predominantly Ukrainian border regions bordering Romania and Moldova. At the same time, there is a Ukrainian minority in Romania comprising around 61,000 inhabitants, inhabiting mostly the Romanian side of the Romanian-Ukrainian borderlands (National Institute for Statistics 2002).

1.2. Border Regime Change and Transborder Cooperation

Since the end of the World War II, the Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian borderlands went through several types of border regimes, mirroring broader European geopolitical and territorial contexts. During the communist period, national borders between Romania and the former USSR were strictly enforced, and they retained a heightened significance for the definition of national identity. Security and military functions of borders were predominantly emphasized, despite the fact that Romania and the Soviet Union were supposed to be partner countries striving to build, collaboratively, a borderless “workers’ society”. Contact between borderland inhabitants on differing sides of the border was either reduced to a minimum or prohibited, depending on the historical period. Investment in border infrastructure was kept to a minimum, and the few border crossing checkpoints that served the 1300 kilometers of Romanian-Soviet border were poorly equipped. Furthermore, movement of population was closely monitored in areas immediately adjacent to the border, and travel restrictions were frequently imposed on non-local inhabitants. Such a tense and restrictive border regime had detrimental long-term consequences for border regions, maintaining them in a state of periphery and underdevelopment. Generally, this type of border regime characterized both the Soviet Union’s and Romania’s borders with other neighbors. However, in the Romanian case some border areas experienced a more relaxed regime, which allowed for a Romanian history of “proto” transborder cooperation to exist before the fall of communism. During the 1970s and 1980s, in the context of good relations between the Romanian and Yugoslav central governments, Romania and Yugoslavia jointly built the Iron Gates hydro-electrical complex on the Danube. For this enterprise something akin to a transborder cooperation scheme was put into practice to allow workers from both countries to work on whatever side of the border they were needed. Although this transborder collaboration scheme lacked any formal recognition and the input of local authorities was minimal, it did ease the role of the border for that particular enterprise.

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In another instance, significant economic transborder activity took place between the cities of Timisoara (Romania) and Pancevo (Yugoslavia) during the communist era. Cooperation was based mainly on the chemical industry, and factories from both countries used each other’s products in the production process. A strong transborder infrastructure that included underground oil pipelines and commuter trains was also in place in that region. Moreover, Romanian citizens who inhabited borderlands adjoining Yugoslavia for a width of thirty kilometers were allowed to travel to Yugoslavia only with a special permit (i.e., no passport needed) issued by the local authorities. This state of affairs constituted an important economic privilege for the Romanian citizens inhabiting the Romanian-Yugoslav borderlands that other Romanian borderland inhabitants did not enjoy. A major change in the border regime between Romania and the Soviet space was ushered in by the events of the early 1990s, with the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the dismantling of the Soviet Union, and emergence of independent Moldova and Ukraine. The changing geopolitical and territorial context at the European scale stimulated a revision of the function of borders in the lower Danube region that opened up opportunities for transborder cooperation to develop. Three main border regime changes between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova can be distinguished during the era inaugurated in the early 1990s. In the first stage between 1990 and1996, non-institutionalized forms of transborder cooperation appeared in the region. In the early 1990s, after the independence of Moldova and Ukraine, national governments rapidly liberalized the previously strict border regime. Travel restrictions were lifted and the citizens of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova did not need visas to travel between these countries. Furthermore, in the context of the special relations between Romania and Moldova, the citizens of the two countries did not need passports to cross into each other’s country, as border crossings required only the possession of a national identification card (Prohnitski 2002). As well, Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens did not need passports to travel back and forth between those two countries. This situation represented an almost open border regime between Romania and Moldova on the one side and between Moldova and Ukraine on the other. These circumstances enormously boosted transborder contacts at the individual level, such as reestablishing family ties that were severed by over forty years of strict border regime, mixed marriages, cultural exchanges, and others, and generated small-scale development in the borderlands mainly through “suit-case” transborder trade. A similar development, of a more

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reduced intensity, took place in the Romanian-Ukrainian borderlands, where nine additional small-traffic border checkpoints were opened in the early 1990s (Ilies 2003). At the same time, the lax border regime allowed the transborder spread of criminal elements as well. However, despite unprecedented grassroots transborder linkages during the early 1990s, national governments hesitated to engage themselves in formalized transborder cooperation or to allow local authorities to do so. Obsolete mentalities of various national leaders that understood state territorial sovereignty in rigid terms, as well as mutual mistrust among the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan governments were serious obstacles that contributed to the failure of these governments to capitalize on the burgeoning interpersonal transborder relationships. The Romanian and Ukrainian governments were locked into painstaking negotiations over a bilateral treaty intended to clarify territorial and minority-related issues existing between the two countries. Thus, formal transborder cooperation involving the contested borderlands explicitly and their inhabitants figured very low on the Ukrainian’s government list of priorities. Yet, the Ukrainian government did engage in transborder cooperation involving borderlands where the potential for territorial claims was less acute. At the same time, the Romanian government was not very eager to suggest to its eastern neighbors the institutionalization of transborder cooperation since this would have meant accepting engagement in the same actions with its western neighbors, where the Romanian government mistrusted the Hungarian government. At their turn, Romanian-Moldovan relations during early 1990s faced the lack of a common vision regarding the nature of their special relationship, an issue that placed institutional transborder cooperation low in their list of priorities. Finally, Moldovan-Ukrainian relations were marked by a series of dilemmas such as how to find a common approach to Transnistrian separatism, and over the status of the Ukrainian minority in Moldova. In additions, certain Moldovan political forces raised claims to Ukrainian territories that were previously part of Moldova. In this context, despite the lax border regime Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine managed to maintain during the early 1990s, state sanctioned forms of institutionalized transborder cooperation at the local level were hardly a priority in the lower Danube region. During the second stage of border regime change between 1996 and 2001, a breakthrough in transborder cooperation between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova was achieved. The 1996 change of government in Romania brought to power leaders determined to integrate the country

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into western structures of security and cooperation. The unequivocal westward-looking foreign policy the new Romanian leaders adopted meant that they were more open to compromise with their eastern neighbors in order to allow them to focus their resources predominantly on a westward integration strategy. The context of the 1997 NATO eastward enlargement, of which Romania wanted to be a part, generated the drive for the Romanian government to sign the long- disputed bilateral treaty with Ukraine. The signing of the bilateral treaty had enormous significance at the time. Although the treaty did not address all contentious issues, it did prove that both Romanian and Ukrainian governments were able to responsibly address bilateral problems in a diplomatic manner. Perhaps more importantly, the adoption of the treaty in the national parliaments generated a measure of trust between the Ukrainian and Romanian governments that contributed to the rearranging of bilateral relations on new grounds in which institutional transborder cooperation came to play a crucial role. The Romanian-Ukrainian treaty made specific provisions for the protection of minorities inhabiting the common borderlands. Transborder cooperation institutionalized in the form of intergovernmental commissions and Euroregions was chosen to be the key instrument to implement policies aimed at borderlands and to deepen bilateral relations in general. Moreover, the Romanian and Ukrainian leaders understood that the complex issues facing their common borderlands cannot be adequately addressed without involving the Moldovan government as well. In the aftermath of the treaty in 1997, Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan presidents met in Izmail, a border town on the Ukrainian side of the Danube Delta’s Chilia channel, to launch trilateral Romanian-Ukrainian-Moldovan cooperation intended to create the framework to comprehensively address borderland issues in the region. Trilateral cooperation between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova represented a cornerstone in the relations among the three countries with regard to institutionalized cooperation across their borderlands. It provided the national governments with a series of mechanisms to engage in transborder cooperation and it enhanced the trust building process required to sanction transborder cooperation at the local level. The establishment of “Trilateral” was followed by the signing of a series of international treaties by the national governments of the three states that provided the legal framework for institutionalized transborder cooperation, such as the Madrid Convention (signed by Ukraine in 1993) and its Additional Protocol, as well as by passing

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domestic legislation that allowed local communities to engage in institutionalized transborder cooperation (Ilies 2004). Lastly, from 2001 to the present there can be identified a third phase of border regime change between Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The contemporary phase is profoundly influenced by factors that are external to the lower Danube region, such as the expansion of the EU into Eastern Europe and the differentiated positions the three states occupy vis-à-vis the process of EU expansion. The EU today indirectly hinders development in the Euroregions that are established across its eastern boundary-to-be. In light of potential EU membership of Romania by 2007, the border of Romania with Ukraine and Moldova will become the border of the EU for some time to come, since Ukraine and Moldova do not have a timeframe established for EU membership. During the early 2000s, when Romania’s prospects of EU membership became clear, the EU required Romania to start reinforcing its eastern borders. As Romania is implementing the EU Aquis Communitaire in preparation for EU accession, a stricter border regime is emerging at its eastern borders with Moldova and Ukraine. Gradually, the Romanian government started investing more funds in improving the border security infrastructure, and by 2001 introduced the requirement for passport-based border crossing for Moldovan citizens. Furthermore, in 2004 Romania introduced visa requirements for Ukrainian citizens traveling to Romania, and by 2007 visa requirements will be introduced for Moldovan citizens as well. In 2004, passport-based border crossing was introduced between Moldova and Ukraine as well. Although institutionalized transborder cooperation continues between the three countries, the tendency to reinforce the border regime has a considerable impact on the momentum for cross- border cooperation in the borderlands of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Further discussion of these current developments will take place later in this study.

2. The Geopolitics of Euroregions in the Lower Danube Space

Long before Eastern European governments engaged in structured transborder cooperation with their neighbors, many EU member states experimented with Euroregions, testing their capacities to offer solutions to a series of issues confronting a proposed borderless European space in the making. In this context, Euroregions became the most common form of institutionalized transborder cooperation in Europe.

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During the 1990s, the model of Euroregions as spaces straddling national borders where transborder cooperation can be organized was transplanted to the lower Danube space. There could be identified a series of multi-scalar factors that contribute to the dynamics of transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions between the countries under study here. These factors can be grouped in two broad categories: external, situated predominantly at the supranational scale, and internal, situated predominantly at the national scale. These two broad categories of factors interact to produce the geopolitics of Euroregions in the lower Danube region. The external factors are represented mainly by the EU institutions that have been interested in supporting the establishment of Euroregions between Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine as a means of protecting EU’s interests in the region. Moreover, after Romania’s eastern borders become the EU borders the importance of the external factors influencing transborder cooperation in the region will increase significantly. The internal factors are represented mainly by the national governments of the three states who understand Euroregions as devices that could on the one hand address their own domestic problems, and on the other could further their own interests in the international arena, well beyond the scope of transborder cooperation.

2.1. EU-Driven Euroregion Building in the Lower Danube Space

The EU position that regards the institutionalization of transborder cooperation in Euroregions as a key strategy to help integrate divided borderlands and to provide political, economic and social stability is well known. Left unaddressed, the complex circumstances of the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands presented considerable potential for tensions in the region that could easily spill into EU space (Crowther 2000). The persistence of the conflict in Transnistria that turned the territory into a spring board for illegal activities directed toward EU space, together with the economic malaise in the space of the CIS, and the potential export of political instability and of generating waves of immigration to the EU member states, constitute factors that compelled the EU to become involved more actively in the Lower Danube region by the mid-1990s. Acknowledging the potential for instability emerging from these unsettled issues in the Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian border regions, the EU actively promoted and supported the establishment of Euroregions across the borderlands of the three countries by encouraging national governments to engage in Euroregion building across their borders and by creating financial programs to support transborder cooperation.

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Romania’s desire to obtain EU membership represented an opportunity for the EU to provide stability to the lower Danube region by offering a framework in which various contentious issues could be addressed cooperatively. Romania’s aspiration to join the EU gradually made Romanian leaders receptive to EU proposed transborder cooperation policies. Ukrainian and Moldovan leaders understood as well that engaging in EU-endorsed transborder cooperation with their western neighbor could result in closer relations with the EU that would bring them economic and political benefits (Prohnitski 2002). At the same time, EU leaders understood that engaging in sustained partnerships with Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine offered an opportunity to begin to bridge the development gap existing between the EU and its neighbors, thus addressing part of the instability-generating issues. Additionally, the establishment of Euroregions would introduce Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine to the process of European integration and would lessen the barrier function of state borders in the region which would be consistent with EU goals of creating an integrated European space. The partnership between the EU and Romania intensified after the1999 Helsinki summit, where the EU decided to open membership negotiations with several countries from Eastern Europe, among which Romania was one (Helsinki European Council 1999). EU leaders imagined the integration of Eastern Europe in terms of the transfer of EU regional policies towards the East (Kennard 2003). Programs designed to provide general assistance to Eastern Europe, such as PHARE for countries that had association agreements with the EU such as Romania, and TACIS for the CIS states such as Moldova and Ukraine, were restructured to specifically assist transborder cooperation by adding new subdivisions such as PHARE-CBC in 1994, PHARE –CREDO in 1996, and TACIS-CBC in 1996 (Ilies 2003). The EU provides direct help for transborder cooperation in the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands, mainly in the form of financial assistance for concrete transborder cooperation projects. While during the early 1990s the EU initially concentrated its financial aid programs predominantly on its immediate neighboring borderlands of Poland, the Czech Republic, and others, after the mid 1990s a more comprehensive EU strategy that included non EU-bordering East European countries began to take shape (Anderson and Bort 2001). Romania benefited from national PHARE funds, while Ukraine and Moldova have benefited from national TACIS funds since the early 1990s. However, PHARE and TACIS

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national funds were only used occasionally to fund transborder cooperation in Euroregions. After 1994, the PHARE-CBC program covered only the borders of Romania with other EU applicant countries such as Hungary and Bulgaria. Because Ukraine and Moldova did not have EU association treaties, the eastern borderlands of Romania with these two countries did not benefit from PHARE-CBC funds until 2003. On the other hand, the Ukrainian and Moldovan borderlands have benefited from TACIS-CBC funds since 1996. After 2003, in preparation for its eastward extension, the EU expanded the spatial scope of PHARE-CBC to include the eastern borderlands of Romania with Moldova and Ukraine (www.europa.eu.int). Although so far the amount of PHARE/TACIS money allocated specifically for transborder cooperation in the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands is rather modest (several tens of millions of Euros per year) when compared with other EU regional programs, nonetheless these funds are of key significance for the functioning of transborder cooperation in the Euroregions. Beyond the financial aspect, the EU funds bring into contact local authorities, NGOs, and businesses across borders in order to draw funding proposals and to execute funded projects. Furthermore, the 2004 EU expansion and the 2007 inclusion of Romania will have direct consequences on the Euroregions established in the borderlands under study here (Scott 2006). Romanian membership in the EU will mean that a significant part of the eastern EU border and the border of Romania with Ukraine and Moldova will coincide for an approximate length of 1330 kilometers (of which approximately 650 kilometers is with Ukraine, and 680 kilometers is with Moldova). Thus, EU enlargement will lead to the creation of new EU border regions in the east. The Romanian borderlands will be EU borderlands, while at the same time the Ukrainian and Moldovan borderlands will continue to remain outside the EU umbrella. This situation will introduce new challenges and opportunities that these borderlands will have to face. Given these circumstances, in 2003 the EU further redefined its strategy for transborder cooperation by launching the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). ENP is a comprehensive framework aimed at addressing challenges arising from economic, political and social disparities between the enlarged EU and its neighbors by fostering close partnerships with neighboring non- candidate countries such as Ukraine and Moldova, in order to strengthen stability, security and prosperity in the region (Lobjakas 2004).

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In the context of the ENP, “Neighborhood Programs” were put in place to support transborder cooperation between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova between 2004 and 2006. They will be followed after 2007 by a “New Neighborhood Instrument” that will provide direct financial support for transborder and transnational cooperation along the external border of the enlarged EU and will consolidate all the various financial instruments available for transborder cooperation in order to improve their management. Additionally, under the “New Neighborhood Instrument” the amount of funding available for transborder cooperation in Euroregions will increase significantly (Cilinca 2004). However, these policies still have to materialize, since as of 2005 their intended effects in the borderlands of the lower Danube region remain in the realm of possibilities.

2.2. National-Driven Euroregion Building in the Lower Danube Space

The legacy of border problems and the lack of previous transborder cooperation experience influenced the perception of Euroregions in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. In the early 1990s, national governments in the region regarded the establishment of Euroregions as a matter of extending a country’s political control beyond its national borders. In the context in which trust building among national governments was slowly advancing outside the EU umbrella, Euroregions were initially perceived as political instruments aimed at detaching border areas from one state and attaching them to another. Therefore they were viewed as direct threats to the territorial integrity of the state, and national governments generally opposed their establishment (Negut 1998). This attitude is exemplified by the Romanian government’s strongly negative discourse on Euroregions during the early 1990s. Euroregions were perceived as a direct threat to Romanian territory, and as devices conceived by Romania’s neighbors to dismantle Romania. To be sure, unsettled political issues between Romania and some of its neighbors contributed to such a negative discourse. What worried Romanian leaders at that time was not transborder cooperation per se, but the fact that to create Euroregions implied territorial delineation and a certain degree of local autonomy, therefore implying individualized political-territorial entities that the national government could not fully control. However, this mentality started to change after the early 1990s. In addition to the significant incentives for change the external factors provided, internal factors also contributed to

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the opening of national governments toward institutionalized transborder cooperation. Notwithstanding broader border issues hindering inter-state relations between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, national leaders in these countries came to realize that there were important benefits for their own bilateral and trilateral relations to be drawn from the establishment of Euroregions. After all, transborder cooperation institutionalized in Euroregions could have been made into a useful tool to tackle otherwise seemingly intractable intergovernmental bilateral issues, provided national governments remained in charge in these newly created territories. Euroregions could in fact constitute a means to cooperatively address the problems these countries faced, even beyond the borderland dimension. Euroregions could also prove useful to address domestic issues in these countries. Given the decades-long strict border regime between Romania and the Soviet Union, the borderlands of the lower Danube suffered from chronic peripherality, their infrastructure was in disrepair and they were in dire need of investment. The post communist states were stumbling in economically and socially painful transition reforms and were in no position to attend to the needs of these border regions. Euroregions have the potential to generate some local economic development and foreign investment, thus they might constitute an opportunity to relieve part of the development-related issues faced by the national governments. Additionally, the establishment of Euroregions could have been proof for domestic audiences that national governments at least were trying to do something to cope with the economic malaise generated by the transition period and with more sensitive intergovernmental issues, such as minorities. Before engaging in the establishment of Euroregions across their borders the Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian governments had to take into consideration the complex implications raised by such an undertaking. Romania and Ukraine border other countries situated outside the lower Danube area, thus there were additional borderlands to be considered as well. In the view of these two national governments, the establishment of Euroregions was a complex problem that necessitated an overarching approach that went beyond local interests. The implementation of Euroregions across some segments of the national border could have sent a signal that such territorial institutions can also be established between territories adjoining other border segments where national governments were anxious to sanction forms of structured cooperation involving a territorial dimension.

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For example, during the early 1990s the Romanian government was anxious regarding the intentions of the Hungarian government towards Transylvania, where a significant Hungarian minority lives. Consequently, the Romanian government avoided the establishment of Euroregions across its western borders with Hungary, even though ethnic Hungarians do not form majorities in the adjacent border regions, but rather are concentrated in the center of the country. At the same time, the Romanian government was in favor of establishing Euroregions across its eastern borders with Ukraine, where a significant Romanian majority lives in the adjacent borderlands. Yet, establishing Euroregions in the east would create a precedent that would signal there were no specific reasons to prevent them for being established in the west as well. In the case of Ukraine, the national government also had to weigh between engaging in Euroregion building at its sensitive western and southwestern borders with Romania, and the perspective of establishing such territorial structures in the east, across the borders with Russia, where the Russian influence is substantial. In this context, national governments in the region proceeded to create the necessary legal framework for the institutionalization of transborder cooperation only after a period of time in which they concluded a series of inter-governmental agreements and treaties that served as a base for building a certain amount of trust among each other. It is important to mention that while the actions of the national governments themselves are responsible for building trust in bilateral relations, these actions took place against the backdrop of the European integration process of which the national governments desired to be a part. Since the 1990s, the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan national governments signed a series of international and domestic legal documents needed to allow the local authorities to engage in meaningful transborder partnerships. Domestically, each country passed laws to allow local authorities the right to engage in association agreements with their counterparts across the border. Among the international documents the most important are the Madrid Convention on transborder cooperation that Ukraine adopted in 1993, Romania in 1998, and Moldova in 1999, and the Additional Protocol to the Madrid Convention that deals more specifically with issues related to local authorities’ rights regarding transborder cooperation, that Moldova adopted in 2001, Ukraine in 2004, and Romania signed in 1998 (but has yet to ratify). Additionally, the most important legal document for transborder cooperation for the three countries under study here is the 1997 Izmail Declaration of the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan presidents that launched

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the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan trilateral, and the process of the establishment of Euroregions among these countries. The attention that institutionalized transborder cooperation received from the three national governments after the 1990s had profound implications for the subsequent functioning of Euroregions established across their borderlands. Generally, the process of establishing Euroregions has been a top-down enterprise in which central governments have high stakes. Among these, the territorial dimension has been of foremost concern for the national governments as indicated by their interest in fine tuning the balance between the national territorial units composing Euroregions. Further, the politically charged environment in which the establishment of Euroregions took place deeply shaped the national governments’ perception of Euroregions. Romania imagined Euroregions across its eastern borders as mechanisms for maintaining institutionalized contacts with its co-ethnics in Ukraine and Moldova. The Euroregions established across Romania’s western borders were imagined mainly as a means to achieve economic development in these borderlands. Additionally, the establishment of Euroregions was “proof” that the EU membership-seeking Romanian government genuinely embraced EU strategies aimed at redefining centralized border-induced state territoriality to create an integrated European space. Ukraine envisioned Euroregions established across its western borders as gateways to European integration. After its independence in 1991, Ukraine found itself in a precarious geopolitical position between a Russia trying to figure out its role in the post Soviet space and an EU that was increasingly concerned with potential security threats coming from post-Soviet space. Many Ukrainian leaders were concerned that external forces could generate instability in Ukraine which would force the country to remain within the Russian sphere of influence. To consolidate its independence, Ukraine was in need of political openings to the West. Yet, for the most part during the 1990s Ukraine remained outside the various western mental maps that redesigned the European space. The country has not been a member of significant European organizations, thus lacked direct contacts and cooperation within EU or other European frameworks. In these circumstances, transborder cooperation in Euroregions was among the few options the Ukrainian government had in order to partake in European affairs. The perceived need for opening Ukraine to the West outweighed the perceived dangers Euroregions across

187 contested borderlands posed for the Ukrainian government. Participation in Euroregions across its western borders has been a choice of opportunity for the Ukrainian government. For Moldova, sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, Euroregions represented almost a necessity for its prospects of security and development. The Moldovan government’s lack of control over the eastern part of the country for more than a decade and the strong Russian military presence there, together with its dependence on resources from post-Soviet space, indicates that Moldova faces only a few choices in international politics. Its landlocked position weakens Moldova’s bargaining position vis-à-vis Ukraine and Romania, and the lack of membership in European organizations meant that the country has been long left outside the European imagination. Euroregions were perceived as having the potential to increase Moldova’s choices in international politics, and as serving to anchor the country into a western system of cooperation, even if not as important as the EU or NATO. Such geo-strategic understanding of the role and the functions of Euroregions by the national governments from the region left little room for local input into the creation of Euroregions and into their territorial make-up. For the most part, the contribution of the local authorities from the lower Danube space to the establishment of Euroregions has been limited to reacting to the national and supranational transborder cooperation policies. The establishment of Euroregions across the borderlands of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova resembled more a national strategy for political and economic development rather than a grassroots demand, in a localized context, for dismantling constrictive national borders in order to create novel spaces of living that are more appropriate to fulfill the aspirations of borderland citizens.

2.3. Geopolitics of Euroregions at Work

Initially, Euroregions in Eastern Europe were imagined as replicas of their western counterparts. Since certain Euroregions established among western European countries had already a decades-long history, numerous national and EU leaders assumed that this accumulated experience would simply be transferred to the East European space. However, the political, economic, and social realities of regions such as the lower Danube were different from those of other West European regions, and they came to influence the process of Euroregion establishing across the borders of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The lesson drawn from the making of the East European Euroregions was that Euroregions are spatial institutions contingent on

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geopolitical contexts, and they can not simply be reproduced in other spatial contexts, rather they would have to be adapted to the local contexts. a) The Carpathian Euroregion The “Carpathian Euroregion” was the first Euroregion to be created exclusively among former communist countries (Ludvig 2003). It is representative of the issues characterizing the establishment of East European Euroregions. Furthermore, the Carpathian Euroregion represents a unique case for both Romania and Ukraine. The Euroregion was formally created in February 1993, in Debrecen, Hungary, under the blessing of the European Council. Border regions from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Romania were intended to participate in this Euroregion (Figure 15).

Figure 15. The Carpathian Euroregion.

The foreign ministers of Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine, together with certain local representatives from Romania and Slovakia were present at the establishment ceremonies (Burant 1995; Negut 1998). The Romanian government was openly opposed the participation of Romanian administrative units in this Euroregion, and dismissed the local authorities that signed

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the agreement. Until 1997, the Romanian government did not allow the Romanian border counties to formally participate in this Euroregion. The causes that led to such a negative attitude of the Romanian government against this Euroregion are suggestive for the issues of transborder cooperation in Eastern Europe. The Carpathian Euroregion was intended to replicate the “Regio Basilensis” established between France, Germany and Switzerland. It constitutes a classic case of taking Western European models and applying them to Eastern European realities without adaptation. The Romanian government saw in this Euroregion a direct threat to its western borderlands from the Hungarian government. For the Romanian authorities at that time, the Carpathian Euroregion was a purely Hungarian enterprise, beginning with its design (mainly by the East-West Institute created in the 1980s in New York by a Hungarian-American national labeled as a “nationalist” by some Romanian leaders), and ending with its goals. The way Romanian interests were handled during this Euroregion’s design phase, convinced the Romanian government that it had significant reasons to be concerned about the aims of the Carpathian Euroregion. Romanian leaders were not consulted in any phase of the project, thus they had no input in the design of the Carpathian Euroregion despite the fact that the Carpathian Mountains lie mainly in Romanian territory (Deica and Alexandrescu 1995). In fact, the Romanian government was entirely ignored. It was simply announced that two of its counties would be members in the Euroregion. Another Romanian objection was that the territory that was intended for the Euroregion was too large for a local transborder cooperation structure. In addition, the Hungarian territory of the Euroregion amounted to three quarters of the total territory of Hungary, and its population amounted to three fifths of the total Hungarian population. These attributes clearly gave Hungary the upper hand in the Euroregion. Another reason for distrust was that most of the borderlands of the participant countries were less developed than the Romanian ones. However, it seemed that all that these border regions had in common was the presence of a Hungarian minority, and the fact that they were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at one time or another. Therefore, it was not difficult for the Romanian government to imagine the territorially threatening potential of the Carpathian Euroregion. Slovakia took a similar position as Romania regarding the Euroregion, due to its concerns about its considerable Hungarian minority that inhabited the Slovak counties assigned to the Euroregion. As a result, the Slovak authorities initially did not formally participate in the Carpathian Euroregion.

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The Ukrainian government was more enthusiastic about the project. Ukrainian leaders welcomed the establishment of the Carpathian Euroregion since at that time they saw in this project an avenue for Ukraine’s integration into Central Europe and further into the EU. At the establishment ceremony, Ukrainian foreign minister Zelenco commented on the significance of the Euroregions for his country by declaring that Ukraine was “entering the process of European integration” (Burant 1995: 1130). However, Ukrainian leaders were concerned of potential secessionist tendencies in the multiethnic Transcarpathia district chosen to be part of the Euroregion, which had a considerable Hungarian minority. They insisted that two other large Ukrainian provinces (Oblasts), which were Ukrainian majority, join the Euroregion. It is important to note that Ukrainian oblasts are generally large administrative units (they also have smaller subunits called “raions”) than are equivalent to counties in other East European states. After the Ukrainian territorial addition, counties from other member states followed suit. By 1997, after the improvement of bilateral relations with Hungary, the Romanian government allowed local authorities to formally join the Euroregion. However, Romanian leaders added four other Romanian counties to the Carpathian Euroregion. Today, the Carpathian Euroregion is a mega-region, with a territory comparable in size to Greece (three times larger than Slovakia), and with a reliance on EU funding for survival. Further complicating the situation in this Euroregion is that Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia ascended to EU membership before Romania and Ukraine. Despite an increase in economic activity, and a more noticeable increase in cultural and social cooperation, the Euroregion remains poor. Indeed, smaller Euroregions are now forming inside the territory of the Carpathian Euroregion, creating a “Euroregions within a Euroregion” pattern. Although created with the example of a successful western Euroregion in mind, the Carpathian Euroregion has failed so far to reproduce the success of the former. Largely responsible for the less than expected performance of what was supposed to be the “flagship” of East European Euroregions is the territorial geopolitics practiced by the national governments implied in the establishment of the Carpathian Euroregion. The paramount emphasis these governments placed on the territorial dimension of Euroregion-building was a far cry from the principles guiding transborder cooperation, and has worked against the viability of the Euroregion.

191 b) Other Euroregions with Romanian and Ukrainian participation By the late 1990s the Romanian government had come a long way in its discourse on Euroregions. It became a promoter of the EU-endorsed institutionalized transborder cooperation policies aimed at redefining centralized border-induced state territoriality. After relations with Hungary dramatically improved during the mid-1990s, the Romanian government took the initiative to encourage local authorities to form Euroregions all around the national territory. Additionally, clear prospects of joining the EU after the1999 Helsinki Summit strengthened the Romanian government’s commitment to institutional transborder cooperation. By 2003, no less than twelve Euroregion-type institutional structures of transborder cooperation were implemented across Romania’s borders that covered all Romanian border regions (Figure 2, page 111). The “Danube-Cris-Mures-Tisza Euroregion” was established in November 1997 at Szeged, Hungary by representatives of the local authorities of several counties from Romania and Hungary, and an autonomous province from Yugoslavia (Bioteau 2004). Romanian national leaders were supportive of this Euroregion, given the economic potential that the area represents. Indeed, in this area there was previous experience in transborder cooperation, and major economic centers exist in these border regions. Successive territorial additions brought the size of this Euroregion to over 77,000 square kilometers, and over five million inhabitants (Figure 16). Although hindered by the 1999 Kosovo war in the former Yugoslavia (e.g., the bombing of chemical plants located in the Serbian side of the Euroregion), this Euroregion seems to have significant perspectives to become successful. In addition, the local authorities from the region are consistently engaged in transborder cooperation, and the grassroots support seems to be significant if we take into consideration the growing number of transnational non-governmental organizations created in this Euroregion.

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Figure 16. The Danube-Cris-Mures-Tisza Euroregion.

Euroregions covering the southern borders of Romania with Bulgaria and Serbia, the latest to be created, are the result of the efforts of the local communities to a greater extent than were previous Euroregions. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of these Euroregions do not include entire national territorial-administrative units, but rather associations of communes or cities on each side of the frontier (Ilies 2004; www.mae.ro). However, the relative lack of steadfast lines of communications across the Danube River seems be a factor that slows their development. Ukraine remained consistent in its politics of establishing Euroregions across its western borders. In 1995, a Ukrainian oblast joined three Polish voivodships (counties) in order to form the “Euroregion Bug”. In 1998, this Euroregion was enlarged to encompass Belarusian districts as well (Figure 17). Other territorial additions followed, and currently the Euroregion Bug covers an area of about 80,000 square kilometers and has approximately five million inhabitants. These characteristics place the Euroregion among the larger ones in Europe (www.tric.info). There are also recent plans to establish a Euroregion-like structure of transborder cooperation along the Dnepr River across Ukraine’s eastern borders with Russia and Belarus.

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Figure 17. Euroregion Bug.

c) Romanian-Moldovan-Ukrainian Euroregions Over the past few years, Euroregions have been established across the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands to offer an institutional framework for transborder cooperation. Although the Carpathian Euroregion included the northern sector of the Romanian- Ukrainian border as early as 1993, Romania did not fully participate in the structure until 1997. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, three Euroregions were established across the borders between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova to promote cross-border cooperation in a sensitive part of Europe (Figure 18). Here, a supranational framework such as the EU did not exist, yet Euroregions have the same goals as the ones existing under the EU umbrella: to diminish the barrier function of state borders in order to enhance European integration.

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Figure 18. Euroregions between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. (Source: Gabriel Popescu)

The establishment of these Euroregions was possible only after the signing of the 1997 bilateral treaty between Romania and Ukraine, where the creation of Euroregions aiming to preserve ethnic minorities who inhabit border regions and to boost the economic status of border regions is explicitly stipulated. The first Euroregion was the Lower Danube Euroregion, established in 1998 in the southern sector of the common national borders, followed by the Upper Prut Euroregion in 2000 situated in the northern sector of the common national borders. Both Euroregions have tripartite Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan participation. After 2002, when the Siret-Prut-Nistru Euroregion was established with Romanian and Moldovan participation, the borderlands of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova were entirely covered by Euroregional institutional structures of transborder cooperation (Ilies 2004).

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The creation of the first two Euroregions was agreed upon on July 3, 1997 in Ismail (Ukraine), at a summit of the Presidents of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. Romania was particularly interested in the creation of these Euroregions. The border with Ukraine consists of territories that previously belonged to Romania and were occupied by the USSR at the end of World War II. A significant proportion of ethnic Romanians still inhabit these territories. The Romanian government did not claim these territories after the 1990s; instead it seems that the Euroregion “solution” satisfied the Romanian government well. Romanian Geographer Silviu Negut (who played a role in those Euroregions’ creation) summarized their importance for Romania, saying that they are Romanian-Romanian-Romanian Euroregions (personal conversation, 2001). He meant that Romanian ethnics inhabited Romania, Moldova, as well as the Ukrainian border regions. In the Moldovan case, where the three Euroregions cover over seventy percent of its territory and approximately 80 percent of its population, the significance of Euroregions as a national development strategy seems apparent (Prohnitski 2002). As for Ukraine, agreeing to establish Euroregions across its borderlands with Romania despite the presence of a considerable number of ethnic Romanians in these borderlands was a small price to pay for having Romania recognizing its borders and renouncing potential territorial claims toward its former territories. The Lower Danube Euroregion will be dealt with in detail in the next chapter. The Upper Prut Euroregion covers the historical region of Bucovina, divided between the USSR and Romania at the end of World War II. Initially, two counties each from Romania and Moldova, and one Ukrainian oblast joined to form the Upper Prut Euroregion. However, as large numbers of Romanian ethnics inhabit the Ukrainian oblast of Cernauti (also known as Northern Bucovina), and taking into consideration that Moldovans and Romanians are of the same ethnicity, the Upper Prut Euroregion had an overwhelmingly Romanian character, fact that made some Ukrainian leaders uneasy about its existence. Given this circumstance, in 2002 an additional Ukrainian oblast with a majority Ukrainian population joined the Euroregion, bringing the Ukrainian territorial participation to more than 50 percent of the total area of the Euroregion. In land area, the Euroregion is now larger than Moldova (Ilies 2004). The Euroregion has a noteworthy potential for development taking into consideration the intensity of interpersonal relations already existing in the region and the proximity of dynamic urban centers such as Cernauti, Ukraine and Suceava, Romania.

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The Siret-Prut-Nistru Euroregion was the last one to be established, in 2002. This Euroregion is situated between the Upper Prut and the Lower Danube Euroregions and covers Romanian and Moldovan borderlands. It reunites territories and populations with shared historical, cultural, linguistic, and ethnic characteristics. Transborder cooperation is expected to reach a high level of dynamism given the relative absence of contentious issues, such as border disputes and minority issues, confronting the functioning of Romanian-Ukrainian-Moldovan Euroregions in the Lower Danube space. It is worth noting that this Euroregion includes two main cities that have considerable potential to generate regional development: Iasi, Romania, the former capital of the Principality of Moldova (that included Bessarabia) until the emergence of the Romanian state, and Chisinau, the capital of the Republic of Moldova today. However, the Siret-Prut-Nistru Euroregion encompasses half of the territory and population of Moldova, while the Romanian member counties account for less than ten percent of the Romanian territory and population. While the three Euroregions with Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan participation are technically national creations, assisted by non-governmental organizations (e.g., the East-West Institute), supranational bodies (e.g., the Council of Europe), transnational bodies (e.g., the Association of Borderland Regions), and others, the influence of the EU on the creation and the subsequent functioning of these Euroregions should not be overlooked. The desire of national governments to demonstrate their European credentials and to achieve closer political and economic ties with the EU constituted a considerable incentive to engage in transborder cooperation and Euroregion building in the lower Danube space.

3. Conclusion

During the communist period, border and minority issues between Romania and the Soviet Union were “frozen”. This led to a situation in which the common borders were strictly enforced and all communication between the two adjacent border regions had to go through the national capitals in Moscow and Bucharest. After the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the emergence of independent Moldova and Ukraine, this type of border regime changed drastically, being replaced with an almost open border regime in which contacts across national

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borders between borderland inhabitants have been significantly eased, to the point where Romanians and Moldovans did not need a passport to cross their common border. Despite the unprecedented dynamism of individual transborder contacts generated by the lax border regime, the national governments in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova initially failed to institutionalize transborder cooperation across their common borderlands in Euroregions. The communist past of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova negatively influenced their perception of Euroregions. They feared that Euroregions, because they implied territorial delineation, were political institutions outside the total control of central governments, could become devices used to advance territorial claims. However, by the mid 1990s, faced with an eastward advancing EU and confronted with limited geo-strategic options outside the EU space, the three national governments gradually changed their position regarding Euroregions. International cooperation between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova during the 1990s and early 2000s eventually led to institutionalized transborder cooperation within the framework of Euroregions. By 2003, all of Romania’s borders and all western borders of Ukraine and Moldova were covered by Euroregion-like transborder cooperation structures. The establishment of Euroregions in the lower Danube space was deeply influenced by the historical and geographical context of the region. National governments’ rationales to become involved in territorial institution building across their borders point to the limitations of the national states to uniformly manage their entire territory. Territorially delineated institutions emerged as a form of coping with the pressures Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova experience in the lower Danube space. The national governments embarked upon the establishment of Euroregions much in the same way they would approach any other inter-governmental issue in foreign policy. The establishments of Euroregions became a geopolitical undertaking in which pro and contra arguments were carefully analyzed by the national governments, and which territories were to become part of Euroregions were delineated following national priorities. Supra, sub, and national considerations come together in the geopolitics of Euroregions. Transborder cooperation institutionalized in Euroregions emerged as a sort of “spatial fix” of the moment to fulfill the territorial needs of the state; a geopolitics of territories that is a sort of hybrid between political tool and localized forms of cooperation.

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These circumstances led to an overtly top-down Euroregion building process, in which local authorities had little input and local interests were often sacrificed. For the most part, borderland inhabitants were not allowed to “act” but only to “react” to the establishment of Euroregions. Although the national governments do not directly manage Euroregions, the geopolitical thinking upon which their creation was based continues to shape their evolution. While Euroregions did not succeed in generating an economic miracle in the borderlands, and a real devolution of power to local authorities has not taken place in most cases, their significance resides in increasing the scope and the level of local transborder interactions, and in creating a framework for national governments to address contentious borderland issues. Considering the potential border and minority disputes between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, and the lack of the statehood history for Ukraine and Moldova, it is remarkable that these countries moved to institutionalize transborder cooperation in Euroregions at all, let alone in such a short period of time.

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CHAPTER 7

BREAKING THE MOLD: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF TRANSBORDER TERRITORIES BETWEEN ROMANIA, UKRAINE, AND MOLDOVA

This chapter describes the emergence and subsequent functioning of the LDE between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The LDE constitutes an appropriate case study to understand processes of state reterritorialization in Eastern Europe. An in-depth examination of the process of institutionalization of the LDE will illustrate how state territoriality is currently being transformed by multi-scalar processes manifesting across national borders. This chapter starts by examining how the process of LDE establishment came into place, the forces involved into its institutionalization, and what goals the LDE was expected to accomplish. I then look at how the LDE acquired its territorial shape, and examine the social, economic, and demographic characteristics of the region. Subsequently, I examine the political nature of the territorial institution of the LDE and its relations with other institutions situated at different scales, such as the nation states and the EU, and how and where the LDE fits in the design of a unified European space. The chapter ends with an exploration of the specific accomplishments and failures of the LDE regarding the building of transborder spaces between the countries of the lower Danube region, in the context of lessening the barrier function of national borders on the one hand, and reinforcing the barrier function of borders at the EU external borders on the other.

1. Setting the Tone: The Top-Down Establishment of the LDE

In 1998, the LDE was the first transborder region to be established among Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. (Figure 19). Until then, border issues between Romania and Ukraine, as well as separatist-generated instability in Moldova, prevented these countries from considering building Euroregions across their common borders. The making of the LDE was carried out in

200 several stages during 1997 and 1998. The initiative came from the Romanian government and presidency on the premise of improving interstate relations between Romania and Ukraine.

Figure 19. The Lower Danube Euroregion (Source: LDE documents).

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The signing of the bilateral treaty between Romania and Ukraine in June 1997, where the formation of Euroregions had been specifically mentioned, constituted the premise for the institutionalization of transborder cooperation in the region surrounding the mouths of the Danube. After the treaty was signed, the presidents of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova met in the Danubian border town of Izmail, Ukraine on July 3-4 1997 to adopt a declaration on trilateral cooperation that would constitute a comprehensive framework for the development of political and economic interstate relations among the three countries (Ghiorghi 2003). In this context, on February 24-25 1998 at Izmail, a meeting took place under the supervision of the Council of Europe where an agreement supporting transborder cooperation between the Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian local and regional authorities was adopted. The next stage took place in the border town of Galati, Romania, where local experts from the regions involved met on two occasions, on June 9, 1998 and July 10, 1998, to arrange technical aspects required for the establishment of the LDE (Ghiorghi 2003). On August 14, 1998, the representatives of the three parts involved met in Galati to sign an agreement that formally established the LDE. At the same time, the bylaws of the Euroregion outlining its legal status were adopted, and the LDE’s institutional structure was determined (Acord 1998; Ilies 2004). The Agreement was signed by the local authorities representing the national territorial- administrative units from Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova composing the LDE. The Agreement pledged to formally announce the establishment of the LDE to the three national governments, to the Presidents of the three countries, and to the Secretary of the Council of Europe. The document also mentioned the legal basis upon which the establishment of the LDE relied, such as the Romanian-Ukrainian bilateral treaty and the declaration of trilateral cooperation at the inter-state level, and the Madrid Convention at the European level. Additionally, the document kept open the opportunity for other border counties/districts to join the LDE (Acord 1998). The bylaws of the LDE were a more comprehensive document that constituted the legal basis enabling the functioning of the Euroregion. Yet, the LDE does not have an autonomous legal status. The bylaws specified that the LDE as an entity is not a subject of law; rather its constitutive parts have their own independent legal status, and only they have the authority to engage in legal matters (not the LDE as a whole). At the same time, the bylaws do not bind the parts beyond national legislation, thus in the process of transborder cooperation national laws take precedence over the bylaws of the LDE (Statut 1998). Consequently, the LDE is a quasi-

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governmental institution, devoid of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, thus having a quasi-legal status. The bylaws also established the LDE’s formal position vis-à-vis the multi-scalar system of political-territorial institutions, by stating that the Euroregion “is not intended to replace the existing local administration or to create a new one” (Statut 1998). Also, the Euroregion is not intended to be a supranational organization, but to constitute a framework to facilitate interregional cooperation between its members. These attributes seem to point toward the LDE’s status as a transnational institution. Furthermore, the bylaws mention that the “LDE does not act against the interest of the states”, and that “the national governments have the right to obtain information regarding the activities of their local authorities that are LDE members” (Statut 1998). However, the LDE’s bodies have the right engage in cooperation with other international organizations.

2. The Purpose of the LDE

The aims of transborder cooperation in the LDE are specified in its constitutive documents. A brief description of these goals the LDE is supposed to achieve can offer perspective on the role of Euroregions in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, as well as about the nature of the process of state transborder reterritorialization in general. First, the LDE is imagined as a framework that enables transborder cooperation between its members along several fields, such as economics, science, culture, environment, and others. Second, the Euroregion is intended to allow its members to identify fields of common interest and to create transborder cooperation projects to help develop cooperation in these fields. Third, the LDE’s members intend to facilitate transborder contacts between economic institutions, NGOs, and individual experts. Fourth, the Euroregion is expected to facilitate cooperation between its members and other international organizations (Statut 1998). However, these documents fall short of providing meaningful explanations of these goals. A more detailed description of the LDE’s objectives is found on the Odessa’s Regional Administration website (www.odessa.gov.ua). Here, in addition to objectives related to the promotion of regional development and to the achievement of a more balanced economic development in the borderlands, a series of social and cultural objectives are also mentioned. For

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example, the document specifies “forming the single cultural area near the Danube”, and the necessity of “improving the capability of local authorities” (www.odessa.gov.ua). The same document offers further insights regarding the goals of the Euroregion. The LDE is considered “a special mechanism of international relations” and “the channel on which the negative energy of border tension, international misunderstandings, and economic contradictions could have been transformed into the new co-operation mechanisms”. Transborder cooperation in the LDE can transform the region surrounding the Danube’s mouths into an “area of intensive economic cooperation”, and could create conditions for “full-scale trade between our countries”, while at the same time “contributing this way to the fundamental European process” (www.odessa.gov.ua). The goals the LDE is expected to achieve are reflected in the several fields of transborder cooperation on which its members focus. These areas of cooperation are indicative of the extent the institutionalization of transborder cooperation in LDE reaches. According to the bylaws, in the field of environmental protection, the members intend to coordinate their environmental protection plans for the lower segments of the Danube, Siret, Prut, and Dniester Rivers, and the Black Sea, as well as for the sustainable management of the resources these bodies of water provide. In the economic area, the members plan to cooperate to establish free economic areas on the territory of the Euroregion; to help the establishment of banks and other businesses with mixed local capital; to create trade facilities for local businesses; to establish a regional database of local businesses; to promote tourism; and to participate in European economic programs. An important area of transborder cooperation concerns the infrastructure of the region, where the members plan to build new border crossing points, to coordinate their transportation development projects, and to develop the infrastructure for tourism. Programs of common management of the workforce are envisaged, as well as common social protection programs. Common programs in education, research, culture, health, and sports constitute another large area of transborder cooperation in the LDE. Lastly, the members intend to coordinate their activities regarding natural disasters and organized crime in the region as well.

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3. Acquiring the Territorial Shape

The territory of the LDE resulted from combining the territories of seven administrative units from Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova (Figure 19, page 201). As such, the LDE’s borders follow the borders of the national administrative-territorial units. The LDE has an approximate territory of 53,300 square kilometers, which is larger than Moldova (about 38,000 square kilometers). The seven sub-national administrative units that initially established the LDE were: 1. From Romania, the counties (judete) of Tulcea, Galati, and Braila. 2. From Moldova, the districts (raioane) of Cahul, Cantemir, Vulcanesti. 3. From Ukraine, the Odessa Region (oblast). The use of existing national territorial-administrative units as the territorial base for the LDE was taken for granted at the time of its establishment. Interview data obtained in Romania and Ukraine in 2004 indicate that there was no formal debate regarding the possibility the territory of the LDE would result in any other way apart from using the existing national territorial-administrative subdivisions at the county and regional level without alterations. Given the nature of the three states’ territorial organization, where counties in Romania and Moldova, and regions in Ukraine were second level territorial-administrative units (the first level is the territory of the country itself), there were apparently no other options other than relying on the existing sub-national administrative units to establish the LDE. Relying on these units seemed a logical choice, having the advantage of being the least complex choice. In addition, this choice allowed the use of the existing sub-national administrative apparatus, instead of creating a new one. At the time, lower rank territorial-administrative units in the three countries, such as cities and villages, were not considered as having enough governance power to become meaningful transborder actors. Additionally, the central governments favored this territorial make-up of the LDE. Not only did the central governments feel more comfortable having their administration at the county and regional levels managing transborder cooperation in the LDE, but they openly disavowed the formation of new territorial-administrative units to compose the LDE. If this were the rationale for choosing the territorial configuration of the LDE’s members, the selection of the specific territorial units to form the Euroregion points towards a more opaque process. In the case of Romania and Ukraine, choosing the participating territorial-administrative units was relatively simple since Tulcea, Galati, and Braila counties in Romania, and the Odessa

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Region in Ukraine, are the only ones that overlap the Lower Danube region. In the case of Moldova however, the situation is more complex. The three Moldovan counties initially chosen to participate in the Euroregion cluster around the Moldovan, Romanian, and Ukrainian border meeting point (tripoint), covering mostly the Moldovan-Romanian borderlands. The Moldovan territorial-administrative units chosen to participate in the LDE provided much less coverage of the Moldovan-Ukrainian borderlands (Figure 19, page 201). The eastern borderlands of Moldova adjacent to the Odessa Region are formed by the self-proclaimed Transnistrian Republic over which the Moldovan government has not had effective control since the early 1990s (Figure 9, page 153). Membership of the eastern Moldovan borderlands in the LDE has never been raised. In the south, in addition to the Cahul and Vulcanesti counties immediately adjacent to the border meeting point, no other Moldovan county bordering the Odessa Region has been selected to become a member of the LDE. Among the Moldovan administrative units that occupy the southern borderlands of the country with the Odessa Region there is the ethnic Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia (UTA Gagauzia). UTA Gagauzia does not have a compact territorial shape; instead it is composed by non-contiguous territories (Figure 9, page 153). However, these territories are close to the Romanian border, and some straddle the Moldovan-Ukrainian border. These circumstances would seem to recommend them for inclusion in the LDE, yet UTA Gagauzia is not among the LDE members. Interviews with Moldovan officials indicate that this situation is due to the fact that while the leaders of UTA Gagauzia were initially informed about the intention to establish the LDE, they did not express their desire to join (Interview, Cahul 2004). However, in 2002 the leaders of UTA Gagauzia officially petitioned the LDE administration for membership (Cimpoaca 2001). As of the time of this writing, October 2005, UTA Gagauzia had not been granted membership in the LDE. When examining the territorial structure of the LDE, an apparent territorial mismatch can be observed between the sizes of the participating national territories. There is reduced compatibility between the national territorial-administrative units composing the LDE. This situation has a considerable impact on the functioning of the Euroregion, making the collecting of statistical data and integrated planning strategies difficult. The second-level territorial administrative units in Romania are formed of “judete” (counties). In Moldova, the second level territorial-administrative units are formed of “raions” (districts) that are smaller than the

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Romanian “judete”. Additionally the UTA Gagauzia represents a stand-alone territorial- administrative entity, but is generally equivalent in size to a “raion”. In Ukraine, the second level territorial administrative units are formed of “oblasts” (regions), that are considerably larger than Romanian “judete”. The Ukrainian “oblasts” are subdivided into “raions” that are similar in size with the Moldovan “raions”. To better understand the territorial mismatch in the LDE it is useful to compare the national territorial-administrative units composing it (Table 1, page 210). The Odessa Region has a total of 33,300 square kilometres which is equivalent to the size of Belgium. Its share of the LDE amounts to roughly sixty-three percent of the land area (www.lowerdanube.com). The Odessa Region’s territorial shape resembles a letter “L”. The two parts of the reversed L are separated by the Moldovan territory and the Dniester River, thus communication between these two parts is rather difficult. In these circumstances, each of the two parts of the Odessa oblast can be considered two distinct regions both converging in the city of Odessa (Figure 20). The Odessa region is subdivided into 26 districts (raions), only nine of which are situated in the southern region (the lower part of the L). As a comparison, during the period the southern region belonged to Romania it was divided between two counties (judete). At the opposite end are the Moldovan districts (raions). The initial three Moldovan districts amounted to less than five percent of the territory of the LDE. However, months after the establishment of the LDE in 1998, Moldova undertook a reform of its Soviet era territorial- administrative system, and replaced its districts (raions) with counties (judete). As a result, the three districts of Cantemir, Cahul, and Vulcanesti that initially joined the LDE have been merged since 1998 into one county – Cahul County. Soon after, however, the eastern part of the newly created Cahul County split to form Taraclia County to accommodate the demands of the local Bulgarian minority. Taraclia County did not become part of the LDE, thus reducing the proportion of Moldovan territories in the LDE.

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Figure 20. The Odessa Region.

To complicate matters further, after the ascension of the Communist Party to power in Moldova, a new territorial-administrative reorganization of the country took place in 2003 that eliminated counties and reverted to districts. Under these circumstances, Moldova participates today in the LDE with two districts – Cahul and Cantemir (Table 1, page 210). However, most of the available statistics to date regarding the Moldovan territories belonging to the LDE are based on Cahul County. An interesting territorial aspect of the LDE emerges when comparing the proportions of each of the three national territories forming the LDE to the territory of the country to which they belong. These proportions show a much more balanced picture, with the Romanian and Moldovan LDE territories accounting for a little over seven percent of their respective national territories, and the Ukrainian LDE territory accounting for five and a half percent (Table 2, page 210). The same observation applies regarding the proportion of the population of the each LDE national territory to the total population of the country it belongs to (Table 2, page 210). This

208 situation raises important questions regarding the criteria used to establish the LDE: has this been done with the needs of the LDE in mind, or according to the needs of the nation-states? The low degree of territorial homogeneity impacts the overall functionality of the LDE. In addition to the issues pertaining to size discrepancies between the national members involved in the LDE, the territorial shape that resulted from the process of joining second level national territorial-administrative units also raises a series of issues. As such, there can be identified two distinct areas of the LDE (Ilies 2004). First, there is the area centered on the lower Danube River, on the meeting point of the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borders, and bordered in the south by the Black Sea and in the east by the Dniester River. This area includes the three Romanian counties, the two Moldovan districts and the nine Ukrainian districts from the Southern part of the Odessa Region. This is the sector where most of the transborder cooperation in the LDE takes place. However, this is also the area that in the past belonged entirely to Romania. A second area that can be identified centers on the northern part of the Odessa Region alone. This sector runs north of the city of Odessa and is bordered by the Dniester River in the west. As there are no other LDE member districts/counties in this area except for the Odessa Region itself, and communication lines through Moldova between the north and south of the Odessa Region are severed due to the conflict in Transnistria, institutionalized transborder cooperation in this sector is non-existent. In the rare occasions when the districts from the northern part of the Odessa Region are involved in the LDE’s actions, the cooperation takes place via the southern districts. The functional issues raised by the territorial mismatch in the LDE and by the peculiar territorial shape of the Euroregion point to the fact that the lower rank territorial-administrative units in the three countries, such as cities and villages, may have been more appropriate as a meaningful territorial base for the creation of the LDE.

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Table 1. The LDE Profile by Territorial-Administrative Units. (Adapted after www.lowerdanube.com). Data are from the 2004 Moldovan census, 2002 Romanian Census, and 2001 Ukrainian census.

Territorial- Territory, Proportion of Population, Proportion of Population % Urban Administrative thousands territory thousands population density population Unit km2 inhabitants 1 km2 Country Euroregion Country Euroregion Cahul M 1,5 4,4% 2,8% 119 2,9% 3,1% 29,8% 80 Cantemir M 0,9 2,7% 1,7% 60 1,6% 1,7% 6,5% 67 Brăila R 4,4 1,9% 8,3% 474 1,8% 10,0% 64,1% 79 Galaţi R 4,5 2,0% 8,5% 620 2,7% 16,0% 56,8% 139 Tulcea R 8,4 3,5% 15,8% 259 1,2% 6,6% 47,8% 30 Odesa U 33,3 5,5% 62,8% 2469 5,1% 62,7% 65,8% 74

Total LDE 53,0 100,0% 3901 100,0% 45,1% 78

Table 2. The LDE Profile by Member National Region. (Adapted after www.lowerdanube.com)

Regional Territory, Proportion of Population, Proportion of % Urban Population Territory thousands territory thousands population population density km2 Country Euroregion inhabitants Country Euroregion 1 km2

Romania 17,3 7,4% 32,6% 1253 5,7% 32,6% 56,2% 83 Moldova 2,4 7,1% 4,5% 179 4,5% 4,8% 18,1% 74 Ukraine 33,3 5,5% 62,8% 2469 5,1% 62,7% 65,8% 74 Total 53,0 100,0% 3901 100,0% 45,1% 78 LDE

4. Acquiring National Boundaries: How Territories Become Borderlands

The rationale for the existence of the LDE is provided by the presence of national borders of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova in the region surrounding the mouths of the Danube River. The LDE is meant to bridge these borders and to create an integrated space around the mouths of the Danube River. However, in order to make sense of the challenges the LDE faces in fulfilling its mission we have to address: 1) How these territories become separate in the first place? 2) How were the national borders erected? 3) How were their adjacent borderlands created?

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The complex history of the lower Danube space was discussed in detail in Chapter 5. The Romanian principalities of Walachia and Moldova, and the Ottoman Empire vied for the control of the lower Danube space during the Middle Ages. The Ottoman Empire ultimately emerged as the winner, and for several centuries it remained firmly in control of these territories. During modern times, the first political fragmentation of the territories surrounding the mouths of the Danube River took place in 1812, when the Russian Empire first annexed Bessarabia and took possession of the Bugeac territory north of the Danube River. The border between the Russian and the Ottoman Empires was established on Chilia, the northernmost of Danube Delta’s branches. In 1856, the newly formed Romanian state acquired most of Bugeac from Russia and the border on the Chilia becomes the Romanian-Ottoman border until 1878 when the Russian Empire re-annexed Bugeac. However, at the same time the Russian Empire granted control to Romania over Dobrogea, an Ottoman province south of the Danube River that Russians wrestled from the Ottomans. After 1878, the Russian Empire and Romania bordered each other on the Chilia and shared the control over the Lower Danube space: Russia in north in Bessarabia and Bugeac, and Romania in south in Dobrogea. However, by 1878 the era of the nation-state was well under its way and national territories were increasingly associated with ethnic identity and historical rights of possession. As Romanian population was present in the territories surrounding the mouths of the Danube since the Middle Ages, the Romanian elites considered as illegitimate the possession of the territories north of the Chilia by the Russian Empire. The Romanian state imagined itself as the logical contender for control of the entire Lower Danube space, being in a position to claim both previous possession of these territories and the presence of ethnic Romanians in the region (although at the time Turkic populations outnumbered the Romanians). Romania’s national territorial imagination in the region came true in 1918, when the Russian Empire was dismantled and Bessarabia (with Bugeac) joined Romania. The eastern borders of Romania reached the Dniester River in East, and the borders on the Chilia were dismantled. Between 1918 and 1940, the Lower Danube region functioned as a whole inside the Romanian state. The Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union had their own territorial imaginations regarding the Lower Danube space. They too could claim territorial possession and the presence of ethnic kin in the region. However, their claims were limited by the fact that they previously possessed only part of the territories surrounding the mouths of the Danube River, and by the

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fact that most Slavic population regarded as Russian kin was settled in the region only during the Russian rule after 1812. During World War II the Lower Danube space was directly influenced by the consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The contemporary period of territorial fragmentation and the current border configuration in the region starts on June 28, 1940 when the Soviet Union presented the Romanian government an ultimatum to evacuate Bessarabia in four days or face invasion. The Romanian government acquiesced, and a few days later a new border is established on the Chilia, this time the Soviet-Romanian border. With a few minor corrections on the lower sector of the Chilia in favor of the Soviets, this border remained Romania’s state border in the Lower Danube region until the present. A second stage of border delineation follows later in 1940, when the Soviet leaders decided to detach southern Bessarabia (Bugeac) from the newly established Moldavian Soviet republic, and to attach it to Soviet Ukraine. Moscow ordered Moldovan and Ukrainian soviet leaders to settle the territorial dismantling and the borderline, and to submit their proposals back to Moscow (Varatic and Siscanu 1991). The process that followed during the summer and fall of 1940 resulted in a textbook example of border manipulation. The most important criterion chosen for border delineation was the ethnic one. However, given the fact that Bugeac was home to a very large number of ethnicities that settled in the region during different periods of time, there were few instances in which an ethnic minority inhabited a territory in a compact manner. The ethnic settlement pattern of Bugeac displayed an acute spatial heterogeneity. Territories where an ethnic group formed an absolute majority were few and far between. Most districts in Bugeac had only relative majorities of one ethnic group or another (Tables 3 and 4). Under these circumstances, using ethnicity as a base for territorial dismantling and border delineation led to a failure to achieve a measure of sustainable national borders.

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Table 3. The Ethnic Structure of Akkerman and Ismail Counties after the 1930 Romanian Census (author’s translation).

Akkerman (Cetatea Albă) Romanians Russians Ukrainians Others (Thousands) (Thousands) (Thousands) (Thousands) Total County 18,2 17,2 20,5 43,9 Akkerman city 14,7 36,9 29,5 18,8 Districts Cazacie 22,2 16,4 52,4 8,9 Tarutino 2,5 11,7 0,7 84,9 Tatarbunar 10,6 12,8 31,2 45,2 Tuzla 5,3 32,3 29,9 32,3 Volontirovca 73,4 19,6 2,1 4,8 Taşlîc 3,6 2,0 1,3 90,9

Ismail Romanians Russians Ukrainians Others (Thousands) (Thousands) (Thousands) (Thousands) Total County 31,9 29,7 4,7 33,6 Districts Fîntîna Zînelor 22,1 45,3 6,0 26,5 Ismail, Including Ismail city 20,0 59,3 6,0 14,5 Bolgrad 29,3 6,3 0,2 64,1 Chilia Nouă 24,7 50,3 10,6 14,2 Reni 54,4 6,9 0,2 38,4

Table 4. The Ethnic Structure of Akkerman and Ismail Counties after the Unpublished 1927 Romanian Census (adapted and translated by the author after Varatic and Siscanu 1991: p. 88.).

Counties Romanians Ukrainians Russians Bulgarians Jews Germans Others Russians and (Th.) (Th.) (Th.) and Gagauz (Th.) (Th.) (Th.) Ukrainians (Th.) (Th.) Akkerman 19,6 14,1 25,0 17,0 4,0 17,1 3,2 39,1 Ismail 32,5 20,3 24,0 18,0 3,1 - 2,1 44,3

Note: Table 4 is shown for the purpose of detailing the Others column in Table 3. The 1927 Romanian census was considered flawed and it was not officially published by the Romanian Office of Statistics at the time. Another census has been undertaken in 1930. The 1927 data were used by the Soviet Ukrainian leaders in 1940, on the grounds that the 1930 data were “arranged” in favor of Romanians. However, as shown above, the 1930 census shows slightly smaller percentages of Romanians in Bugeac.

The Soviet Moldovan leaders attempted to keep in their republic areas with Moldovan population majority or where Moldovans had a plurality, which included the port cities on the Danube such as Reni and Ismail. The Soviet Moldovan leaders agreed that Cetatea Alba

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(Akkerman) County and the Chilia District should be shifted to Ukraine on the grounds that in these areas Ukrainians (in Cetatea Alba) and Russians (in Chilia) had a relative majority. However, the Soviet Ukrainian leaders had in mind a different territorial division. They intended to take possession of most of Bugeac in order to control the Danube and the Black Sea ports. To make their data look more appealing, the Ukrainian population, that was only sparsely present in Bugeac except the Ackerman County, was combined with the Russian population in Ukrainian documents at the time. Moreover, where suitable the Bulgarian population was also counted in Soviet Ukraine’s favor on the grounds of Bulgarians Slavic origin. Ultimately, other ethnic groups, such as Germans, Jews, Gagauz, Tatars, and others were also counted as Slavs to Moldova’s disfavor. It is interesting to note that most ethnic groups in Bugeac other than Ukrainians did not identify themselves with Ukraine proper. For many, the Soviet identity was more meaningful than the Ukrainian one since Ukraine did not have a history of rule in Bugeac, and most did not know the Ukrainian language. Soviet leaders in Moscow agreed with the Ukrainian position, and on August 22, 1940 most of the south of Bessarabia was officially merged with the Odessa Region in Ukraine (Spatiul Istoric si Etnic 1993). A small territory around the city of Ismail formed the Ismail Region until 1956 when it was dismantled and incorporated to Odessa Region. The result was a sinuous border line that in many instances separated territories inhabited by the same ethnic group and made Soviet Moldova a landlocked republic. During World War II, when the Romanian army joined Nazi Germany in the invasion of the Soviet Union, the borders in the Lower Danube region disappeared again until 1944. In fact, the Romanian army extended its control in the territory of Ukraine to the Bug River including all the territory of the Odessa Region, and established its headquarters in the city of Odessa. This period of history remained fresh in the memory of many Ukrainians who perceived Romanian troops as occupation troops. This is the only instance in history when Romania and Ukraine had a direct conflict. As documented in a letter they addressed to Stalin in 1946, after World War II Moldovan leaders tried to reintegrate Soviet Moldova by reclaiming the possession of the two Bugeac counties on the grounds that their loss hampered the development of the republic (Spatiul Istoric si Ethnic 1993). Their attempts were unsuccessful, and the 1940 border remains the border

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between the two, now former, Soviet republics until today. The independence of Moldova and Ukraine from the Soviet Union did not alter the 1940 inter-republic borders. The Soviet-Romanian state borders were officially established after World War II by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947. In the Lower Danube sector, they followed the 1940 borders with few exceptions. In 1948, when Romania and the Soviet Union proceeded to delineate their border in the Danube Delta on the lower Chilia, the Soviets deviated from the Chilia’s thalweg and established the border on a minor canal (Musura) inside the Romanian territory. As well, they took control of several islands on the Chilia canal that previously belonged to Romania. Through this move, the Soviet Union secured the mouth of the Danube’s Chilia canal, and the secondary delta the Chilia forms at its confluence with the Black Sea (Figure 21).

Figure 21. The Romanian-Ukrainian Border on the Lower Chilia.

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The long-lasting outcomes of the national border drawing process in the Lower Danube region are manifested today in several instances. One such instance is encountered on the lower Dniester River, where the Moldovan territory effectively denies direct communication of the southern Odessa region with the rest of the oblast (Figure 22). The main road from Odessa to Reni passes three times in seven kilometers through Moldovan territory at the Moldovan village of Palanca. Another instance in which the 1940 border manipulation has current relevance is in the southernmost tip of Moldova in the village of Giurgiulesti, where two kilometers of Moldovan territory interpose between Ukraine and Romania denying them a direct ground connection (Figure 23). However, this minuscule territory gained enormous importance after 1991, since it provides Moldova several hundred meters of Danube River riverfront. These issues related to contemporary consequences of past border delineation will be detailed later in this chapter.

Figure 22. Palanca Village Area at the Moldovan – Ukrainian Border.

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Figure 23. The Giurgiulesti Village Area at the Moldovan-Romanian-Ukrainian Border Tripoint.

5. The Demographic Outline of the LDE

The demography of the LDE has an important impact on its functioning. The Euroregion has a total population of almost four million people, out of which approximately fifty-five percent is rural, indicating a predominant rural character of the Euroregion (Table 1, page 210). This percentage is higher that the total rural population of Romania and Ukraine and slightly lower in the case of Moldova. Population density in the Euroregion reaches seventy-eight inhabitants per square kilometer, which is lower than that of each of the three countries. However, Tulcea County, Romania, which includes the sparsely inhabited Danube Delta, significantly lowers LDE’s population density. LDE demographic data divided by national territories show a complex picture. The national population proportions in the LDE range from approximately sixty-three percent Ukrainian, to thirty-three percent Romanian, to under five percent Moldovan. The proportion of LDE’s urban population also range from approximately sixty-six percent in Ukraine, to fifty-six in Romania, to under twenty in Moldova (Table 2, page 210). The LDE experiences consistent out migration (more accentuated in Ukraine and Moldova and slightly less in Romania) and

217 overall negative population growth rates, except for the Moldovan population, which has a slightly positive growth. The ethnic structure of population reveals a series of particularities to the LDE. While the LDE displays a remarkable ethnic diversity with over 100 ethnic minorities on record, the presence of Romanian populations in large numbers in all three national territories forming the LDE constitutes one of the most significant demographic characteristics of the Euroregion. For most of the Middle Ages, when the entire region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, the main ethnic groups that populated the lower Danube region were Romanians, Tatars and Turks, and later Bulgarians. After 1812, when the Russian Empire arrived in the region a series of other ethnic groups were settled in the region by the Russian Empire, mainly in Bessarabia, including Bugeac. Among them, the most significant were Russians, Gagauz, Ukrainians, Jews, and Germans. Today, the three Romanian counties of the LDE are the most ethnically homogenous, with around 90 percent Romanian population. Ethnic minorities range here from Russians and Lipovans to Turks and Tatars, to Gypsies, Greeks, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Jews, and Italians. The two Moldovan districts are inhabited by majority Romanian-speaking Moldovans whose proportion of the total population recently increased after Taraclia County split from Cahul County in 1999, and after the Moldovan government reversed the country’s territorial- administrative organization from counties back to the Soviet era districts in 2003. However, significant Russian, Ukrainian, Gagauz, and Bulgarian minorities inhabit the Cahul District. The Russian language is also widely used in the region. The Odessa Region in Ukraine is the most ethnically diverse part of the LDE, especially in the south in Bugeac, between the Dniester and the Danube Rivers. Thus, it is useful to make a distinction between the northern and southern parts of the Odessa Region. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, in the Odessa Region non-Ukrainians make up almost half of the population (45%), divided among 133 ethnic groups. This makes Odessa one of the most multiethnic regions in Ukraine. After Ukrainians, the largest groups are Russians (27.4%), followed by Bulgarians (6.3%) and Moldovans (5.5%). The Russian language is most commonly used in daily life in urban centers, including in the local administration. However since Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the Ukrainian language has slowly gained ground on Russian as a mother tongue.

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The Bugeac region had a total population of slightly over 600,000 in 2001, of which fewer than forty percent were Ukrainians. No ethnic group forms a majority in Bugeac. Russians and Bulgarians each are approximately twenty percent of the population, followed by Moldovans with thirteen percent, Jews with two percent, and Gagauz with one percent. Examining the ethnic structure of Bugeac at the district level, there can be identified several areas that display somewhat more homogenous patterns of ethnic population. Romanians form a majority in the Reni District (50%) that is adjacent to the Romanian and Moldovan LDE member counties/districts, while in the Izmail District, Romanians and Ukrainians both comprise around thirty percent of the population. Bulgarians form the majority in Bolhgrad District that borders the Bulgarian inhabited Taraclia district in Moldova, and relative majorities in two other districts. Russians form a plurality in the cities of Izmail and Chilia, while Ukrainians dominate in the remaining four easternmost Bugeac districts. At the level of the entire Odessa Region there is a decreasing trend in the number of ethnic minorities such as Russians and Moldovans, and an increase in the number of Ukrainians. For example, comparing the data of the 1989 and 2001 censuses, the Moldovan population decreased by fifteen percent, from approximately 145,000 to approximately 124,000 (of which 77,300 in Bugeac). Assimilation, as well as migration, seems to account to a considerable extent for this decrease.

6. The Governance Apparatus and its Financial Support

There are a series of administrative structures that make up the governance apparatus of the LDE. The formal structures were established at the time of the signing of the Agreement that established the Euroregion. Other type of structures, such as subdivisions of various departments in the national governments and EU-related institutions, participate in the governance of the LDE only marginally. The administrative apparatus of the LDE consists of a number of employees from the staff of the local territorial-administrative units of the three states involved. The main decision making body of the LDE is the Council of the Euroregion that adopts decisions by consensus. By default, the Council’s members are the heads of the regional administrations of the territorial units involved in the LDE. As of 2005 the members were the heads of the local administrations from Cahul and Cantemir Districts in Moldova, Galati, Braila, and Tulcea

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Counties in Romania, and the Odessa Region in Ukraine. The Council has a President and two Vice-Presidents elected by rotation for a period of two years. These are unpaid positions. The Council meets two times per year, or more if special situations require (Statut 1998). In 2005 the Presidency changed from the Cahul District to Tulcea County. The Coordination Center is the second institution in the formal administrative structure of the LDE, and it is directly subordinated to the Council. Its membership is selected by the Council for a two year period and is composed of one chief and two coordinators who work for the President and the two Vice-Presidents. In many ways this is the most important institution of the Euroregion. The Coordination Center functions as a “secretariat” of the Euroregion, managing most of the transborder cooperation activity and collaborating with international organizations on various projects. However, a stable Coordination Center with its own staff and office space has never been implemented. The headquarters of the Center reside in the district/county that is home to the then-president. As a result, the LDE does not have an independent office. Additionally, every LDE member county/district has its own local Coordination Center. These local bodies are generally more informal, and are staffed by various members of the local administration who have additional administrative duties non-related to transborder cooperation as well. The Specialized Commissions constitute the third administrative body of the LDE. These commissions are considered the “working” bodies of the Euroregion. They have from five to eight members who are selected from the staff of the local administrations of the LDE member regions. These commissions draft transborder cooperation projects, design programs, and compile reports that are then submitted to the Council for approval. They meet whenever the president of a commission or an ordinary member of a commission has issues to address. Initially there were established nine such Specialized Commissions, but today their number has been reduced to seven. A cursory look at these commissions helps to understand the broad scope of transborder cooperation in the LDE. They are: 1. Commission for regional development and international cooperation 2. Commission for economy and financial audit 3. Commission for transportation and communications 4. Commission for demography 5. Commission for environment and natural disasters

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6. Commission for socio-cultural activities and interethnic relations 7. Commission for personal safety and law enforcement It is interesting to note that one commission that has been disbanded used to deal with the harmonization of legislation regarding local authorities’ responsibilities regarding transborder cooperation. While the Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian national governments lately have adopted legislation to allow their local authorities to engage in transborder cooperation, interviews at the local level in all three countries indicate that the mismatch between local authorities’ responsibilities remains one major issue in the functioning of the LDE. The Euroregion has a complex financing scheme that encumbers its activity. The financial means for the operation of the LDE are derived from all members equally. The LDE has a budget of its own, but it does not have an independent bank account. The funds each member allocates are kept separately in a special account. The funds obtained for the implementation of projects from international organizations are also kept in a special account that can be used only by the member mentioned in the program that received funding. The fact that the LDE does not have an independent legal status prevents it from having a common bank account. The LDE administrative personnel are paid by their local employers from the local budgets. Typically, the member holding the Presidency assures financing for the Council’s meetings (including board and meals) and the functioning of the Coordination Center. These funds came from the budgets of the local administrations of the LDE members. There are no independent taxes to contribute to the LDE’s budget. Given the particularities of the LDE administrative and financial structure, its functioning relies to a large extent on the good will and skill of its leaders. In this context, interpersonal relations among these leaders acquire a key importance for the governance of the LDE. Generally, when local leaders change after national elections in one of the three countries, the membership of the LDE Council changes as well. Until now it appears that the Ukrainian leadership within the LDE has changed least often, as the Odessa Region’s governor has maintained himself in power since the establishment of the LDE. In addition to the formal administrative structure of the LDE, there are a series of institutions that have a certain measure of input in the governance of the Euroregion. Certain local NGO’s and Chambers of Commerce are occasionally involved in various transborder cooperation actions in partnership with the formal administrative structures of the Euroregion, or

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they may offer specialized consulting to various LDE bodies. However, they are not members of the LDE and their participation in its governance remains sporadic. National administrations in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova are not directly involved in the governance of the LDE. For the most part, their involvement takes place through governmental offices that coordinate various facets of transborder cooperation at the national level. These offices usually belong to governmental branches such as Departments of Economy, Public Administration, European Integration, Foreign Office, etc. Their involvement is necessary when the local authorities engage in transborder cooperation activities that have to do with assets and issues under the jurisdiction of the central governments (interviews with Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan officials, Bucharest 2004). Interviews at the local level in the LDE indicate that given local authorities’ limited decision-making powers regarding transborder activities in the three countries, the involvement of various central authorities is not only necessary but also welcomed. In the absence of such involvement, as well as in the absence of a deeper decentralization of power towards the local level in these states, the LDE’s administrative structure remains quite limited in its capacities to undertake significant transborder cooperation projects. This situation is confirmed by a Romanian government document addressed to the Galati County local authorities in which the former pledged to send a representative to LDE’s meetings that debate transborder cooperation issues requiring governmental action (Romanian Government 2003). While central government non-involvement in the LDE’s activities is desirable and beneficial in general, in the circumstances in which the local administration lacks key powers to undertake measures that facilitate transborder cooperation, the non-involvement of the central governments amounts to “hidden” control. In Ukraine, the relationship between the local and the central authorities has its own peculiarities. Here, the central government’s involvement in the LDE’s governance is mediated through the Governor of Odessa. Given the territorial-administrative structure of Ukraine in which Regions constitute an intermediary layer between the national government and the district- level administration, the Regional administration generally has considerable decision-making power, while the district administration has much less. As such, the Ukrainian districts from the south of the region that border Romania and Moldova are governed from the more distant

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Odessa to a large extent (interview, Reni 2004). Yet, the Odessa administration is often powerless when it comes to transborder matters, since Kiev usually handles these matters. In Moldova, the involvement of the central government in the LDE’s governance seems to be most active, to the point that the Moldovan president himself participated in a LDE Council meeting (Interlic 2004). On the one hand, Moldova’s recent erratic territorial-administrative reorganizations have created considerable confusion regarding central-local administrative relations. On the other hand, the Moldovan government’s strategy of European integration via Euroregions raises the LDE to national significance. However, this situation has not translated thus into significant benefits/facilities being granted for transborder cooperation. Supranational institutions such as the EU are marginally and indirectly involved in the LDE’s governance as well. Since none of the three countries is an EU member, the LDE falls outside of EU jurisdiction, and well established funding programs such as INTERREG do not benefit the Euroregion. Moreover, even as Romania gets closer to EU membership and western Romanian borderlands began to have access to PHARE funds, the eastern Romanian borderlands still have not benefited from these funds since the PHARE program addresses only the borderlands of accession countries, and neither Ukraine nor Moldova have agreements of association with the EU. Only in the past few years, when the EU decided to start the ENP program, have PHARE funds been available for the Romanian portion of the LDE. Nonetheless, the EU funds have been available for the western borderlands of Moldova and Ukraine (but not for their eastern ones) under the TACIS program since the late 1990s. As such, the Moldovan and Ukrainian portions of the LDE did receive TACIS funds in late 1990s (but the Romanian portion of the LDE did not receive PHARE funds at that time). However, after launching the ENP, all LDE members have access to EU transborder cooperation funds. It should be mentioned here that EU funds do not go directly to the LDE’s budget. Instead, having access to EU funds means that LDE members can draft transborder cooperation projects which can then be utilized to apply for EU money to finance them. The LDE as an institution does not receive any direct funding from the EU. An interesting example of the complex ramifications that the EU involvement in the LDE governance generates is the creation of the Regional Agency for Cross-Border Cooperation “Lower Danube Euroregion” in Reni, Ukraine. In 2003, the Odessa Region obtained TACIS funds for the creation of a “business infrastructure” in the oblast. The project funded the

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establishment of a network of non-governmental organizations in various cities in the Odessa Region whose objective is to increase the number of small and medium businesses involved in transborder cooperation and to increase the volume of cross border trade in the LDE by providing databases of possible transborder partners, organizing economic fairs, and undertaking other similar activities (interviews, Reni and Izmail 2004). As a part of this network, the Reni Agency stands out because its staff informally took over part of the transborder cooperation duties the Ukrainian district and regional authorities previously had in the LDE. This situation seems to have amounted to the collapse of the functions of Ukrainian districts’ LDE Coordination Centers into the Regional Agency for Cross- Border Cooperation in Reni. Moreover, the Reni agency would like to become the seat of the long-due LDE unified Coordination Center that can give the Euroregion more unity, but the Romanian and the Moldovan sides do not have a clear position on this issue. However, the EU funds that established the Reni Agency provided funding only for a limited period of time, and they are about to run out. The initial plan was that after two years the network of NGOs would become self supporting. It remains to be seen if in the absence of EU funding the trend toward decentralizing parts of the LDE administrative structure would continue in the Ukrainian borderlands and if this trend will extend to the whole LDE.

7. The LDE as “Spatial Fix”

Economic issues in the Lower Danube territories are of key importance to the LDE. A cursory look at the formal discourse about the LDE at both the local and national scales reveals that economic expectations are prominent. One of the most important goals for the LDE is to become a spatial framework in which to achieve economic development in the national borderlands. While the lower Danube space has its own economic qualities and advantages, it is characterized by enduring peripherality vis-à-vis core areas in all three countries, especially since the end of World War II. The economic makeup of the LDE displays considerable variety, being dominated by activities such as agriculture, transportation, heavy industry, trade, and tourism. Overall, agriculture dominates the economic landscape of the Euroregion, particularly in Moldova and in Bugeac, Ukraine. Industry and services are more developed in the area surrounding the city of

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Odessa in Ukraine, and in the Romanian borderlands. However, the economic life of the LDE is dominated by a network of large and medium-size cities. One economic pole is situated in Ukraine, around the city of Odessa. Odessa is the main economic and political center of the LDE. The city has a rich history and a long cultural tradition. Its development began in the nineteenth century as a resort for the Russian aristocracy, and continued to become one of the main ports of the Russian Empire and later of the Soviet Union. With a population of a little over one million, Odessa is today Ukraine’s main sea port, and the country’s gateway to the world. The city’s economic reach extends far beyond Europe. Heavy industry accounts for a large share of the economic output of the region surrounding the city of Odessa, with machine-building, shipbuilding, and metallurgy well represented. In addition, Odessa’s role as a main port is exemplified by a strong presence of transportation functions, shipping companies, fishing, and light industry such as canning and meatpacking. Also, the city has important cultural functions and is a large university center. Another axis of economic polarization is formed by the cities situated along the Danube, in Romania and Ukraine. In Romania, the cities of Galati, Braila, and Tulcea, all ports on the Danube, constitute the economic backbone of the LDE. Galati and Braila are situated only thirty kilometers apart, and together form a significant economic cluster in southeast Romania. Tulcea is situated approximately one hundred kilometers away from these two cities. Galati, with a population of approximately 330,000, is the LDE’s most important center along the Danube. It is the fifth largest city in Romania and the largest port on the Danube, situated about 80 miles from the Black Sea, and less than 200 miles from Bucharest, Chisinau, and Odessa. Metallurgy and shipbuilding constitute its main industrial outputs, which together with other transport-related industries and services make Galati the fourth most important industrial hub in Romania. The city hosts one of the largest ferrous metallurgical complexes in Southeastern Europe, which produces over fifty percent of Romania’s steel, and exports over fifty percent of its production. Moreover, Galati is also a main European transportation hub, connecting the Danube and Black Sea shipping routes, as well as land transportation routes between Europe and the former Soviet space. Also, the port of Galati provides access to the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, thus to Western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. The city is equipped with a short segment of large-gauge railroad that assures the transition from the standard

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European railroad to the Soviet-type railroad. Galati is also an important university and cultural center of the LDE. Braila, a city of about 220,000, has been in the past the major trading center along the Danube. In the nineteenth century, Braila acquired Porto Franco (Free Port) status and by the early twentieth century become an extremely active trade center with a Commercial Exchange, diplomatic consulates, foreign banks and foreign shipping companies. At the time, Braila was more important than Galati and even rivaled Odessa as the main port in the region. At the same time, the city had a very cosmopolitan population, with scores of ethnic groups, including Greeks, Italians, Germans, as well as Russians, Jews, and Turks. During the communist period Braila’s fortune changed, its trade relations were severed, its multicultural aspect reduced, and it was surpassed in importance by its neighbor Galati. Braila remained an important city in Romania but it never regained its past glory. Tulcea is a medium size city, with under 100,000 in population, and it is the gateway to the Danube Delta. Its economy is also dominated by metallurgy, represented by non-ferrous alumina production. Important as well are the fishing and textile industries, together with Danube Delta related tourist activities. On the Romanian side there are other small cities along the Danube, of which the most important is Sulina, with about 5,000 inhabitants, situated on the Sulina Danube canal at the confluence of the Danube and the Black Sea. Once a thriving Porto Franco at the mouths of the Danube, today it is a “sleepy” town having mainly tourist functions. On the Ukrainian side of the Danube there are several smaller cities situated within approximately fifty kilometers of each other. Uppermost on the Danube is Reni, a small city of around 30,000 situated in a Bugeac cul-de-sac, only eight kilometers from Galati. At its zenith during the Soviet Union, around 100,000 people commuted daily to Reni to work in the shipyard and in the port (interview, Reni 2004). Today, the city’s industry is all but dead. Ismail, which has around 90,000 inhabitants, is the economic center of Bugeac. Until 1954 the city was the capital of the Ismail Region, that has since been dismantled and incorporated into the Odessa Region. Ismail is situated 20 kilometers downstream from Tulcea, and its economic activity is concentrated around its port and the food-processing industry. Also, the city is a regional tourist destination. Downstream from Ismail there are two smaller towns, Kilia and Vilkovo, whose economic activities today are mainly related to the fishing industry.

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In the Moldovan borderlands there are only two small cities, Cantemir, with about 6,500 inhabitants, and Cahul, with around 30,000 inhabitants. Their economy is mostly agrarian, with wine and food-processing industries dominating the industrial output. Until 1990 Cahul was a militarized city and industrial development overlooked the city. Troops from all over the Soviet Union, together with their families, were stationed in Cahul, and many remained there after the end of their tour of duty. Overall, Cahul County (before being reorganized in two districts in 2003) contributed a little over four percent to Moldova’s GDP. Territories composing the LDE have experienced economic depression since the early 1990s, after the dismantling of communist system. Moreover, the conflict in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, when the traffic on the Danube was drastically reduced, gave an additional blow to the regional economy by affecting the region’s many ports. Overall, the Romanian borderlands fared considerably better than the Moldovan and Ukrainian ones, but their economic development remains behind other regions in Romania. The main economic problems the LDE territories face are related to the incomplete transition from a planned to a market economy. Thus, industrial restructuring of the Soviet-styled, labor-intensive, and technologically less sophisticated factories still constitutes a challenge for the region. Many unprofitable industries were closed during the 1990s, while others undertook massive layoffs. As an outcome, unemployment soared, together with the tax-evading shadow economy. New jobs have been slow to arrive in the LDE, as market-oriented economic reforms lagged behind other regions of Eastern Europe. Many people migrated, often to foreign countries, while others retreated to agriculture. The majority of the new jobs in the region are in services, trade, and tourism. However, they are not enough to improve the economic fortune of the region. Although during the 2001-2005 all three countries had annual economic growth rates of over five percent, economic development has been slow to reach the LDE. Economic recovery is more advanced in the Romanian borderlands. The unemployment rate decreased during the early 2000s, most industry and agriculture was privatized, and foreign investment started to arrive in the region. Furthermore, after Romania received approval for EU membership, the Romanian territories started to benefit from large pools of EU funds covering various aspects of economic recovery, from workforce retraining programs, to infrastructure building, to the support of small business in rural areas. Currently, most of the region’s GDP is produced by private businesses, but it remains concentrated mainly in manufacturing and agriculture. The average monthly salary

227 also increased significantly in Romania during the early 2000s, reaching approximately $340 in 2005. Larger cities such as Galati and Braila generally have similar or higher salary averages, while in the more rural areas salary averages are lower. During the same period, the Moldovan and Ukrainian borderlands witnessed a less intense economic recovery. For the most part, after their independence Moldova and Ukraine adopted a circumspect attitude towards economic and political reforms. As a result, their transition period has been characterized by fits and starts (Prohnitski 2002). New jobs remain scarce, unemployment remains in the double digits, and many industries are only partially restructured. Also, both agriculture and industry remain state-owned to a considerable extent. Large economic and social disparities remain, with a very small class of the new rich and the majority of people in poverty, and between cities such as Odessa and other parts of the Odessa Region, such as Bugeac. The monthly average salary more than doubled in the last few years, to reach approximately $165 in Ukraine, and approximately $100 in Moldova, in 2005. However, these data vary considerably by region and by occupation. The LDE Moldovan and Ukrainian borderlands generally rank lower than the national average, and average monthly salaries in agriculture can be significantly lower than the national average in both countries. The minimum monthly legal salaries in 2005 in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, calculated in Euros, were 91, 36, and 26 respectively (www.fedee.com). The economy of the Moldovan borderlands is very small and is largely dependent on external markets, mostly in Romania, Ukraine, and Russia, for both imports and exports. While Moldova is considered the poorest country in Europe today, the southern part of Moldova that includes the Cantemir and Cahul Districts is the poorest part of Moldova. The Ukrainian borderlands have a more diversified economic base, but here prolonged economic recession in the port cities along the Danube makes full economic recovery a long way off. Economic recovery in the LDE framework is hampered today by the legacy of the spatial structure of the three national economies. The Romanian and Soviet economies had a reduced degree of complementarity, as both relied overwhelmingly on heavy industry. Moreover, there were few direct economic exchanges between the Romanian cities on the Danube and their Ukrainian and Moldovan and Soviet counterparts. Instead, the Soviet economic exchanges were routed through Moscow. The local economy of the LDE’s borderlands was more connected to the national economies to which they belonged. Prohnitski (2002) notes that transportation and

228 communication infrastructure in Moldova and Ukraine had been designed to prohibit direct cooperation with Romania, as well as between these two Soviet republics. He points out how the geography of Moldova’s transportation system has a West-East orientation, connecting Moldova’s western borderlands with Ukraine through Transnistria, while North-South communication lines that would allow Moldova direct connection with the Ukrainian ports on the Danube and with Romania are scarce. In addition to the deficit of complementarity between the three national economic systems, the lack of an adequate transportation and communication infrastructure adds to the difficulties of transborder economic integration in the LDE. One of the most acute problems is the lack of bridges over the Danube to increase functional connectivity among the Euroregion’s territories. In the whole LDE there is one single bridge over the Danube, in the Romanian borderlands. There are no bridges between Ukraine and Romania, therefore there is no direct road or rail connection between Ukraine and Romania in the LDE. Transportation infrastructure is hardly better across the Prut River, between Romania and Moldova. In the LDE there are only two bridges over the Prut River, between Galati, Romania and Giurgiulesti, Moldova, in the south, and between Oancea, Romania and Cahul, Moldova, fifty kilometers north. While the later is only a road bridge, the former has both road and rail traffic and serves as a connection between Romania and Ukraine as well. This is in fact the only railroad that connects the three national territories of the LDE. Moreover, the difference between the two types of railroad gauge systems used in the former Soviet space and in Romania requires wheelbase changing stations and constitutes more than a time-consuming nuisance for an integrated economy that the LDE is expected to foster. In addition to the scarcity of road connections between LDE’s members, the current quality of the roads constitutes a hindrance to transborder integration. There are no divided highways in the region, and the maintenance of the existing roads is tenuous at best. The Romanian borderlands have better maintained highways, although many secondary roads are below European standards. In the Ukrainian and Moldovan borderlands the highways are for the most part poorly maintained. During my 2004 fieldwork in the LDE, traveling the eight kilometers from Galati to Reni I missed the exit to Reni simply because street signs were nowhere in sight. This situation repeated for the next seventy kilometers from Reni to Izmail. Several intersections were not signed at all, in any language, while others had discretely situated,

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weathered Cyrillic inscriptions impossible to read while driving. There were no Latin-based signs in the region, although this was the highway connecting the main international road and rail border-checkpoint in southern Ukraine. The lack of such signs acquires even more significance if we consider that this was an area where a Romanian speaking population predominates. European human rights agreements require inscriptions in the language of minorities inhabiting a region in significant numbers in addition to inscriptions in the official national language. During the same trip, the fifty kilometers of Moldovan road along the Moldovan- Romanian border connecting Cahul to Giurgiulesti seemed not to have been maintained for decades. In several instances the pavement was washed out altogether, while in other instances potholes slowed the cars down to a crawl, and street signs were non-existent. Driving in the LDE is not for the faint hearted. Additionally, there is the problem of the main highways and railroads that have to repeatedly cross the Moldovan-Ukrainian border. For example, to travel the two hundred miles from Galati to Odessa on the main highway, one has to cross back and forth through six border check points. The water connections between Romania and Ukraine are in better shape. The many ports along the Danube offer more opportunities for establishing such connections. For the most part, these opportunities are taken advantage of in commercial relations. However, public connections through ferries are deficient. Since the establishment of the LDE, there has been only one partially reliable ferry connection across the Danube, between Tulcea and Izmail. However, the ferry does not run daily. Additionally, there are several ferry connections across the Danube between Romanian villages and smaller Ukrainian cities in the Danube Delta, but they are primarily open for local use and do not run on a consistent basis. In the LDE there are several airports, but only the Odessa airport has international status. In the Ukrainian borderlands, there is another (local) airport in Izmail that has been operating intermittently. In Romania, Tulcea and Galati have local airports, with Tulcea operating frequent flights. There is also a local airport in Cahul, Moldova, that has operated intermittently. There are no flights connecting these cities, although several proposals have been put forward by the LDE administration to establish such connections. It is important to mention from the perspective of transborder economic integration the so-called “Free Economic Zones” that have been established in the Danube ports of Galati, Reni, and the yet to fully emerge port of Giurgiulesti. In 1993 a “Free Economic Zone” was

230 established along the Danube in the port city of Galati. The rationale was to take advantage of the strategic position the city occupies on the European transportation corridors leading into Central and Western Europe, as well as into the ex-Soviet space. The tax-free status of the Free Economic Zone should generate economic development and bring foreign investment into the region. Two additional such zones have been created in the Romanian borderlands, in Braila and Sulina. These Free Economic Zones have enjoyed a certain success, and a series of foreign and domestic firms have located their production facilities or business activities in these areas. After the establishment of the LDE, the creation of an extended Galati-Giurgiulesti-Reni Free Economic Zone was proposed and partially implemented. The rationale was to extend to Giurgiulesti and Reni the economic benefits noticed in Galati in order to boost economic development in the whole LDE area while fostering economic integration in the LDE. Additionally, such an enterprise would effectively anchor Moldova, which has only several hundred meters of Danube riverfront, in the Danube countries’ “club”. In Ukraine, the Reni Free Economic Zone was created in 2000, and at the Giurgiulesti Free Economic Zone, Moldova, the building of various facilities, such as an oil terminal, is still under way. With the establishment of a tri-national Free Economic Zone on the Danube, there were numerous problems, many of them related to the mismatch of national legislations regulating Free Economic Zones in the three countries. While the LDE tri-national zone does currently exist on paper, in reality the zone can hardly be called “cooperative”, as the Galati and Reni Free Economic Zones are competing with each other. There are already reports in the media that in the absence of reliable investors, organized crime is attempting to establish smuggling operations in these Free Economic Zones (Candea et all 2003). Nonetheless, the strategy of establishing such a zone has many merits and may prove a profitable enterprise in the future, provided the participants find the political will to make it work.

8. LDE After Seven Years: A Template

An examination of the LDE’s activity since its inception shows its contribution to transborder integration in the Lower Danube space. The concrete projects the local administration undertook in the LDE framework are indicative of the nature of transborder

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reterritorialization and its scope. Nonetheless, a more thorough understanding of transborder integration results from the examination of the economic, social, and political impact the LDE has on the daily lives of its citizens, and how the local inhabitants perceive the impacts LDE has on their daily lives. During its seven years of existence, the LDE can claim a series of accomplishments toward transborder integration. The first actions undertaken in the LDE framework consisted mainly of information exchange, and were aimed at familiarizing the tri-national staff of the administrative apparatus with each other and with the potential each region had in order to identify common themes of action. The next stage consisted of signing several agreements between the local authorities in the three states in order to create a quasi-legal framework of governance. At the same time, a series of concrete transborder cooperation projects was drafted. The actions carried out during the first few years of the LDE are quite diverse. An agreement was signed between local police departments from each side of the Euroregion that stipulates the creation of a common database regarding criminality in the region and identifies common anti-crime measures. Seminars dealing with the participation of the civil society in the life of the LDE have been organized, where local NGOs from the three countries have been invited to attend in order to get to know each other and to establish collaborative contacts (interview Galati 2004). Exchange of experience missions have been organized for the local authorities, and mass media representatives have been invited to tour all national regions of the LDE in order to facilitate first hand information gathering. In addition, a summer camp for orphaned children from Galati and Braila Counties was organized in Odessa, on the Black Sea coast, and a soccer tournament was organized in Cahul. In the cultural and educational fields, transborder cooperation in the LDE seems to be most advanced. These types of actions usually require the involvement of central governments to a lesser extent, thus local authorities have a certain decision-making freedom to engage in cultural transborder activities. Various exchange programs for artists and scientists have been launched. Artists from the Odessa Opera Theater have performed in Galati, and artists from the Galati Theater have performed in Odessa. Odessa organizes every Christmas a children’s painting exhibition, and in Tulcea a “Lower Danube” chess school for youth has been established. Romanian book donations for schools teaching in Romanian in the Odessa Region also took place occasionally. An agreement for an exchange of instructors and students between

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Galati “Lower Danube” University, Cahul University, and Izmail Pedagogic Institute, allowed Romanian university instructors from Galati to teach classes at higher education institutions in Cahul and Izmail, and allowed Ph.D. students from the Izmail Pedagogic Institute to enroll at the Lower Danube University in Galati. Additionally, in 1999, 200 students from the Odessa Region and from Moldova were awarded scholarships at the “Lower Danube” University in Galati. By 2000, an agreement stipulating the creation of an Association of LDE Universities had been adopted at a conference of the Presidents of the universities functioning in the territory of the LDE. A real success has been enjoyed by the Interethnic Forum, a days-long cultural festival gathering thousands of participants from the LDE. The festival includes a series of events such as open air shows where folk bands perform, folk dress parades, poetry sessions, symposiums, book fairs, artisan fairs, and others. The Interethnic Forum is in its fourth year, and is hosted by rotation in a different city of the Euroregion. The Forum constitutes an excellent opportunity to promote interethnic understanding in the LDE, to break-down stereotypes, and to teach ethnic tolerance. Unfortunately, at the last 2005 festival in Tulcea, Romania, the Ukrainian delegation was not able participate because of visa-related issues (www.cjgalati.ro). Romania introduced visas for Ukrainian citizens in 2004 (as part of EU requirements), and it was too difficult and too expensive for the hundreds of participants from the Ukrainian delegation to obtain visas to cross into Romania. Among the most important transborder cooperation accomplishments in the LDE is the establishment in 1999 of a transborder university in Cahul, Moldova. The Lower Danube University, Cahul is a branch campus of the Lower Danube University, Galati (Ionescu 2000). The University has various colleges, including engineering, social science, and science. For the most part, academic personnel (100 faculty in 2002) commuted daily across the border from Galati to teach at the Cahul campus, but there were also a number of local instructors hired. In 2003, the number of students enrolled reached 400, most of them citizens of Moldova, and a smaller number from Romania and Ukraine. They were all supported by scholarships provided by the Romanian government. In 1999, the monthly amount of these scholarships (about $50) was higher than the monthly salary of a University professor in Moldova (Angheluta 1999). Beyond contributing to transborder cooperation in the cultural realm, the multicultural transborder University also represents an economic opportunity for the peripheral Moldovan

233 borderland (Cranganu 2003). Galati University invested considerable sums of money in the Cahul branch. The entire educational process, from the salaries of the academic personnel to the classroom materials, was supported by Galati University. In addition to scholarships offered for the students of Cahul Lower Danube University, the Romanian government offers, since the early 1990s, tens of thousands of scholarships for Moldovan and Ukrainian students of Romanian descent to study in Romanian high schools and universities, including in the ones situated in LDE’s territory. For example, in 2002, 70 freshmen from Moldova were admitted to Galati University, and almost half of them paid their own tuition (Cranganu 2002). These policies had a beneficial impact on transborder contacts in the LDE since a significant part of these students came from Moldovan and Ukrainian borderlands and, for reasons of geographical proximity, often study in educational facilities located in Romanian borderlands. Numerous efforts have been made in the LDE toward transborder economic integration. Local Chambers of Commerce have organized mutual exploratory missions and established contacts with economic agents in the LDE. As well, Regional Development Agencies in Romania and Ukraine (Moldova does not have one) are working together to identify possible directions of economic development. As a result of these activities, numerous commercial exhibitions and fairs have been organized to bring together local entrepreneurs, and to create familiarity in the local business communities about the business opportunities existing in the LDE. In addition to larger fairs where each member of the LDE presented its products and services, there have been also more specialized fairs, in the wine industry, tourism, heavy industry, agriculture, and others. However, tangible evidence of improving economic integration is weak. The volume of trade between the LDE’s territories did increase after the late 1990s, but it remains generally much below the potential of the region. Also, while there have been a series of reciprocal investments in the local economy, as well as a series of joint-ventures, transborder business in general lacks dynamism and constancy in the LDE. Agriculture remains the main area of economic complementarity between the LDE’s territories, in spite of being ubiquitous in all the Euroregion’s parts. The complementarity does not come from the existence of different types of agricultural crops, but from price differentials in the three countries, with Romania being more expensive than Moldova and Ukraine (interview Reni 2004). This complementarity allows Moldovan and Ukrainian producers to export to the

234 local market in LDE cities such as Galati and Braila. As well, there were instances where Romanian producers hired tractors and their drivers from Cahul to plow their fields in Galati County (interview Galati 2004). Many economic transborder cooperation projects that have dominated the LDE’s agenda focus on the improvement of the transportation infrastructure. Given the fractured geography of the communication network in the region, the implementation of such projects is central for achieving any measure of transborder integration. There have been agreements between local transportation departments to establish direct ferry connections between a series of Romanian and Ukrainian cities and villages situated on opposite sides of the Danube, as well as to establish a train shuttle between Galati-Giurgiulesti and Reni. In the early 2000s there was talk of establishing a local flight between Odessa, Izmail, and Tulcea, and even international flights connecting Izmail-Tulcea-Istanbul (Turkey), and Izmail-Tulcea-Rimini (Italy). Also, many attempts have been made by the local authorities to persuade their central governments to open additional border-crossing points in the LDE (interviews Galati 2003, 2004). In 2001 a direct ferry connection began operating between Galati and Reni, and another between Tulcea and Reni. The cost of the ticket was $5 and $4.50 respectively. The opening of these transportation routes has been an important success of the LDE administration. The amount of work involved in finding private investors and coordinating several national government departments ranging from Customs, and Border Police, to Environmental Protection, Finance, and Transportation, has been enormous. For example, it took more than one year to obtain one approval paper from one governmental department in Bucharest (interviews Galati and Reni 2004). Yet, this success was short-lived. The $5 ticket price proved too high for impoverished borderland inhabitants, especially since most of the traffic was from Ukraine to Romania. Furthermore, when the Romanian company who operated the ferry asked Ukrainian authorities for a port-usage tariff reduction, its request was denied on the grounds that the national government has to have a homogenous national policy with regard to taxation and cannot make exceptions for specific cases since this would mean other companies would request the same relief (interview Galati 2003). A series of steps toward transborder cooperation have been taken in the field of environmental protection. The presence of the Danube Delta on the territory of the LDE constitutes an incentive for transborder environmental cooperation. In 2000, a LDE Commission

235 that also included NGOs was established at Tulcea to coordinate transborder environmental protection in the Danube Delta and the lower Prut River. Yet, further steps that would indicate an integrated environmental management of the Lower Danube ecosystem have not been taken. For example, the Danube Delta is shared by Romania and Ukraine, with 20 percent belonging to Ukraine. There are two separate Danube Delta Nature Reservations, one in each state, both listed as UNESCO heritage sites, but managed separately by each state. An integrated management of these two segments of the same ecosystem would make much more sense from an environmental point of view. The LDE transborder cooperation framework also helped secure EU funding worth several million Euros for a series of projects focusing primarily on environmental protection and business. Most of these projects have been submitted to TACIS-CBC by the Odessa Region, as a part of the LDE. Starting in 2000, there were funded projects related to: “the sustainable rehabilitation and environmental protection of the Lower Danube lakes”, worth 2.1 million euros and focusing on the Ukrainian and Moldovan sides of the LDE; “the establishment of an urban technology service center in the Odessa Region”, worth over 250,000 Euros; “the establishment of a solar energy center in the city of Odessa”; the building of “Business infrastructure in the Odessa Oblast, Lower Danube Euroregion”, worth several million Euros and described in detail earlier in this chapter; and “Giurgiulesti Border Crossing Modernization”, in Moldova; and several others (Ghiorghi 2003; interviews Reni and Izmail 2004). Given the complicated structure of the EU funding scheme for transborder cooperation, in which Moldova and Ukraine received TACIS funds and Romania received PHARE funds, many of the funds for the above projects have been spent only in the Ukrainian and Moldovan LDE territories. The Romanian side of the LDE did not even benefit from PHARE funds until recently. Only after Romania had been accepted to open negotiations for EU membership did significant amounts of EU funds become available for use in the Romanian LDE borderlands. However, it is interesting that Galati County supported a fraction of the costs of some of the above mentioned TACIS projects in the Odessa Region (untitled document 2004). Although the sums of money were small, the fact that a Romanian County used public money to support building infrastructure (from which it does not directly benefit) in the neighboring Ukrainian region constitutes an unprecedented event in the Lower Danube space, signaling changing mentalities towards transborder integration.

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Another LDE achievement worth mentioning is the securing of AEBR (Association of European Border Regions) membership in 2001, together with the winning in 2002 of the newly established AEBR award “Sail of Papenburg” for special achievements in socio-cultural cooperation (AEBR Annual Report 2002). The significance of winning this award lies in the fact that the LDE’s achievements were recognized at the European level, thus increasing the visibility of the Euroregion, especially vis-à-vis national governments. CoE representatives have been impressed by the accomplishments of the LDE in the short period of time since its inception. Charles Ricq, Scientific Director of the Center for Observation of European Regions, in Geneva, Switzerland, noticed that it took certain well-established western European Euroregions much more time than it took the LDE to surpass the initial phase of establishing transborder contacts between local authorities (interview Galati 2003). Generally, the archival documents and the interviews conducted in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova in 2003 and 2004 suggest that transborder cooperation in the LDE is proceeding well at the local scale on an interpersonal plane. At the level of the local administration, good will and interest in achieving transborder integration are not lacking, especially since local elites began to realize how much the development of their own regions depends on the success of this integration. However, many difficulties appear at the stage of the implementation of transborder integrative projects due to the nature of the border regime that has to be bridged. Most often, local authorities are not equipped to deal with the regulatory challenge that surpassing national borders necessitates, since they lack significant decision-making power in the transborder realm. While the LDE framework and its staff can be credited for many transborder cooperation accomplishments, a large gap remains between local leaders’ projects and meetings and the implementation and subsequent monitoring of these projects to assure continuity and consistency in transborder cooperation (interview, Galati, Moisii 2004). Many projects drafted in the LDE framework by the local authorities failed mainly because of the mismatch of national legislation in the three countries, the lack of interest/priority of the central governments in these countries for transborder cooperation, and the lack of financial independence at the local level in the LDE to assure continuity for transborder projects or to support such projects themselves. Several examples are illustrative of these issues. The failure to establish train service between Galati, Giurgiulesti, and Reni is due to governmental bureaucracy. All the details necessary for the functioning of the train, including its timetable,

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have been ready for several years. Yet, the paper work necessary to implement this project is stalled somewhere in the larger central governmental structures. The same situation seems to be repeated in the case of the opening of a new ferry-served border crossing route across the Danube between the small city of Isaccea, Romania, and the village of Orlovka, Ukraine. Here, a Ukrainian investor has been waiting for years for the necessary legal paperwork to arrive from Bucharest and Kiev (interview, Reni 2004). Additionally, the establishment of a unified Galati- Giurgiulesti-Reni Free Economic Zone is encountering problems because such areas are the regulatory domain of the central governments. At the same time, the lack of political will prevents the Galati Lower Danube University from expanding into Ukraine, by establishing a branch in Izmail, at the Pedagogical Institute that exists in the city. Admittedly, the impoverished condition of a considerable percentage of LDE inhabitants plays a role in the lack of success of certain projects, such as the ferry line between Galati and Reni and the establishment of an air connection between the main LDE cities. Yet, there are instances where local authorities found the necessary good will to be able to compensate for the lack of funds of large segments of the population. As such, in order to lower the costs of border crossing at Moldova’s Cahul border checkpoint with Romania, the local authorities from Cahul had forgone a local tax on border crossings and took over the checkpoint’s sanitation service that the district then provided free of charge (Cilinca 2001). Transborder cooperation that took place in the LDE framework did succeed in generating momentum for transborder integration. However, today the most visible success is the creation of a network of local elites in the LDE. They can freely pass through customs while ordinary citizens wait to have their passports checked; they have family members working across the border, usually in Romania; they may even have private business across the border; and generally they befriend each other. However, there are little visible signs of transborder integration below this level. The ordinary LDE citizens for the most part do not directly partake in these transborder networks. For them, the LDE’s accomplishments remain elusive: they can occasionally read about them in the local newspaper, or they may see a multi-ethnic costume parade on the streets of their city. The LDE suffers from a deficit of visibility and of meaning at the level of its ordinary constituency. There are no transborder TV or radio stations, and no LDE publicly distributed maps or newspapers. In addition, the inhabitants see few concrete improvements in their daily lives as an outcome of the LDE’s existence. As Pertuta Moisii, the

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outspoken leader of a Galati-based NGO, said to me in an interview in 2004, “you cannot walk on the street and say ‘this is made by the LDE’”. Further she added that:

“The perception of the common citizen is that living in a border area is a punishment, and if it has an issue that needs to be solved on the other side of the border, then she/he is in serious trouble”.

Indeed, the view of the LDE from below is sobering. Few things have improved for ordinary LDE inhabitants as an outcome of the functioning of the LDE. As far as transborder interpersonal interaction is concerned, the LDE’s inhabitants did not see any improvement in their border crossing experiences. In fact, since the establishment of the Euroregion the border regime continued to harden as opposed of being eased. In 1998, the circulation among the three countries was almost free: between Moldova and Romania there was no passport control; the same situation existed between Moldova and Ukraine; while between Ukraine and Romania a passport was needed but no visa. In 2004, passports were already required (since 2002) to cross between Moldova and Romania and between Ukraine and Moldova, and now visas are required to move between Ukraine and Romania. Furthermore, after 2007, when Romania joins the EU, visas would be required to move between Romania and Moldova as well. It should also be mentioned that the locals do not benefit from any formal facilitation (such as a special ID) in crossing the national borders of the LDE, although several projects to this aim are being considered by the national governments. The LDE local authorities did lobby their central governments on numerous occasions to be granted increased regulatory power over the border regime in the LDE, in order to simplify border crossing for locals and local trade (Ghiorghi 2003). So far, their efforts have been unsuccessful. Processes situated at larger scales, such as national and supranational, continue to regulate the border regime in the LDE. My fieldwork experience in the LDE is representative of the types of issues involved in crossing national borders in the LDE. Additionally, this experience can also shed light on the difficulties foreign investors face in the LDE. In summer 2004, there was no public transportation service, such as bus, train or ferry, to travel the eight kilometers between Galati and Reni. In addition, there was no bus service between Galati and Cahul either, yet there were private minivan taxis that shuttle people several hundred of meters between the Oancea,

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Romanian custom and the Cahul, Moldovan custom. In order to travel from Galati to Reni and to Cahul I had to rely on the good will of the LDE staff for transportation. An opportunity for me to travel in the LDE arrived when an Italian small investor who already had a construction materials-related business in Romania, and who desired to expand his activities into Ukraine given the fact that the prices of such materials were cheaper in Ukraine. The staff of the Galati LDE Coordination Center contacted the newly established, TACIS funded, Reni Regional Agency for Cross-Border Cooperation, and the Izmail Fund for Small Entrepreneurs, and announced to them the intentions of the Italian investor in order for the Ukrainian NGOs to find possible business partners in their area. This episode is an excellent example of the LDE’s administration at work. However, since the Italian investor planned to make the trip from Galati to Reni using his personal car, and he needed some help with English in Ukraine, my contacts in Galati suggested we take the short trip together. We traveled from Galati to the custom checkpoint two kilometers outside the city. We passed through Romanian customs and at the Moldovan customs we were informed that my travel companion could not cross the two kilometers of Moldovan territory separating Romania from Ukraine because: 1) as an EU citizen he needed a Moldovan transit visa which he did not possess, and 2) the custom officers in Giurgiulesti (the Moldovan custom checkpoint) did not have the permission to grant one on the spot. As a Romanian citizen, I did not need such a visa. The closest place at which to obtain a transit visa for Moldova was at the Cahul, Moldovan border checkpoint, situated fifty kilometers north of Galati. We turned back to Romania and drove northward along the Romanian-Moldovan border to this border checkpoint. Here, attempting to cross the Oancea Romanian customs I found out that in order for me as a Romanian citizen to cross the border into Moldova (irrespective of the fact I was in transit to Ukraine), newly introduced Romanian laws (that I was not aware of regardless of my painstaking preparation for this trip) required that I needed to show proof of currency worth several hundred dollars, in cash or bank statements. Debit or credit card statements were not accepted. I managed to borrow from my travel companion the required amount of currency and after arguing with the customs officer I received permission to cross the border. Interestingly enough, earlier that day at the Galati, Romanian border checkpoint I was not asked to produce such proof of currency. As

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well, a few days later when I crossed through the same Oancea, Romanian custom into Moldova with an LDE leader, no customs officer asked me to show proof of currency. Once we arrived at the Cahul, Moldovan customs we went through a meticulous check of our car papers (a 1990 Italian make car whose days were numbered), justified by the fact that the number of car thefts in Moldova was very high. My travel companion eventually acquired his fifty euro transit visa that prevented us from crossing Moldova into Ukraine earlier in the day. When all was said and done, I noticed that it took no less that eight stamps to clear the border checkpoint, most of them involving the car. We traveled the 50 kilometers south to Giurgiulesti, this time on the Moldovan side of the Romanian-Moldovan border, arriving in the late afternoon at the military-like barrack Giurgiulesti, Moldovan-Ukrainian border checkpoint, where to our surprise we learned the international car insurance we possessed vas not valid for Moldova and we would have to return to Cahul to purchase valid insurance. According to the Moldovan customs employee in charge of checking car insurance documents, the fact that we were exiting Moldova did not make a difference, nor did the fact that we were advised to travel without insurance through Moldova to Cahul where we would be able to buy such insurance … the next day. Additionally, the fact that the army of Moldovan custom employees that applied the eight stamps needed to clear the border checkpoint to enter Moldova did not mention that special car insurance would be required for Moldova was not a good enough argument to convince the custom employee in Giurgiulesti to let us continue on. In the end, he asked my travel companion for a 20 Euros bribe which he agreed to pay in order not to turn us back to Romania that day. A few hundred meters further, we arrived at the military-like barracks of the Reni Ukrainian customs, where the presence of an Italian investor with a car trunk full of rusty iron bars and books with engineering specifications for building iron scaffolds, together with a Romanian citizen carrying a briefcase and presenting a passport filled with visa stamps from all around the world, might have raised some suspicion. After we were questioned about our destination in Ukraine and we explained that we were both expected by the LDE local leaders, we were allowed to enter Ukraine. It was well into the evening now. For an investor and a researcher, to take an eight kilometer private car trip between Galati and Reni, took over eight hours and a bribe to cross four customs check points. In this time one can travel from New York to Bucharest, Romania by plane. Our trip back from Ukraine to Romania went more smoothly. However, at the Giurgiulesti, Moldovan-Romanian border

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checkpoint, one customs employee, seeing my Romanian passport, asked me for a small bribe without even bothering to find imaginary irregularities in my papers. Judging by the first-hand information I gathered during this trip, the culture of bribes seems to plague Moldovan customs. It has been suggested that Moldovan salaries of under $100/month could partially explain this phenomenon (Candea et al. 2003). Nevertheless, other Moldovan custom employees behaved professionally, even friendly, while helping us to navigate the maze of customs bureaucracy. While my border-crossing experience cannot be generalized, it does prove that crossing the national borders in the LDE remains a hassle that discourages transborder integration. To take a trip across the border in the LDE just for entertainment reasons seems not to be worth the trouble. A Galati-based taxi driver in his early twenties, answering my question as to why he had never traveled on the other side of the border to Reni or to Cahul, said: “there’s nothing there [for me]. It is not worth it for me [to cross the border]” (author’s translation from Romanian). I continued by asking how did he know there is nothing there for him. He replied that he did not know for sure but he did not hear of anything being there that would make him want to take the eight kilometer trip crossing four customs. A similar disinterest in the other side of the border was expressed by a young lady, a tourism management student at the local University, who was the concierge of my hotel in Galati. Asking her if there was any sort of public transportation between Galati and Reni, she shrugged and added that she does not know much about the other side, nor had she or her student colleagues discussed much about the other side, and that neither had their University instructors spoken much about the other side during class time. I have to admit that I assumed a tourism management student at a local university would know, by default, everything about the other side of the border. The bulk of transborder exchange at the interpersonal level moves from Moldova and Ukraine to Romania. Mostly agricultural products are brought into Romania where the purchasing power is four times higher (Chomette 2003), and from where consumer goods are brought back into Moldova and Ukraine. Additionally, there is another, less intense, transborder exchange current between the Cahul District and the Bugeac region, comprised for the most part of Moldovans who come across the border to Ukraine to work in agriculture (interview, Reni 2004). There is also a current of transborder exchange that takes place among all parts of the LDE based on family visits. A large number of local inhabitants of Romanian ancestry have

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relatives in all three countries. Overall, the highest volume of border crossings of the LDE local inhabitants takes place between Moldova and Romania. A Romanian policy with considerable impact on transborder contacts in the LDE consists in granting Romanian citizenship, and thus Romanian passports, to Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens who lost their Romanian citizenship after their incorporation into the USSR or who can prove their Romanian ancestry. The relaxed character of Romanian laws regulating citizenship is thought to benefit numerous non-Romanians as well. It is estimated that by 2000 over 300,000 Moldovans and Ukrainians acquired Romanian passports (Adevarul, 11 Noiembrie 2002). After 2002, when Romanian citizens had the opportunity to travel visa free to the EU, the possession of a Romanian passport by Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens became even more desirable. Moreover, with the prospect of Romania joining the EU in 2007 and of the EU border regime requiring travel visas for the citizens of East European non-EU members, holding a Romanian passport would bring substantial benefits for Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens. Under these circumstances, Romanian media has reported that organized crime networks have already tried to take advantage of Romanian citizenship laws. For example, in Ukraine the price for the procurement of false documents to attest Romanian heritage can be as high as 1700 Euros (Adevarul, 11 Noiembrie 2002). The main drive for the large numbers of Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens to acquire Romanian passports is predominantly economic. In the circumstances of prolonged economic downturn in Moldova during the 1990s, the number of Moldovan citizens who left the country and worked temporarily (most often illegally) in various European countries is estimated at over 600,000, or 25 percent of the Moldovan population (Jandl 2003). For borderland inhabitants, the possession of a Romanian passport brings them a number of opportunities for small cross-border trade, in addition to guaranteeing them hassle-free border crossing into Romania and further into the EU. The Moldovan and Ukrainian villages adjacent to the Romanian borderland are very poor. Most of their inhabitants practice agriculture, and during the 1990s and early 2000s unemployment soared. The average monthly salary in these villages is under $50, and is even lower in the Moldovan borderlands (interview, Reni 2004). Poverty in the Moldovan borderlands is particularly dramatic, where the main construction material for houses is adobe, and where most of the young population has left for work in foreign countries. In these circumstances, the

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“suitcase” transborder trade (selling of consumer goods at the local markets by private persons) represents the only means of survival for many inhabitants of these villages (Gheorghiu et al. 2002). Being aware of this state of affairs in the Moldovan borderlands, when the requirement for passport-based border crossing for Moldovans was introduced in 2001, the Romanian government granted one million dollars to the Moldovan government for the latter to provide passports for borderland inhabitants free of charge. The price of a passport in Moldova was 32 Euros and few borderland inhabitants make this money in a month of work (Chomette 2003). The markets in Galati, and to a lesser extent in Braila, have traditionally been the main outlets for this type of transborder trade. In addition to agricultural products, the “suitcase” traffic also brings to these markets a wealth of counterfeit goods sold at extremely low prices. The profit such an enterprise can bring range from a few dollars in the case of agricultural products, up to $15-20 in the case of a car packed with tools, cigarettes, and other products and having a double gasoline tank (used for selling gasoline). If repeated daily, one can earn over $300-400 per month, after deducting the bribes offered to the custom officers and the border police (Candea et al. 2003). Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that smuggling has become the main lucrative transborder cooperation activity at the interpersonal level. The chaotic “suitcase” transborder traffic has begun to become more organized lately. The hundreds of thousands of dollars Romania has poured into improving border control in order to meet EU standards seems to have begun to show results, as it has become harder to smuggle goods on a small scale into Romania. The smugglers responded by starting to organize local smuggling networks that transport the merchandise into Romania, then store it until it can be sold on the market, or it is sold en masse to intermediaries that will take care of its distribution on the market. In the next phase, “mob-like” structures usually take over this type of large scale smuggling activity (Candea et al. 2003). In the Danube Delta, where fishing is the traditional way of life, poaching has become a way of life for the locals. Here, borders are difficult to strictly enforce due to the natural environment, remoteness, population scarcity, and tight-knit communities with cross-border family connections. The transition to a market economy has wreaked havoc on both sides of the Romanian-Ukrainian Danube Delta border on the Chilia Canal. The few industries that provided jobs in and around the Danube Delta were restructured during the 1990s, and many people have

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returned to fishing. However, the salaries fishing companies pay are not sufficient to make ends meet, and the population of the Delta, in both Romania and Ukraine lives in poverty. Many are poaching to make ends meet (it is worth mentioning that the Danube Delta is home to sturgeons that produce caviar) (Candea et al. 2003). Lately, the situation in the Danube Delta has become explosive. As Romania approaches its EU entry, law enforcement in the Delta is intensifying. Also, on the Romanian side, fishing rights in the Delta are given in concession to private investors. Now the fishermen poach in private waters and the fines have increased considerably. Furthermore, since most of the Delta is a natural preserve/park, therefore a protected area, environmental standards require fishermen to strictly respect the prohibition season and to use nets with larger holes among others. To enforce such standards, the Romanian “National Reservation of the Danube Delta” administration established steep fines and hired numerous guards to enforce them. However, many guards are poaching themselves or have relatives among the local poachers. Fishermen feel that everybody is against them, and they resent the authorities, the private investors, and the environmentalists (Candea et al 2003). Commercial exchanges between Romania and Ukraine across the Chilia Canal are few, although the potential is considerable, if only for the growing tourist industry. Some interpersonal contacts take place between isolated villages across the Danube, such as Periprava, the last Romanian village on the Chilia, located 15 kilometers before its confluence with the Black Sea, and Vilkovo, a town in Ukraine, population 20,000. Pregnant women and seriously ill children from Periprava (that can be reached from Romania only by boat) are taken across the river in Ukraine to the hospital in Vilkovo. The inhabitants of Periprava often cross to Vilkovo to attend church service there, while women from Vilcovo occasionally come to Periprava to sell goods. However, Romanian fishermen envy their Ukrainian counterparts because of the lack of fishing regulations and law enforcement on the Ukrainian side. They have much more poaching liberty, in spite of the fact that many fishing grounds in Ukraine are also private. Moreover, Ukrainian fishermen have the habit of poaching in Romanian waters (Romania Libera, 28 September 2004). When they are caught by the Romanian border police they claim there were drunk and got lost. Yet, the Romanian fishermen do not believe them and resentment intensifies between the two local communities.

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9. Inter-National Conflicts in the LDE

The status of inter-governmental relations between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova often affects the state of transborder cooperation in the LDE. In the context in which institutionalized transborder cooperation in the LDE remains dependent to a considerable extent on top-down relations, inter-state disputes, either involving borderlands directly or belonging to the inter-governmental realm, are likely to produce outcomes in the Euroregion. A series of such inter-national conflicts having borderland issues at their center cast their shadow on transborder integration in the LDE between Romania and Ukraine. One such issue consists in the delineation of the maritime boundary and the continental shelf around the Snakes Island, a tiny (about one mile circumference, or 17 hectares), barren, uninhabited island in the Black Sea, situated approximately 30 miles from the Romanian city of Sulina (Cucu and Vlasceanu 1991). The island belonged to Romania until 1948, when it was ceded to the USSR to build a military outpost to control navigation at the mouths of the Danube River (Figure 24). Ukraine inherited the island when it became independent in 1991 (Crowther 2000). However, Snakes Island is part of an older and broader unsettled problem relating to the establishment of the maritime boundary between Romania and the former USSR (Kuzio 2002). After the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty that established the border between Romania and the USSR, Snakes Island was retained by Romania. Subsequently, in 1948 the USSR “asked” the Romanian government for the transfer of the island and a Protocol was signed for this purpose. However, the Romanian Parliament never ratified the Protocol, thus the Romanians claim that from a legal point of view the island remained de jure a Romanian territory. Over the next forty years Romania and the Soviet Union never successfully negotiated the delineation of their maritime borders (Shafir 2004).

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Figure 24. The Snakes Island.

In the early 1990s the Romanian government reclaimed the island, first from the USSR, then from Ukraine. Romanian-Ukrainian negotiations regarding delineation of their maritime borders started in 1995 as a part of the negotiations for the bilateral basic treaty between the two countries, but an agreement could not be reached. Yet the basic treaty was adopted in 1997 with the stipulation that negotiations between the two governments regarding the delineation of the continental shelf would continue, and if no agreement could be reached the two countries would appeal for arbitration to the International Court of Justice. In addition, the Romanian government reopened the issue of the border delineation on the last segment of the Chilia Canal with the intent to rectify the border line to follow the Chilia until its confluence with the Black Sea, as specified in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty. After 1997, Romania renounced its claim on Snakes Island, given NATO and EU membership requirements that demand the settling of territorial claims. Instead, Romania demanded the delineation of ordinary maritime borders according to Romanian and Ukrainian shorelines, ignoring the uninhabited Snakes Island. However, even as major progress in Romanian-Ukrainian negotiations was being reported, in the early 2000s the dispute flared anew with the announcement that significant oil and gas deposits have been discovered in the continental shelf around Snakes Island (Shafir 2004). The status of the island has become of tremendous importance in the establishment of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around the island. Romania, stressing the uninhabited character of the island, considers Snakes Island a rock, which would result in the establishment of a

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smaller EEZ than the standard 12 nautical miles around the island. This may give Romania the opportunity to share some of the potential oil and gas deposits. Ukraine for its part has set out to prove that Snakes Island can be inhabited and could qualify for island status, thus allowing it to claim a standard 12 mile EEZ. Ukraine maintained on the island a military presence of around 50 soldiers and their families, who were shuffled in and out of the island every few weeks. The tiny island does not have water resources of its own, and to develop the island, water and other resources have to be brought from the mainland by helicopter. In its attempt to convince the international community that Snakes Island qualifies as an “island”, the Ukrainian government intends to demilitarize it and organize there a series of meaningful economic activities. A phone line has been installed, military barracks have been modernized, and fishing infrastructure is being developed. In 2004 a Ukrainian bank announced that it had opened a branch on the island, although there is no meaningful commercial activity there (BBC 2004). The inability of the two governments to reach an agreement to share the continental shelf around the Snakes Island has brought the issue to the attention of the International Court of Justice, and oil companies are presently holding off on their drilling operations until the diplomatic conflict is settled. Another contentious issue in Romanian-Ukrainian relations occurred in 2004 when Ukraine began construction of a canal to secure an independent connection between the Danube and the Black Sea (Anderson 2004). The Chilia channel is the largest of the Danube channels, transporting almost 60 percent of its water. This also means that the Chilia carries a high volume of sediments that are deposited at the mouth of the channel in the Black Sea, forming a secondary delta in the Ukrainian territory and making navigation on the Chilia difficult for high tonnage ships. International conventions that regulate navigation on the Danube have designated Sulina as the international shipping route to the Black Sea (Anderson 2004). Thus, Ukrainian ships have been using the Sulina Canal to access Ukrainian ports on the Chilia. Ukrainian authorities decided to use the Bystroe Canal, an offshoot of the main Chilia channel, to build a waterway between the Danube and the Black Sea in Ukrainian territory. However, the Bystroe Canal lies in part in the Danube Delta UNESCO reservation that has a unique and complex ecosystem, and where major human activities are prohibited. Romania vehemently opposed the construction of the Bystroe Canal on the grounds that it will produce an ecological catastrophe in the whole Danube Delta, well beyond Ukrainian territory. Ukraine for

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its part, argues that the construction of the canal will bring economic benefits to the dying Ukrainian ports along the Chilia Canal (Stiuca et al. 2004). To make things worse, during summer 2004 tensions on the Lower Danube further escalated. Ukrainian ships began to dredge on the shared Chilia Canal in order to allow the passage of high tonnage vessels. However, in doing so, the Ukrainian vessels repeatedly trespassed into Romanian territorial waters and installed a series of buoys close to the Romanian shore, disrupting the fishing grounds of the Romanian fishermen (Romania Libera, September 28, 2004). Initially the Romanian government adopted a passive attitude, but as the buoy installation continued the issue was taken up by the press and the Romanian government reacted by augmenting the presence of warships on Chilia to deter Ukrainian vessels from dredging in Romanian waters, and by removing the buoys from the Romanian waters. Additionally, the Romanian leaders attempted to involve NATO, pointing out that any violation of Romanian borders was also a violation of NATO borders. However, NATO officials avoided becoming involved in the issue, to the surprise of some Romanian leaders who believed that they had made important territorial sacrifices in the Lower Danube region when they hurried to sign the bilateral treaty with Ukraine in 1997 for the sake of NATO membership. The issue of the Bystroe Canal spilled beyond an inter-governmental dispute and mobilized civil societies in Romania and Ukraine, as well as other European countries. Non- governmental organizations in various European countries including Ukraine itself, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, The U.S. State Department, and UNESCO, have taken up the issue, asking Ukrainian officials to stop the project until its ecological consequences are made clear. However, both Romanian and EU negotiations with Ukraine have been unsuccessful, and the construction of the canal continued until summer 2005, when it seems that it was temporarily halted after the Romanian government brought the issue in front of the International Court of Justice. Romanian authorities also announced that they would analyze the possibility of building a canal of their own that will take the water from the Chilia and render the Bystroe Canal useless (Dutu 2004). The significance of the Bystroe canal lies beyond economic and ecological issues (Shafir 2004). As Romania is now a NATO member and is scheduled to join the EU in 2007, the two organizations are, or will, directly border Ukraine on the Danube. In this context, an independent waterway connecting the Danube and the Black Sea becomes an important strategic asset for

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Ukraine. Furthermore, in light of the newly discovered oil and gas reserves around Snakes Island, an independent shipping route to the heart of Europe for the oil extracted in the Black Sea would undoubtedly benefit certain Ukrainian interest groups. However, it is less clear for now to what extent borderland inhabitants and their traditional way of life would benefit from the building of this canal. An older contentious issue between Romania and Ukraine that affects the LDE is related to the status of the Romanian minority in Ukraine. After the 1990s, the Romanian government had claimed on several occasions that Ukraine does not grant European standard rights to the Romanian minority, mostly concerning education in Romanian, a free press, and others. For their part, the Ukrainian authorities have been suspicious of the demands of the Romanian government, fearing a potential “hidden” claim to Northern Bucovina and Bugeac from the Romanians. However, in the LDE there is an additional issue that adds to this debate. The Ukrainian government uses the Soviet distinction between Moldovan and Romanian in its census and also insists on differentiating between a Moldovan and a Romanian language. As such, the 2001 census found over 120,000 Moldovans in the Odessa region, and only 700 Romanians. At the same time, in Bucovina, the same census found over 130,000 Romanians and a much smaller number of Moldovans. Together, these two Romanian groups constitute the second largest minority in Ukraine, after the Russians. Such differentiation in the census data reinforces Romanians’ belief that the Ukrainian government intends to denationalize its Romanian minority. On the ground, the situation is more complex than presented above. In the LDE many ethnics of Romanian ancestry do identify themselves as Moldovans (interview Reni 2004). On the one hand, many people of Romanian ancestry in Bugeac identify themselves as Moldovans and not Romanians, yet without perceiving the two identities as mutually exclusive. Their contacts with Romania and Romanian culture over the years were almost non-existent. On the other hand, the emergence of a Moldovan identity is the outcome of Soviet propaganda that for over fifty years claimed that Romanian and Moldovan are separate identities (King 2000). Notwithstanding the causes, a Moldovan identity, separated but not exclusive of a Romanian identity seems to be a reality for many Moldovans/Romanians in Bugeac. However, the same

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does not apply to the official differentiation made between the Moldovan and Romanian languages. This remains an act of political propaganda. In the background of such debates, Odessa Region leaders threatened to stop allowing students from the region from receiving Romanian scholarships on the grounds that “they leave [to Romania] Moldovans and return Romanians” (interview, Galati 2003). However, these students seem to already be victims of interstate conflicts since they have a difficult time finding work upon their return to Ukraine. Their Romanian diplomas are not easily recognized, although there is an inter-governmental agreement that regulates these matters between Romania and Ukraine (interview, Reni, 2004). Many students remain in Romania after the completion of their studies. In Romanian-Moldovan interstate relations, in addition to the more general issue of the Moldovan Metropolitanate discussed in a previous chapter (page 162), there are two main contentious issues that have an impact on the LDE. First, there is the debate about the Moldovan language. Since its coming to power in 2001, the communist party in Moldova started a campaign to change the name of the official language from Romanian to Moldovan, in an attempt to forge an independent Moldovan identity. While the name of the language has since been officially changed, the Moldovan government faced staunch opposition from large segments of Moldovan civil society that took the form of massive street protests. Additionally, the Romanian leaders reacted vehemently to such a measure, considering it the ultimate “proof” the Moldovan government was a hardcore communist government that acted against the interest of its own people. The language issue continues to have lasting effects on bilateral relations. Although the two governments started to mend fences lately, in Romanian society there is the sense that as long as the Moldovan government continues to call Moldovan a different language it would not be a genuine negotiating partner. On this backdrop of tense bilateral issues, in 2002 the Moldovan government attempted to shut down the transborder Lower Danube University in Cahul, as well as other extensions of Romanian Universities throughout Moldova (Cranganu 2003). In the first stage the government succeeded in stopping the process of admission for the 2002-2003 academic year, with the intention of closing the university at a latter date. The government’s plan has been unpopular, and has been actively opposed by the academic community and by civil society in Moldova. For the borderland inhabitants of Cahul, stopping admissions to the Lower Danube University has

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been particularly detrimental given the economic and cultural benefits the university brought to the impoverished borderland. Eventually, the students and the parents of the University sued the Moldovan government and the government backed down, allowing the continuation of classes for the students already enrolled. However, faced with steady demands from the Moldovan students, Galati University continued to organize new admissions for its Cahul branch. Today, the transborder Lower Danube University, Cahul exists in a bizarre situation: freshmen and sophomores study in Galati at the main campus, and juniors and seniors at the campus in Cahul. Ukrainian-Moldovan issues of contention also impinge on transborder cooperation in the LDE. During the last few years, the relations between Moldova and Ukraine grew tense mainly because Moldovan leaders accused their Ukrainian counterparts of facilitating large scale smuggling operations from the break-away Transnistria, thus undermining the Moldovan government. The unwillingness of the Ukrainian government to establish common border checkpoints on the Ukrainian territory to contain Transnistrian smuggling has been interpreted by Moldovan leaders as an act of hostility (Kuzio 2003). However, after the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, relations between these two countries improved considerably and the new Ukrainian leaders agreed to undertake common measures to control Transnistrian exports through the Ukrainian ports of the Odessa Region. Other issues that generated tensions in Ukrainian-Moldovan relations are located in the LDE. The Moldovan village of Giurgiulesti that ensures the country’s exit to the Danube is involved in a broader bilateral issue involving the territorial exchange that took place in 2001. The main highway that linked the southern Odessa Region (Bugeac) with the city of Odessa and the rest of Ukraine crossed the Moldovan border three times in eight kilometers near the Moldovan village of Palanca, cutting in half the Odessa Region. The Ukrainian and Moldovan leaders brokered a deal to cede this highway to Ukraine, but this divided the village of Palanca in half and the villagers lost their access to their lands across the highway. Shortly after the deal, Moldovan farmers began to be charged border crossing fees to cross the road (now in Ukraine) to work their fields (TOL 2001). They sued the Moldovan government but lost. In exchange for the road, Ukraine promised Moldova to transfer sovereignty over a 100 meter stretch of land on the Danube where Moldova intends to build an oil terminal to assure its energy independence. Today Moldova has a Danube shoreline of approximately 400 meters, all situated in the LDE. The irony of this territorial exchange is that Moldova had de facto rights

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over this chunk of territory since its independence, but Ukraine did not withdraw its border troops from the Giurgiulesti region (Kuzio 2003).

10. EU’s Undermining of Transborder Cooperation in the LDE

The new EU strategy towards East European non-member countries that ENP embodies appears to be well suited for furthering transborder integration in the LDE after the 2007 enlargement. Substantial sums of EU money already fund infrastructure projects in the LDE. However, a closer analysis reveals a series of contradictions embedded in the EU’s new policies (Kennard 2003; Apap and Tchorbadjiyska 2004). On the one hand, establishing privileged, multilateral political, economic, and cultural partnerships between the EU and Ukraine and Moldova will bring significant benefits to these countries. On the other hand, the ENP falls short of offering to Ukraine and Moldova prospects of full EU membership. The ENP is increasingly perceived as a substitute for full EU membership for Ukraine and Moldova. Ukraine and Moldova, which desire to join the EU, hope that the EU’s eastward shifting of borders will continue until they will be included as well. However, after the 2004 expansion it appears that “extension fatigue” engulfed key EU members, as the 2005 failure to ratify the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands seemed to point out. In the aftermath of these recent developments even Romania’s EU membership might be delayed for one year. In this light, ENP appears to represent a delay of EU membership for Ukraine and Moldova, as opposed to a mechanism to join the EU, as many in these countries have hoped. In these circumstances, one of the potential developments of most concern to the local inhabitants is the erection of a fortified EU external eastern border after the enlargement of 2007 that will cross through the heart of the LDE (interviews, Galati, Reni, and Cahul 2004). There is the risk that this border can become a potential new “curtain” between the EU and the “rest”. The EU’s concerns about the so-called “soft” security threats coming from the east, such as immigration, organized criminality, political and economic instability, and others, translates into a tendency to reinforce its eastern border to address these security problems. This tendency plays a prominent role in the creation of a restrictive border regime at the EU’s eastern borders, in spite of EU efforts to avoid the emergence of new lines of division in Europe. While an exclusive border regime at the external borders may address part of the security issues worrying the EU, at

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the same time negative consequences for the affected borderlands are introduced as well (Grabbe 2000). The EU today indirectly undermines development in the Euroregions established across Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands. Perhaps the most important consequence of a restrictive EU border regime at Romania’s eastern borders in the LDE is related to the application of the Schengen regime by Romania that requires travel visas for Ukrainian and Moldovan citizens (interviews, Galati, Reni, Izmail, and Cahul 2004). The Schengen regime regulates circulation of persons, goods and ideas inside the EU as well as between the EU and non-EU countries. While its provisions liberalize cross-border flows for persons and goods inside the EU, they also reinforce the barrier function of the EU external borders. In effect, the Schengen border regime is more nuanced, allowing a selected permeability of EU borders by persons and goods deemed “desirable” by the EU (Kennard 2004). As a part of the pre-accession strategy, the EU extended to Romania in 2002 certain Schengen provisions that allow Romanian citizens to travel visa-free to the EU. In essence, this measure extended the EU’s borders regarding the free circulation of persons to Romania’s eastern borders with Ukraine and Moldova, although Romania is not yet an EU member. In exchange, the EU required Romania to introduce stricter controls on its eastern borders, thus adding another layer of issues to transborder cooperation in the LDE. Moreover, after 2007 when Romania is slated to become an EU member, the borders of Romania with Ukraine and Moldova will became the borders of the EU for some time to come, since Ukraine and Moldova do not have immediate prospects for EU membership. This means that the border of the EU will cross through the LDE as well. As a part of the pre-accession strategy, the EU asked the Romanian government in 2004 to reinforce its eastern borders by introducing visas for Ukrainian and Moldovan citizens to fulfill the EU’s “need” of protecting its external borders. The Romanian government successfully negotiated with the EU the delaying of the introduction of visas for Moldovan citizens, given the special relationship between the two countries. However, travel visas were introduced for Ukrainian citizens in the summer of 2004. In addition to visa-related issues, the adoption of the Schengen aquis by Romania impacts the LDE in other ways. New customs regulations and import quotas for Ukrainian and Moldovan goods and services have been put into place by the Romanian authorities in order to bring the border regime in line with EU standards. Also, in order to meet the EU security standards,

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Romanian authorities are investing close to one billion dollars in border security (buildings, technological equipment, and others) that may have been directed to support border regions to undertake transborder cooperation projects (Popa 2004). These measures have already had a considerable impact on the cross-border trade in the LDE and their worst effects are still to come. For example, the EU is asking Romania now to dismantle the Galati, Braila, and Sulina Free Economic Zones because such areas are regulated at the EU level (Chomette 2003). Such a measure can mean that the Reni Free Trade Zone would receive some new investments as the only remaining such area on the Danube (Giurgiulesti is too small), but at the cost of forgoing an important opportunity for local economic development that the common Galati-Giurgiulesti-Reni Free Economic Zone had the potential to offer to the LDE.

11. Conclusion

This chapter examined in detail the emergence and the activity of the LDE in order to understand its significance in the process of transborder integration among Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. The process of establishing Euroregions across national borders takes place in a highly politicized context and involves forces situated at various spatial scales. In the case of the LDE, local, national, and supranational, transnational actors interact in the process of transborder cooperation.

The LDE has been established by local actors but only after the national leaders created the political environment for its functioning. Even after its establishment, the LDE continues to remain dependent on the central-local relationships. Furthermore, the actors situated at the European level, such as the EU and Council of Europe, add to the complex transborder interaction in the region.

Situated in a region of potential inter-state tensions and having a peripheral status vis-à- vis national capitals in all three states, the LDE is an institution that has the potential to provide stability and promote development in the region surrounding the mouths of the Danube River. Here, the transition economies of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine during the 1990s and early 2000s failed to provide a decent standard of living for the local inhabitants. In these circumstances, transborder integration seems to provide an alternative to the issues borderland

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inhabitants face. At the same time, inter-state tensions and having a peripheral status play an important role in the activity of the LDE, and seem to guide its development. As such, starting with the criteria used to establish the Euroregion’s territorial shape and ending with its limited decision-making powers, national, and lately supranational, interests are regularly interfering with the functioning of the LDE.

In its seven years of functioning, the LDE has had a series of accomplishments that created a framework for institutionalized transborder cooperation in the Lower Danube space. Perhaps the most important accomplishments consist in the fact that for the first time in the modern history of the region, the local leaders in three countries are envisioning the development of their regions together. The LDE, defying the odds, succeeded to create a transborder network of elites who can work together toward transborder integration. However, the LDE succeeded to a lesser extent to expand this collaborative network beyond the institutional level of local administration. For the ordinary citizens of the LDE, the presence of the national borders with their barrier effect remained for the most part unchanged. At the level of civil society, transborder integration remains an abstract concept that did not make a visible difference in their daily lives. Additionally, the fact that in 2007 the EU border will separate the LDE territories, introducing an additional challenge for transborder interpersonal contacts, is resented by many borderland inhabitants. While the LDE seems powerless to cope with such challenges, help may come from the borderland inhabitants themselves, who managed to acquire Romanian passports to be able to bypass a stricter border regime. At this time, it is still too early to predict the future of transborder reterritorialization in the Lower Danube space.

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CHAPTER 8

RETERRITORIALIZING THE STATE ACROSS ITS BORDERS: THE LOWER DANUBE EUROREGION AS A TRANSBORDER SPACE

In this chapter I analyze the process of transborder state reterritorialization in Eastern Europe as embodied in the Lower Danube Euroregion. I will show how the developments taking place under the framework of the LDE contribute to understanding the shape of transborder reterritorialization between Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine, and how they inform the theoretical debate regarding transborder regions. I emphasize the intersection of national, supranational, and local incentives and disincentives involved in the creation of transborder political-territorial entities such as the LDE. First, I analyze the LDE in the broader context of transborder reterritorialization research in order to locate the Euroregion vis-à-vis this body of knowledge. I am doing this by highlighting both the LDE’s particularities as well as similarities with other European contexts where transborder reterritorialization is occurring, in particular in the EU space, and by evaluating the theoretical and practical arguments regarding the suitability of the LDE as a means to re-territorialize the lower Danube space. Second, I show how the LDE furthers the understanding of the reterritorialization of East European space. To this end, I use the information provided by the LDE case study to build several themes of analysis centered on the dimensions of reterritorialization emerging from transborder cooperation in the region. The analysis of these themes in the context of previous research on transborder reterritorialization provides the necessary evidence to understand the nature of the LDE as a transborder space and its relationships to the process of state reterritorialization. Lastly, I examine the role played by the EU vis-à-vis transborder state reterritorialization in the LDE. I show how the State-Euroregions-EU nexus works in the context in which the Lower Danube space remains partially outside the EU “umbrella”. I show how current

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reterritorialization is a power-laden phenomenon that is driven by a multiplicity of forces across all geographical scales.

1. Mapping the LDE in the Transborder Realm

Transborder reterritorialization theory is informed in large part by empirical evidence derived from research conducted on EU internal and external borderlands. This particular social, political and economic context generates a series of commonalities for Euroregions in the EU that are not found in other contexts. European states that are not part of the EU or that do not border the EU reveal a different context for transborder reterritorialization. Comparing Euroregions situated in these two political-territorial contexts provides an insightful illustration of the differences and similarities between transborder regions inside and outside the EU that contribute to the understanding of the complex nature of transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe. Euroregions, irrespective of their political-territorial context, share the same general goals. They aim to diminish the barrier function of state borders in order to enhance European integration. Thus, Euroregions have to bridge national borders and to establish transnational spaces for social life to unfold. Moreover, Euroregions involve transnational territorial delineation at the sub-national level, and require some form of transnational political participation at the regional scale. However, the spatial contexts in which Euroregions operate introduce a series of differences. The most important difference is the presence of the supranational scale in the EU and the absence of such a scale in Eastern Europe. The supranational scale in the EU acts both directly and indirectly as a beneficial “umbrella” for transborder reterritorialization by creating and maintaining an institutional framework for the development of Euroregions. First, inside the EU space, supranational bodies have developed a plethora of programs, ranging from financial support to legislation drafting, that directly support transborder cooperation in Euroregions. Second, the more general processes of European integration taking place inside the EU space indirectly favor Euroregions by creating a political, economic, and social framework that is conducive for transborder integration. Hence, the EU internal border regime with its free circulation of people, goods, and ideas across national borders creates enormous opportunities

258 for transborder reterritorialization: EU citizens can be employed throughout the EU space; taxes on trade are not levied at national borders; and legal systems are becoming increasingly uniform across the EU space. Another notable difference between the EU and non-EU European space consists in wealth disparities existing between these two spatial contexts. Generally, transborder cooperation in the EU takes place between countries that are significantly more developed than non-EU member countries. Thus, the Euroregions established in the EU space have more financial resources available for investment in transborder activities. Even if certain borderlands in the EU remain less prosperous than other EU regions, these borderlands still fare much better than most of their East European counterparts. The LDE, as a Euroregion established outside the EU space, developed in a context that lacked both a supranational scale to generate opportunities for transborder integration as well as the financial means to generate development in the borderlands. The LDE has to overcome these disadvantages in order to achieve goals similar to those of the EU Euroregions. Under these circumstances, the LDE acquired a series of particular characteristics that are different from its EU counterparts. These particularities make the LDE case study relevant for understanding transborder reterritorialization in the Eastern European context, which resembles more closely other parts of the world where the supra-national scale, such as the EU, is only marginally involved in transborder reterritorialization. The LDE straddles the borders of some of the poorest countries of Europe that do not have enough financial power to invest in transborder cooperation programs. The Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian borderlands that make up the LDE have a “double periphery” status. First, they are peripheral borderlands in poor countries, which indicate they rank low on the list of priorities of their national governments. Second, these borderlands are peripheries in a larger, European context since they are located far away from contemporary European core regions. This means that they rank low on the list of priorities of European supranational institutions as well (although lately, after the launching of the EU’s ENP policy, this situation appears to have improved). Another important LDE particularity consists in the fact that it is located in a region that witnessed considerable political instability in recent years. While some European borderlands in the EU space, such as Northern Ireland, Tyrol, and others, also witnessed certain degrees of

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political instability, this has recently been of a generally low intensity. However, the lower Danube space has experienced much more intense political turmoil recently. Moldova and Ukraine are new countries that emerged out of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. They lacked previous experience of independent statehood, and their borders resulted largely from the intervention of Soviet Communist Party leaders. Romania emerged in 1989 from more than two decades of harsh nationalist-communist dictatorship. Unsettled territorial disputes and national minority related issues between, as well as within, these three countries generated political tensions in the region for most of the 1990s, when mutual trust between national governments slowly progressed in the absence of the supranational EU framework. The LDE covers borderlands where several such issues with potential to generate political instability exist. The absence of the EU supranational scale in the lower Danube space generated additional particularities for the LDE. The national governments assumed several functions that the supranational institutions traditionally assume in the EU space, while other functions typically carried out by these institutions were neglected in the LDE. Moreover, the EU membership of Romania in 2007 would not automatically place the LDE in a situation similar to the German-Polish or German-Czech Euroregions during the 1990s in which the Polish and Czech borderlands received large amounts of EU funds because Poland and the Czech Republic were expected to join the EU in the near future. The main difference is that Ukraine and Moldova are not expected to join the EU anytime soon. After 2007 the LDE would indeed experience further change, but this change would not resemble previous experiences in transborder reterritorialization, as I show later in this chapter. At the theoretical level the establishment of the LDE across the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands makes sense if we consider the model of older Euroregions in Western Europe (Deica and Alexandrescu 1995). There is a series of strong arguments in favor of achieving successful transborder integration in the lower Danube borderlands. First, a common Romanian ethnic basis is present in all three national borderlands and it can constitute the mainstay of transborder cooperation. Second, there is a sense of shared history in the LDE space, since the lower Danube borderlands functioned as a whole territory during the Ottoman rule, and more recently between the two world wars, when the region belonged to Romania. Third, the lower Danube space has a high economic potential that can be cooperatively exploited in order to further development in the borderlands. The territorial entanglement generated by

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border manipulation in the 1940s when the current borderlands came into being, and the presence of a strict border regime in the region for the last half century prevented this potential to be fully exploited. The Danube River is one of the main European waterways, and the Danube Delta’s enormous environmental and economic potential is far from being fully exploited. These two economic assets can be used as major transborder integration axes in the LDE. Fourth, the presence of main industrial and port cities in the LDE such as Galati, Braila, and Tulcea in Romania, and Odessa, Izmail, and Reni in Ukraine, together with the existence of price and wage differentials between the three national borderlands, can assure a sustainable base for transborder integration. Fifth, the peripheral geographical position these borderlands occupy vis-à-vis core areas in their nation-states can be overcome through transborder integration in the LDE. In practice, however, the arguments supporting successful transborder integration in the LDE can work against it as well. Ukrainian officials do not necessarily perceive as favorable the existence of a common Romanian ethnic basis in the LDE. Instead, some Ukrainian officials are uneasy of an ethnically Romanian-dominated LDE that they interpret as a potential threat to Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Furthermore, there are other significant ethnic minorities in the LDE, particularly in the Ukrainian and Moldovan borderlands, that may not wish for an ethnically Romanian-dominated Euroregion. Thus, both of these forces may have reasons to oppose deeper transborder integration in the LDE. Also, the sense of shared history in the lower Danube space is not perceived in the same way by all borderland inhabitants (Interview, Reni 2004). After all, during modern history the LDE space has been more divided that united. The twenty years the lower Danube space has been unified under Romanian rule is countered by the 200 years it was divided among several powers. Furthermore, the period of Romanian rule is not necessarily remembered in the same way by all borderland inhabitants. In addition, the region experienced considerable population changes during the past fifty years, and many of the present inhabitants are not natives of the lower Danube space. The economic potential of the lower Danube space can deter transborder integration as well. The existence of the shared Danube River and the Danube Delta, together with industrial and port cities, and with the predominantly agricultural character of the region means that there are numerous similarities among the three national borderlands. Moreover, given that the history of communist economies that all LDE borderlands share accentuated these similarities,

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transborder complementarities are limited. This situation means that there may be limited opportunities for transborder cooperation in the economic realm, and also means that in the circumstances of contemporary global capitalism, borderlands can engage in competition for various resources instead of cooperatively exploiting the existing ones. Finally, the peripheral position lower Danube borderlands occupy vis-à-vis their national core areas do not automatically translate at the local level to a desire for transborder integration. The national framework of organization of social life continues to captivate people’s imagination to such an extent that it may obscure envisioning the possibility of organizing social life in other territorial frameworks such as the LDE, in spite of the borderlands’ lasting peripheral status. In addition, the existence of a strict border regime can push neighboring borderlands into competition instead of integration. The LDE does not fit neatly into either of these two scenarios. However, a combination of elements that work in favor of, as well as against, deepening transborder integration can be identified in the LDE. The context in which the LDE operates is responsible for the outcome of the combination of these elements and for the prevalence at times of one or another of the above mentioned scenarios.

2. How “Re-territeritorialized” is State Reterritorialization in the LDE?

2.1. Becoming a Spatial Entity

The establishment of the LDE across the borders of Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova constitutes an attempt to reterritorialize the space of the state across national borderlands. However, the mere establishment of the LDE across national borders does not automatically qualify as state transborder reterritorialization. For this process to have substance, first national borders have to significantly loosen their barrier function so that social relations can develop unrestricted across the LDE space, and second, these social relations have to acquire substantial density and homogeneity across the LDE space so that the Euroregion can be a meaningful framework for social life. The territorial delineation that the establishment of the LDE involved is the first phase in the process of reterritorializing the Lower Danube space. Thus, using Taylor’s (1994)

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terminology, the establishment of the LDE represents the manufacturing of a “container” for social life. Yet, for the “container” to be meaningful it has to be filled with social relations to which the borders of the “container” are relevant enough to instill a sense of shared interests and even shared identity. This is the second phase in the process of reterritorializing the Lower Danube space. It is important to point out that by working this way, transborder reterritorialization between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova remains prisoner to the “territorial trap”. The (top- down) establishment of the LDE’s territorial shape signifies the continuation of the territoriality principle as a mode of organization of social relations. Transborder reterritorialization continues to be imagined as the building of new territories – Euroregions – to address the limitations of the older territories – nation-states. An alternative would be a transborder reterritorialization imagined more as a set of spatial social relations emerging from routine activities of social actors unconfined by the LDE’s borders. In effect, the fact that the most intense transborder cooperation in the LDE is taking place in the territory surrounding the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan border meeting point, which is considerably smaller than the LDE’s formal territory, confirms the existence of less territorially/border-defined social relations. The LDE as a medium for transborder reterritorialization rests on solid territorial norms, but social action in the LDE space can follow more independent paths. An analysis of the LDE through the prism of Paasi’s (1986; 1996) concept pertaining to the institutionalization of territories and regions helps to understand the nature of the LDE as a spatial entity. The LDE displays all characteristics of a distinct region: it has a territorial shape delineated by boundaries; it has a symbolic shape produced and reproduced in local leaders’ discourses, and materialized in its name, its flag, and others; it possesses its own institutions; and it is recognized by other spatial entities such as nation states, the EU, and other regions. Once created, the LDE acts as a container of social life in the sense that it influences social relationships inside its borders. Yet, despite these attributes the LDE falls short of becoming generalized in the public consciousness, as my interview data attest. This state of affairs can be explained in part by the transborder nature of the LDE, thus by the presence of national borders (and lately supranational ones as well) that have to be overcome in order for the LDE to become entrenched in social consciousness. Another explanation resides in the top-down institutionalization of the LDE.

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Most stages of region building are only marginally shaped by the populace in whose consciousness the LDE has yet to become meaningful, and they appear incomplete in the sense that although they have been undertaken, they did not sink into the public consciousness. For instance, the LDE has indeed acquired its territorial shape but this has little meaning for the local population. Unlike the nation-states, the LDE’s borders are invisible and are not directly enforced. Local elites are struggling to institute a symbolic shape for the LDE by enacting various social practices, but these have limited power to generate shared feelings among the LDE’s citizens in the absence of their active participation in the Euroregion’s life. National myths outnumber and overpower the myths of the LDE. Also, the LDE’s institutions display weak transborder integration, and they are less representative of the civil society since they are comprised of mostly local elites who are accountable to national administrations. The degree to which ordinary citizens would have more input in the LDE may be key to its establishment in the public consciousness.

2.2 The Territorial Dimension

Territory and territoriality are at the core of the geopolitics of reterritorialization of the lower Danube space, and they play crucial roles for the success of the LDE as a transborder space. The fact that the LDE’s territory is the site of several interstate disputes augments the issues LDE has to overcome. The establishment of the LDE raised unprecedented territorial challenges for Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, that had to make an effort of territorial imagination to manage these challenges. For the most part, the three national governments attempted to minimize potential loss of territorial sovereignty in the lower Danube borderlands. However, this comes at the expense of limiting opportunities for the LDE to function as a viable transborder entity, thus to reterritorialize the lower Danube space. Several arguments emerge from the territorial dimension of the LDE to support the idea that national governments perceive the LDE as little more than a tool they can use in international politics for addressing contentious issues. The establishment of the LDE’s territorial structure to include domestic territorial administrative units without any territorial adjustments, as well as to include only selected borderland administrative units as in the case of Moldova, suggests that territorial politics trumps concerns regarding the LDE’s territorial functionality. Altering the shape of the existing domestic territorial-administrative units would have meant the

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creation of new domestic borders that would not have fit the territorial-administrative grid of the nation-state, would have created a precedent in matters of national territorial organization, and would have required additional efforts for central governments to manage. During the mid 1990s, the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan governments were not ready to accept such a challenge. Moreover, the central governments’ cautiousness to carefully balance the ethnic makeup of the national territorial-administrative units composing the LDE caused a severe territorial imbalance between the LDE territories, with the Ukrainian territory accounting for over sixty percent of the LDE and the Moldovan territory accounting for less than five percent. In these circumstances, the current territorial shape of the LDE encumbers transborder integration. The LDE also serves national governments pursuit of territorial strategies at the European scale. For the Romanian government, the LDE can be used as an EU springboard toward the former Soviet space. For the Ukrainian and Moldovan governments, the LDE is part of their strategy of territorial integration into the EU. After 2007, the LDE will become a territorial interface between these two countries and the EU. While formally the EU will stop at Romania’s eastern borders, informally LDE’s territory will be tantamount to a sort of territorial overlapping between Ukraine and Moldova and the EU space. However, other facets of the LDE’s territorial dimension suggest that the Euroregion is more than a tool in the hands of national governments and that it can be regarded as a transnational actor in a multi-tiered European polity as well. First, the very exercise of putting together parts of the national territory to build a new, transborder territory represents a first for the Lower Danube space. Second, in instances when the national governments, the local leaders, or the supranational institutions approach issues related to the LDE, they negotiate measures to be applied in a territory that is real, and thus they implicitly endorse the LDE as a territorial unit. Third, and perhaps most important, is the fact that we are already witnessing how social processes at the local scale mold the LDE’s territorial shape according to their needs and preferences. An excellent example of such phenomena is the spatial pattern of transborder cooperation that displays little resemblance to the LDE’s formal borders. In the Romanian borderlands, the most intense transborder exchanges involve territories immediately adjacent to the national borders. On the Ukrainian side, the fact that local authorities from the northern part of the Odessa

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Region are rarely involved in LDE activities, and that regional leaders in the Odessa administration support such a course of action themselves, suggest that the national administration does not exclusively determine the shape of transborder reterritorialization in the Lower Danube space (interviews, Galati and Reni 2004). Additionally, on the Moldovan side other territorial-administrative units that border the Odessa Region, such as Gagauzia, applied for LDE membership (unsuccessfully as yet), thus attempting to modify the LDE’s formal boundaries and territory. Many local LDE leaders are aware of the Euroregion’s territorial shortcomings. One such leader, answering a question regarding the LDE’s territorial shape during an interview, drew an imaginary line on a map of the LDE indicating the extent of Ukrainian territory that in his opinion should be part of the LDE in order for the Euroregion to better reflect realities on the ground (interview, Cahul 2004). This imaginary line was slightly east of the city of Izmail, and coincided roughly with the areas that the Moldovan/Romanian population inhabits in any considerable numbers. It is interesting to note that this hypothetical territory did not even extend to the entire southern part of the Odessa Region (omitting the easternmost districts), and did not include the city of Odessa. While in the short run territorial adjustments in the structure of the LDE are not foreseeable, the existence of a territorial framework for transborder cooperation that is actively shaped by local social processes keeps open the potential for deeper integration in the long run.

2.3. The Legal Dimension

Transborder reterritorialization in the LDE is seriously handicapped by the lack of an autonomous legal status for the Euroregion, by the mismatch of legislation between its national components, as well as by the poor implementation of newly adopted legislation pertaining to the right of local authorities to engage in cooperation across national borders. These shortcomings of the LDE’s legal framework restrict opportunities for local authorities to engage in transborder projects of a larger scope. The legislative structure the LDE has been endowed with in its bylaws is not sufficient to sustain intensive transborder integration in the Euroregion. The fact that the LDE’s constitutive parts have their own independent legal status while the Euroregion as a whole lacks such status inhibits the LDE from functioning as a coherent space. The existence of the LDE as a quasi-legal

266 entity exposes it to the dominance of the national governments (and even of the EU institutions) since their laws take primacy over the LDE’s status. In effect it appears that the LDE has been designed by the national governments to lack meaningful legal powers. However, European (i.e. Additional Protocol to the Madrid Convention) as well as national legislation regulating transborder cooperation that Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova adopted since the late 1990s established a legal basis for transborder cooperation and empowered the LDE authorities in the legal field. Such regulation covering local interaction at the transborder level is unprecedented in the Lower Danube space, and departs from the traditional model of international relations between nation-states. While the three national governments are slow to enact such legislation, in part because of insufficient decentralization of their administrative structure and in part because of their fear of losing sovereignty, there are already signs that local communities are taking advantage of the newly created legal framework. One such example is the possibility for municipalities to contribute local funds to projects implemented in the territory of neighboring national borderlands. Thus, although at a disadvantage when compared to national and European regulatory power, the LDE’s legal framework shows the potential to sustain more active transborder integration.

2.4. The Institutional and Governance Dimension

The LDE aims to institutionalize transborder cooperation among Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Given the fact that there were no previous institutions to straddle national borders in the region, the establishment of the LDE constitutes a new institutional framework of territorial organization beyond the scope of traditional national institutions. In these circumstances, the LDE represents a step toward reterritorializing the borderlands of these three states. However, the LDE’s institutional structure is far from being adequate for the tasks the Euroregion faces, and it needs an overhaul. The LDE’s institutions display a reduced degree of transborder integration, as each national territory has its own set of institutions that mirror each other across the border. Although these institutions do work together across borders, their logic remains national in essence. The same lack of institutional integration can be observed inside national borderlands composing the LDE. All sub-national borderland territorial-administrative units have their own set of institutions involved in the LDE’s administration. In addition, the geographical location of the LDE’s institutions carefully reflects a national logic of territorial

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organization. There is no LDE institution with oversight over the entire LDE territory that has a unique location. Another major setback for the LDE consists in its deficit of democratic representation. With the exception of a small number of top officials in the local national administration, including the President and the Vice-Presidents of the LDE, there are no elected officials in the local LDE governance apparatus. It is important to point out that there are no transborder elections in the LDE, thus the handful of elected officials are beholden primarily to their national electorate. While issues related to transborder cooperation may be among these officials’ electoral campaign agendas, generally such issues rank low among other campaign topics. In these circumstances, the LDE suffers from a deficit of “institutional thickness”. While the number of formal and informal institutions involved in the LDE’s governance is not negligible, the density of institutions that are embedded in the local society remains low. Currently, it appears that organized crime structures are among the most transborder integrated and locally embedded institutions in the LDE. The LDE does display a multilevel structure of governance as far as the involvement of institutions situated at other spatial scales than the local administration is concerned. However, active and constant interaction among these multi-scalar governance structures is feeble. Among governance actors involved in the LDE, national government structures play a key role. The fact that the Moldovan president participated in a LDE meeting is one extreme example of national level actors involved in the LDE’s governance. Generally, national government structures do not overtly control the LDE’s institutions. Rather, their clout results from their preeminent power position in a system dominated by nation-states. While local institutions are typically involved in the daily governance of the LDE, they need the assistance of national-level institutions to be effective in managing transborder actions. Institutions situated at supranational (i.e. the EU) and transnational (i.e. AEBR) scales have played less important roles in the LDE governance so far. However, this situation is currently changing after the implementation of the ENP by the EU. An important outcome of the process of the LDE’s institutionalization and of its governance structure is the emergence of the interpersonal network of local elites that appears fairly integrated at the transborder level. The existence of such network is a necessary condition for unifying the LDE’s space. Yet, this is not a sufficient condition. For the LDE to function as a

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reterritorialized space, interpersonal networks have to sink in at the level of ordinary inhabitants far beyond the ad hoc networks involving transborder black markets. Another aspect of the LDE’s governance structure is the over reliance on interpersonal relations as a way of substituting for the lack of formal institutional power. While this is a phenomenon often hailed by many theorists of multi-level governance, the LDE experience also points out that over reliance on interpersonal relations also generate less consistency in the process of transborder integration (interview, Galati and Cahul 2004). As the LDE top leaders can change following local elections in every national borderland, the intensity of transborder cooperation experiences ups and downs as well. An encouraging institutional development toward a more decentralized structure of governance consists in the establishment of the “Reni Agency of Cross-Border Development” that informally took over part of transborder cooperation competences that the Odessa Region authorities previously exercised. If this institution will succeed in its attempt to become the unified LDE Coordination Center, this would constitute another step toward deeper transborder integration in the region. However, for such type of institutions to become meaningful agents of reterritorialization there is a need of further decentralization in the administrative structure of the nation-states involved in the LDE, so that the local authorities acquire more decision-making powers in transborder matters.

2.5. The Economic Dimension

The need for an economically integrated lower Danube space is genuine, and the opportunities such integration can offer for the civil society are real. There is a broad convergence of interests on the part of national governments, supranational organizations, and local leaders in the LDE’s capacity to promote economic development in the region. The majority of transborder cooperation projects funded by the EU are economic in nature. Apparently, the economic dimension of the LDE is one of the most non-contentious transborder cooperation issues among Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. It appears paradoxical then, that this is one of the fields where the least progress has been made. While the reduced degree of complementarity in the economic structure of national borderlands, as well as the poverty of the region, are serious impediments for transborder economic integration, the most important obstacle is the reluctance of central governments to

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change the way they imagine their national territory and to enact special economic regulation for border regions to stimulate economic actors to cooperate across borders. In the circumstances in which trucks transporting perishable agricultural products have to wait in customs for several days for the arrival of various export-related documents, it is easy to understand why many economic actors continue to function within a national framework despite business opportunities available several miles away across the national borders (interview, Reni 2004). In addition, the building of much needed transportation infrastructure, such as bridges and ferry terminals, as well as increasing the number of permanent border checkpoints, reflects the logic of domestic geopolitics in which national geo-economic arguments prevail over the needs of borderland inhabitants. Bridge connections over the Danube River, i.e. the one between Tulcea and Izmail, can boost economic transborder integration in the LDE. However, given the peripheral status of the LDE such costly projects figure very low on the list of central governments’ infrastructure priorities, despite the tangible benefits for the local civil society. In analyzing national governments’ management of economic-related issues, it appears that they imagine economic development would come to the lower Danube borderlands by itself after the establishment of the LDE. So far, national governments have not been willing to create the necessary context for economic relations to thrive across national borders. Also, they have not been willing to surrender meaningful economic decision powers to local authorities. In this context, the level of foreign investment as well as the activity of transborder private businesses is minimal in the LDE. It is important to note that transborder cooperation is generally more successful in other fields of activity, such as culture, where the local authorities do not need the collaboration of central governments to such a large extent as in the case of economic matters. Currently, progress in economic transborder integration is modest. The LDE administration pursues several strategies with a certain degree of success, such as organizing economic fairs, building transborder business databases, and others aimed to bring into contact potential transborder business partners. As well, more sustained transborder economic activity clusters between main cities close to the border, such as Galati and Reni and Galati and Cahul; and Izmail and Tulcea. At the level of local civil society, the small transborder trade constitutes the main form of transborder economic activity. We can also add smuggling activities here, since such operations display a considerable degree of transborder integration.

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However, there are high expectations that Romania’s entrance into the EU will invigorate transborder economic integration in the region. Indeed, the Romanian borderlands already witness increased levels of foreign investment, and the EU’s ENP policy is bringing certain investments into Moldovan and Ukrainian borderlands. EU-related investment in the LDE as a whole is expected to increase considerably after Romania’s entry and may prove beneficial for the LDE in the long term. Yet it is too early to assess the economic effects the EU will have on transborder integration in the LDE since these effects will be contingent on the type of border regime the EU establishes. There may be more foreign investment in the LDE, but this will not automatically mean an integrated LDE economy.

2.6. The Cultural Dimension

It is often agreed by local and national leaders that most progress toward transborder integration in the LDE has taken place in the cultural realm. Certainly this is accurate if we consider that during the communist era, transborder cultural contacts at the local level were non- existent. While informal transborder contacts began to take shape immediately after the opening of the national borders in 1990, the LDE’s establishment in the late 1990s institutionalized a series of cultural transborder relations as discussed in the previous chapter. However, the LDE is far from becoming a culturally integrated space. The markers of difference still outweigh the markers of common identity in the LDE. The crossing of national borders continues to be a complex ritual that “reminds” citizens where they “belong”. As opposed to national borders within the LDE, the LDE’s borders do not require such experiences. In addition, the LDE’s symbols, such as its flag and its name, as well as its history and its image reflected in local leaders’ discourses, evoke modest shared feelings when compared with the well established national symbols. Much has been made of the shared history of the LDE’s space and of the presence of Romanians in all three national borderlands. While these commonalities do provide a basis for cultural integration in the region, their power to generate a common identity should not be taken for granted. The shared history of the LDE space under Romanian rule was short lived and it does not have the same meaning for all inhabitants of the region. As well, the Romanian ethnic background of part of the inhabitants of Bugeac, as well as of many Moldovans, is mediated by

271 their half century of life outside the borders of the Romanian state and does not automatically translates into a Romanian identity similar to the one Romanians in Romania hold. National borders remain the most important marker of identity in the LDE space, and they are markers of difference as far as transborder integration is concerned. National governments continue to be involved in cultural politics in their borderlands. The Romanian government attempts to use the LDE framework to achieve objectives it cannot accomplish through intergovernmental negotiations, such as increased cultural rights for the Romanian/Moldovan minority in Bugeac. The Ukrainian government at its turn attempts to nationalize the Bugeac borderland, especially given the distinct multicultural and less Ukrainian character of this borderland. The Moldovan government walks a fine line in its southern borderlands between competing Gagauz, Bulgarian, Moldovan, and Romanian identities. It is this national cultural politics that can explain the lack of common television and radio stations covering the LDE space despite local attempts to establish them. Theoretically, the presence of a multiethnic environment in the LDE space can work in favor of a shared identity among the local inhabitants. However, at present the LDE’s territorial and institutional frameworks do not penetrate deep enough into the civil society in order to influence transborder social relations to an extent that would generate shared identity across national borders. The answer I got from my young taxi driver in Galati when asked why he does not travel across the border to Reni or Cahul epitomizes the current feelings many LDE inhabitants have toward each other’s territory – “there’s nothing there for me”. Indifference toward the other side of the border is what characterizes the attitude of many LDE citizens today. As long as crossing the national borders means that local inhabitants have to produce a passport or other forms of national identification, the attitude of indifference toward the other side will likely continue. While the free passage through national borders is not a panacea to the formation of shared identities, as the example of EU Euroregions demonstrates, in the LDE’s case the physicality of national borders is an additional burden in the process of building common social spaces. On the other hand, the LDE does impact the ways local inhabitants think of each other across borders. Increased informal and formal transborder contacts among borderland inhabitants contribute to mutual understanding and help to dispel various myths and stereotypes about each other. Generally, local inhabitants have a pragmatic attitude toward each other across borders,

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and they do not oppose transborder integration. They do differentiate however between their neighbors and the larger national framework to which they belong. Furthermore, support for transborder integration in the LDE does not break along ethnic lines. Most local leaders I interviewed in Ukraine were not ethnic Romanians, and they declared they are keenly aware of the benefits transborder integration can bring to their region (interviews, Reni and Izmail 2004). As well, the large numbers of non-Romanians in Moldova and Ukraine who take advantage of Romanian citizenship laws and acquire Romanian citizenship (for purely economic reasons) demonstrate the desirability of an integrated LDE space among local inhabitants irrespective of their ethnic identity. There is sufficient potential for the LDE to bridge former markers of difference and to integrate territorial identities in the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands. Yet for this to happen the existence of a “soft” border regime is paramount.

3. The Clash of the Multi-Scalar Territorial Logics in the LDE

3.1. The Nation-State and the LDE’s Territorial Logics

The territorial logic of the nation-state is at odds with the territorial logic of transborder integration in Euroregions. This dialectical relationship is negotiated at the national borders. The Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan governments understand the benefits transborder integration in the LDE can bring to their national borderlands. Yet, they are caught in a complex dilemma because they are weighing these benefits against the interests of the larger territorial unit represented by the state. In this context, they cannot allow their borderlands to follow special rules without compromising the theoretical model of the territorial container that the nation-state follows. Since national territories are involved in numerous Euroregions, changes made at one Euroregion will likely have to be made at others as well. The LDE does not exist in a vacuum. The LDE for its part needs exemptions from national regulation in order to be able to function meaningfully across national borders. For nation-states, the importance of borders is paramount – for the LDE national borders are fundamentally disruptive. It is here, at this junction, that transborder state reterritorialization takes place in the lower Danube space.

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There are many instances where the clash of the two territorial logics becomes visible in the LDE, as the dimensions of reterritorialization suggest. Moreover, this clash of territorial logic can explain why national governments attempt to control the LDE even as they promote it. The view from the national governments is less about the LDE becoming an integrated territorial unit of social life and more about using it as a framework to address intergovernmental issues. However, once the LDE was established, the local civil society acquired some agency of its own, and reacted to national policies in unpredicted ways. The clash of territorial logics can be observed at work from the very beginning of the process of transborder reterritorialization when the LDE acquired its territorial shape. The reason that the Ukrainian national leaders included the entire Odessa Region in the territorial make-up of the LDE was to prevent the ethnic make-up of the LDE from becoming too “Romanian”. This move was made at the expense of assuring a consistent measure of territorial functionality for the LDE. It is important to mention that civil society on all sides of the national borders reacts to this situation by overlooking the northern districts of Odessa Region in transborder cooperation (interviews Galati and Izmail 2004). Another example in which national governments ignore the needs of the LDE is provided by the Romanian government’s imposition of visas on Ukrainian citizens in 2004. A deal was worked out between the Romanian and Ukrainian governments that would allow borderland inhabitants in both countries to enjoy certain visa-related benefits, such as free visas. However, in the documents establishing the territorial reach of these benefits, the Romanian government mentioned only Romanian counties that have a direct border with Ukraine. Thus, inhabitants of Galati County, that is connected with Ukraine by land through a two kilometers wide strip of Moldovan territory that separates Romania and Ukraine at this point, and does not have any border checkpoint with Ukraine across the Danube, did not technically qualify for visa facilities. The Romanian government rectified this situation by including Galati County in the category of counties bordering Ukraine on the grounds of their common border on the Danube. However, the inhabitants of Braila County, which does not border Ukraine either by land or on the Danube, did not enjoy visa related facilities. As Braila is one of the three Romanian counties partaking in the LDE, it would seem appropriate that its inhabitants benefit from the same benefits regarding the border crossing regime as other LDE territories. After all, the inhabitants

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of Braila County are expected to partake in transborder integration across national borders as well. Representative of the understanding of the LDE at the national level is the statement of a Moldovan national leader who believes that when Moldova joins the EU, the LDE will no longer be necessary (interview, Bucharest 2004). This understanding of transborder spaces reflects the geopolitics of the Moldovan government that they are using Euroregions as European integration devices and as a means to obtain EU funds. Other statements from Moldovan and Ukrainian national leaders point out that they feel uncomfortable with enacting special benefits in the economic realm for their borderlands belonging to the LDE, since excessive development in the borderlands would create territorial imbalances at the national level (interviews, Bucharest 2004). Such views of transborder cooperation in the LDE are an illustration of several instances where the territorial logic of the nation-state clashes with the logic of transborder reterritorialization. For such impasses to be overcome good interstate relations are essential, but even more helpful appears to be the presence of a supranational structure in which LDE can be embedded.

3.2. The EU and the LDE’s Territorial Logics

The supranational logic of the EU is much more in concordance with the transborder logic of the LDE. The EU needs strong Euroregions in order to fulfill its goal of unifying European space. There is ample evidence that demonstrates the beneficial effects the existence of a “borderless” EU space has on transborder reterritorialization, despite the fact that the dismantling of the internal EU borders fell short of generating an unified European space (Anderson and Bort 2001; O’Dowd 2002). While not directly involved, EU leaders supported the establishment of the LDE since this was in accordance with their understanding of East European Euroregions as laboratories of European integration where non-EU governments learn how to cooperate across borders in preparation for their EU membership. Ironically, we are witnessing today a radical change of sorts in the LDE. The logic of the EU clashes with the logic of the LDE to such an extent that the EU can be considered one of the major disruptive forces transborder reterritorialization has to overcome in the lower Danube space. The LDE’s misfortune results from the fact that after 2007 it will straddle the EU external borders at a time when EU members are less enthusiastic to admitting new members and plan to

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reinforce the regime of the EU external borders. In the short and medium term, such developments make even more difficult the LDE’s mission regarding the creation of an integrated space across the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borders. Recently, events related to EU expansion such as the imposition of travel visas by Romania for Ukrainian and Moldovan citizens, as well as other trade-related restrictions, are of utmost concern in the borderlands of the three countries (interviews Galati, Reni, Izmail, Cahul 2004). An important outcome of a restrictive EU border regime generated by the upcoming imposition of Schengen visas resides in the stalling of cross-border contacts and reinforcing the “Us/Them”, wall-like functions of the EU external borders. There is a widespread feeling among borderland inhabitants in Ukraine and Moldova that they are somehow remaining on the “outside” (Apap and Tchorbadjiyska 2004). This feeling also has a visible physical aspect that adds to the already established psychological aspect. While traveling in 2004 across the borderlands of the region, a series of newly-built Romanian border check points were quite prominent on the landscape, while on the Moldovan or the Ukrainian side passport checking takes place in more modest settings, or even in military-like barracks. One reaction of borderland inhabitants in Moldova and Ukraine to the EU visa policies is to further their quest to acquire Romanian citizenship and passports in order to breach the “wall” (interview, Cahul 2004). In circumstances in which the Moldovan economy is dependent on the remittances sent home by over one-third of its population that works in other countries, the possession of a Romanian passport to assure free travel to Romania and further into the EU becomes a crucial asset. The reinforcement of the border regime at Romania’s eastern borders also reinforces social inequalities among the LDE’s territories, and could lead to the deepening of the development gap between EU and its eastern neighbors. Given the fact that a large number of Moldovan and Ukrainian borderland inhabitants are believed to have already obtained Romanian passports, it is often assumed that the impact of the Schengen regime on the borderlands would be diminished to a certain extent (interview Cahul 2004). However, a considerable segment of the people involved in the “suitcase” cross-border traffic between Moldova and Romania consist of poor Moldovan farmers from the immediate border region who sell their agricultural products in Romanian produce markets in cities near the border. In many cases this was their only mean of subsistence available. Their income is so low

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that many could not afford a passport, let alone the official several hundred dollars of fees required to apply for Romanian citizenship. The introduction of costly Schengen visas after 2007 will further impact this segment of the borderland’s population, which is most in need of free access to Romania. For the rich, paying for a Schengen visa would not constitute a critical problem. They would still be able to travel to the EU. For the poor, however, the cost of a Schengen visa would be prohibitive. They would become poorer, at least in the short term. Another outcome of the future Schengen regime already resented in the borderlands consists in the increased number of Moldovan and Ukrainian citizens who decide to establish permanent residence on the Romanian side of the LDE, where many have relatives. During the past few years the Romanian authorities dramatically slowed the process of granting Romanian citizenship at the request of EU officials concerned with the liberal Romanian citizenship laws (Lippert 2001). As the possession of a Romanian passport offers the possibility of working in Romania while residing at least temporality in Moldova or Ukraine, the curtailing of this economic and social avenue contributes to the decision of many people, such as students who finish their studies in Romanian institutions, couples of mixed nationality, and others, to establish their permanent residence in Romania in order to avoid the complex Schengen visa application process they would have to undergo if they choose to reside in Moldova and Ukraine. The prospects of a strictly enforced EU border in the LDE between Romania and Ukraine and Moldova are leading to an increase in illegal and semi-illegal activities such as smuggling of persons, drugs, corruption, and others. The first signs of organized criminal activity in the Romanian and Ukrainian borderlands are already visible given the high cost of visas on the black market. Other types of criminal activities will be organized after Romania’s accession into EU. Large scale smuggling activities are most likely to move their focus from the Romanian- Hungarian border region, where the current EU border is located, to the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands. Imposing a strict border regime at the EU’s external borders also results in reinforcing the central governments’ grip over the borderlands, that in turn reinforces borderlands’ peripheral status. Overemphasizing the security dimension of borders will lead to an increased direct and indirect presence of central governments in the borderlands. This state of affairs can reverse the modest progress toward administrative decentralization experienced so far in the LDE, and can relegate border regions to the peripheral status that traditionally defined them in Eastern Europe.

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The border regime between Romania and Ukraine and Moldova has already undergone considerable strengthening in the past few years with the reintroduction of passport controls with Moldova in 2001 and the introduction of visas for Ukrainian citizens in 2004. These measures have already resulted in a decrease of activity of the LDE in general, and of interpersonal contacts in particular. If the EU will continue to insist on strict Schengen visa policies, the activity of the LDE will experience further decreases to the point that the idea of transborder integration through the LDE as a promoter of economic development and political cooperation in the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands would be undermined. Reinforcing the external borders is far from solving immigration and criminality issues in the EU. Instead, it changes the spatial configuration of these issues by pushing them eastward and by focusing them in the borderlands. The EU has to find ways to address these issues that its external border regime generates. The context of ENP can constitute a useful starting point, but this strategy would do little to help the integration of borderlands in the LDE if a strict border regime would emerge that would be permeable only for certain social categories or goods deemed desirable by the EU. For transborder cooperation in the LDE to increase in intensity, EU policies at its external borders need to reach deeper, to the most underprivileged segments of the borderland populace, and to address the outcomes the presence of EU borders in their neighborhood produce. In this context, finding ways to allow for an increase in the intensity of interpersonal transborder contacts, such as special visas for borderland inhabitants and facilities for small cross-border trade, becomes crucial. What these actions appear to illustrate is that both the EU and the national governments are designing policies with little consideration for the interests of border regions. It appears that the degree of support for transborder cooperation in Euroregions at both supra-national and national scales is contingent on the overlaying of their interests with the interests of borderland inhabitants. Border regions’ inhabitants partake to a lesser extent in the design of supranational and national policies that affect them. They remain for the most part in the position of reacting to these scalar policies, trying to navigate through them, in the hope that their reactions ultimately would strain these policies to the point of prompting policy makers to modify them to address their needs.

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4. Suggestions for Improving the LDE’s Capacity to Reterritorialize the Lower Danube Space

The LDE is a work in progress. Its establishment started the formal process of bringing together Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borderlands, and its seven years of subsequent functioning contributed to the institutionalization of transborder integration in the region. However, currently it appears that the LDE is due for a makeover. The capacity of the Euroregion to serve as a meaningful transborder space for the local inhabitants has reached an impasse and its activity has to be jump started on a novel basis. First, the territorial shape of the LDE has to be altered in order to better reflect territories of common interest where transborder relations can intensify. The practice of using national territorial-administrative units as the basis of delineating LDE’s borders must be abandoned, and in turn municipalities and associations of municipalities should get directly involved in transborder cooperation. The territorial shape resulting from such bottom-up interaction would not fit the administrative units of the territorial state, and indeed would create new types of borders inside nation-states. However, these borders would not have any characteristics resembling national borders and would be a better fit for the needs of LDE’s population. Second, the national governments need to devolve more decision powers to the local authorities so that the LDE as a territorial entity acquires more autonomy from the central governments. This devolution would allow local authorities to pursue more stable paths to local development without being affected to such a large extent by intergovernmental relations or by national priorities for development. Third, the LDE has to acquire a legal status that would open up more opportunities for development and would increase its operative power. Without a legal status the LDE’s capacity to offer solutions at a transborder level will remain weak. At the same time, Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova have to either harmonize their legislations to a substantial degree in order to allow LDE to function as a transborder integrative framework, or the create special regulation for their borderlands involved in the LDE and other Euroregions. Fourth, the institutional structure of the LDE has to undergo transformations along two lines. On the one hand, the existing institutions need to become more transborder in scope, to have unique locations or headquarters and to involve more people from outside the formal

279 territorial-administrative structures. People have to feel that the LDE’s institutions are not equivalent to the sub-national institutions of the state they belong to. This would make the LDE’s structure of governance much more integrated across borders and better equipped to approach holistically transborder cooperation issues. On the other hand, additional institutions have to be added to the LDE, such as a Parliamentary-like assembly, where structures of the civil society such as NGO’s, Universities, Unions, and others would be actively involved in the LDE’s governance. This measure would address the democratic deficit in the LDE, would create more open institutions, and would bring the LDE closer to its citizens. Fifth, the LDE has to find ways to help cultural relations become more permanent and to move beyond merely folk festivals. Local television and radio stations to cover the LDE’s territory and to address issues of relevance for the local inhabitants can go a long way towards creating awareness of the common issues the LDE population faces and of the fact that transborder cooperation can offer solutions to many of these issues. Also, there is a need for a LDE newspaper or of close and constant collaboration between the existing local newspapers so that they can inform their readers about issues across the border or investigate together issues of transborder significance. Such measures would not only increase the LDE’s visibility in the civil society, but they can also go a long way towards stimulating civil society’s transborder imagination. Sixth, there is an immediate need to improve the LDE’s transportation and communication infrastructure, and to increase the number of permanent border checkpoints. Given the massive investments infrastructure projects usually require, this task has to be fulfilled mainly by the national authorities. The EU institutions can also be involved, since the significance of such projects is generally much larger than the local scale. The local authorities have to devise infrastructure projects that are more transborder in nature, thus that have visible transborder effects. Such infrastructure projects will help overcome the fractured geography of the LDE and will facilitate transborder interaction at the level of civil society to a larger scale than before. Moreover, the LDE authorities can demand the right to levy a symbolic tax from its inhabitants after the model applied in some Euroregions inside the EU space. This tax does not have to be an additional tax, but it can be a minimal part of the local taxes. This measure can endow the LDE with a common budget, but even more important, it can create a sense of shared interest among the LDE’s population.

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Seventh, the EU has to rethink the strategy of reinforcing its external border regime after 2007. The significant amounts of money the EU plans to invest in the LDE as a part of its ENP policy would not have the intended effects and would not enhance transborder integration in the absence of a soft border regime. At a minimum, the EU officials have to allow national and local authorities to enact special facilities for borderland inhabitants and businesses. There are a series of measures that can be implemented to assure transborder interaction at the level of the civil society would not be scaled back. Among these, borderland inhabitants can be issued free border passes, exemptions from EU taxes for certain transborder activities can be granted, and tax incentives can be offered to transborder businesses. All these measures have to be implemented cooperatively between the local, national and supra-national authorities in order to be effective. They are not measures that endanger the existence of the nation-state or the EU, thus in theory actors at these scales can find the consensus to implement such changes. In effect, the need for many such measures is already known and debated at the national and supranational levels. However, the political will to implement them has not been found until the present. For the LDE, the lack of implementation of such measures is endangering its capacity to integrate the national borderlands in order to create a common living space.

5. Closing Comments on Transborder State Reterritorialization in the LDE

Deterritorialization and reterritorialization are cyclical processes not unique to the current round of globalization. The LDE case study sheds light into one aspect of the process of reterritorialization characteristic to the current round of globalization. It is important to understand how contemporary reterritorialization is unfolding and what forms it takes. What new configurations of territory are built, by whom, and to what use? Transborder reterritorialization is only one way states such as Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova experience the process of reterritorialization. The LDE case study is primarily representative for one geographical context, characterized by spaces without the presence of a supranational structure of social organization, as well as by spaces of contact between supranational and non-supranational structures of social organization. However, there are numerous parallels that can be drawn between political,

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economic, social, and cultural phenomena at work in the LDE and transborder reterritorialization in other spatial contexts. The way in which the process of reterritorialization is conceived influences the interpretation of the LDE’s capability of being an agent of state reterritorialization. If the current reterritorialization is understood as complete deterritorialization of the nation-state and the emergence of novel transnational political-territorial units replacing the territorial states but replicating their functions, then the LDE in particular and Euroregions in general could hardly qualify as spaces of reterritorialization. However, if we understand the current reterritorialization as a process in which territorial ideology as a form of organization of social life is at least partially maintained and the national states are involved in their own reterritorialization, then the LDE and Euroregions are constitutive parts of this process. The analysis of the LDE’s activity demonstrates that the Euroregion is more than a circle on the map. However, the LDE is not a reterritorialized space either, in the sense that it does not represent a unified space outside that of the nation states’ hegemony. Rather, the LDE is a territorial unit experiencing an ongoing process of reterritorialization in a multi-scalar spatial context. The Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan governments attempt to use the LDE as a tool in international politics. The LDE originated from the geopolitics of the national governments. The Romanian government imagined the LDE (together with other Euroregions) as an “exchange” for renouncing territorial claims from Ukraine, as the correlation of these two issues in the bilateral basic treaty indicates. The Ukrainian government accepted the deal since it settled an important issue the young Ukrainian state faced in its western borderlands. The Moldovan government has been invited by the Romanian and Ukrainian governments to join the deal. Moreover, the establishment of the LDE improved the European image of the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan governments at the European level, at a time when none of the three countries had clear prospects of joining the EU. However, once the process of the LDE’s institutionalization started and the local authorities became more deeply involved in the process of governance, the LDE acquired a more independent existence to the point that national governments are not involved directly in the LDE’s governance. In addition, the civil society developed independent transborder relations and

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is actively shaping the spatial patters of these relations as well. At the same time, the LDE as a territorial unit is directly involved today in the EU ENP strategy. The LDE is at the same time a political-territorial device national governments attempt to take advantage of as well as an emerging actor in a multi-tiered international political system that transcends the framework of traditional statehood. The fact that national governments attempt to use the LDE does not necessarily mean that the Euroregion does not constitute a framework for transborder reterritorialization, and that it does not signify a certain weakening of the presence of state territoriality in its Westphalian understanding. Rather, this situation indicates that transborder reterritorialization should not be understood in binary terms as change of sovereignty rights from states to transnational spaces, but it should be conceived as an intricate process that is shaped by nation-states to a considerable degree. In the case of the LDE, in the absence of a supranational scale such as the EU, national governments assumed a much larger degree of control of transborder integration. Transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe is dominated to a large degree by nation-states, and acquires characteristics that are different from transborder reterritorialization taking place in EU space. Yet, the state is reterritorializing across its borders in Eastern Europe as well. The institutionalization of the LDE since 1998 proves that the supranational framework is not sine qua non for transborder reterritorialization. The experience of transborder integration between Romania and Moldova until the introduction of passport-based border crossing in 2001 shows that when the interests of the national governments and of local inhabitants coincide, the presence of a supranational framework is less important. However, the absence of a supranational scale can be quite limiting with regard to the depth transborder reterritorialization can reach. Under the current circumstances, incorporation in the EU’s spatial structure remains essential for the LDE to achieve a significant degree of “institutional thickness” to advance toward a unified transborder space for social life to take place.

6. Conclusion

In this chapter I examined the LDE as a vehicle for transborder reterritorialization between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova in the context of previous research on transborder regionalization. I demonstrated how local, national, and supranational forces come together to

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shape the LDE as a transborder space, and how reterritorialization in the LDE space is an ongoing process that is highly contextual. I began my analysis by locating the place of the LDE in the broader European context. Comparing the characteristics of the LDE with the characteristics of Euroregions situated in other European settings highlights a series of similarities and differences between the contexts for transborder reterritorialization across Europe. This comparison points out that the LDE case study has particularities that further the understanding of transborder reterritorialization in general, and in Eastern Europe in particular. Next, I showed how the spatial context of the lower Danube space offers considerable opportunities for the LDE to evolve into an integrated transborder space for social life. At the same time, there is some potential that these opportunities can work against the LDE’s aims in the circumstances in which the Euroregion’s governance structures fail to act in coordination and pursue separate goals. I continued my analysis by engaging issues relating to the nature of the LDE as a transborder space and its relationship with national governments and the EU. The LDE’s institutionalization as a territorial unit appears complete, yet the Euroregion has difficulties in functioning as an integrated space. Several dimensions of reterritorialization, ranging from territorial and legal to economic and cultural, illuminate such a contradiction. These dimensions examine the LDE’s accomplishments and failures toward transborder reterritorialization, and show that a clash of territorial logics between the nation-state and the LDE on the one hand, and between the EU and the LDE on the other hand hamper the deepening of the integration of the lower Danube space. I conclude with a series of suggestions of what actions can be taken by all actors involved in the LDE’s governance in order to further the process of transborder integration. Lastly, I offer an interpretation of the nature of the LDE as a transborder space between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, and of the possibilities as well as limitations the LDE can be expected to offer for a transborder integrated social life in the region.

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CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

This research has investigated the changes that are taking place in the territorial system of East European nation-states under the circumstances of accelerated globalization. The European space is undergoing historical transformations in the way the spatiality of social relations is imagined. The relationships between political territoriality and social life are being renegotiated through a process of territorial integration of the European states that takes place at a variety of scales. At the continental scale, we are witnessing a process of supranational integration that originated in Western Europe and gradually extended to encompass large territories in Eastern Europe as well. At a regional scale, we are witnessing processes of readjustment of the territorial organization of nation-states that include the emergence of transborder territories. These developments in the territorial organization of European societies point to the fact that we are witnessing a reterritorialization of the European space that can lead to the diversification of the system of territorial organization of social relations beyond the traditional nation-state. In the territorial state system that has characterized Europe for the past four centuries, borders have been the central locus of state territoriality. Today, European states attempt to redefine the role of national borders to better address challenges emerging from globalization flows. Central to this process of state reterritorialization at transnational level has been the implementation of Euroregions across national borders. In these circumstances, Euroregions have been imagined as spaces of transborder integration, where border-induced state territoriality can be transgressed and where the barrier function of national borders is diminished to allow for common spaces of living. However, the process of building transborder spaces is complex and contentious, and its outcomes are ambiguous and difficult to interpret. Euroregions are territorial in nature and their implementation amounts to the emergence of new types of political-territorial institution partially

285 situated outside the absolute control of the nation-state. Therefore, Euroregions raise a series of challenges for nation-states, as to how to allow for transborder integration and in the same time to preserve de facto territorial sovereignty over their borderlands. Under these circumstances, national boundaries have emerged as sites where this quandary is being negotiated. It is at the national borders that the territorial power of the nation-states convenes. Euroregions follow a different logic of territorial organization. Their borders are not enforced and they have to integrate territories that national borders divide. Another important factor that has a major impact on the process of transborder reterritorialization is the context of European integration in general, and the EU in particular. The existence of a process of European supranational integration has been generally beneficial for transborder integration. Supranational integration can advance only so far toward creating a unified European space without a transborder reterritorialization at the sub-national scale. These two processes are in fact interrelated and reinforce each other. They are part of the same process of reterritorialization of social relations in the European space that involves national, transnational, supra- and sub-national scales. This research has addressed the process of transborder reterritorialization in the context of the lower Danube space shared by Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The Lower Danube Euroregion was established in 1997 to address circumstances that emerged during the process of transition from communism to a market economy and democracy. The lower Danube space has experienced periods of unity and division throughout history, and it long had a peripheral position vis-à-vis major centers of power in Eastern Europe. The last period of division started during World War II and lasts until the present. This complex history generated a series of issues that the three countries that share the lower Danube space today attempt to overcome. In addition, Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova are considered poor European states, and during the 1990s they were slow in applying transition reforms. Consequently, these three countries have not been a central part of the European integration process. Nonetheless, these countries desired to be part of this process and they continuously took steps toward European integration. Romania has been the most successful so far, and it is slated to join the EU in 2007. The LDE was established in 1997 outside the EU space but not independent of its context. The Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian national governments imagined the Euroregion as part of the overall process of European integration. However, after 2007 the EU will only partially

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overlap the LDE, as Moldova and Ukraine will remain outside the supranational organization. This situation augments the complexity of the context for transborder reterritorialization in the region. The main objective of this research has been to further the understanding of transborder reterritorialization by examining the interconnections between Euroregions and political territoriality in Eastern Europe. In particular, I sought to determine whether Euroregions are emerging actors in a multi-tiered international political system that transcends the framework of traditional statehood, or if they are tools used by nation-states in international politics to preserve their territorial sovereignty. In addition, this research has examined whether the presence of a supranational scale, such as the EU, is a condition for successful transborder reterritorialization. This research shows that multi-scalar forces interact to shape social life in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova borderlands in the context of European integration. To accomplish the research objectives, a synthesis of participant observation, interviews, archival research, and census data were used. Interviews with key national, local and civil society actors who shape transborder reterritorialization have been conducted, and on-site archival research was undertaken. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the gathered data during two sessions of fieldwork that took place during the summers of 2003 and 2004, and covered all three national borderlands included in the Lower Danube Euroregion, as well as the city of Bucharest, Romania. This research integrates theories derived from political geography, political economy, border studies, and political science. A unitary theory of transborder reterritorialization has not yet been produced. At the heart of current attempts to theorize Euroregions is a sense that we are witnessing a changing meaning of space. The present research draws on the larger interdisciplinary field of border studies that conceptualizes boundaries as undetermined, mutable, and socially constructed. The focus is surpassing the borders per se, taking into account the broader areas, often called borderlands, where social processes induced by borders, such as perceptions, stereotypes and actions, are experienced. Euroregions are understood as spaces that transcend the traditional borders of the national state and attempt to create a sense of common identity across national boundaries. In this dissertation I first provided a theoretical overview of the literature on territory and territoriality, regions and regionalism, and transborder regions, by critically discussing these

287 issues as they relate to the changes currently taking place in the interstate system under the influence of globalization. This discussion laid the theoretical groundwork to understand the growth of analytical perspectives engaging contemporary state transborder reterritorialization. Next, I addressed state reterritorialization in the broader European context. I have shown how the process of European integration changed state territoriality at two main scales. At the continental level, EU integration has changed state territoriality at the supranational scale. At the sub-national scale, European states have experienced changes in their territorial structure by devolving powers to their regions. At the same time, the meaning of European borders has changed by lowering the barrier function of national borders. Transborder cooperation institutionalized in Euroregions has been the preferred means to reterritorialize the state across national borders in the EU space. In these circumstances, after 1989 the EU has promoted Euroregions as “laboratories” for European integration for post-communist states in Eastern Europe that desired EU membership. These states have adopted the concept of Euroregions, and in short time a large number of such territorial institutions appeared in Eastern Europe. Subsequently, I discussed the general historical and geopolitical context of the lower Danube region, the institutionalization of the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan borders in the Danube space, and the dynamics of interstate relations between these three countries. I examined the factors that led to the institutionalization of transborder cooperation between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova through the establishment of Euroregions, and how the governments of these states understood to negotiate the process of reterritorialization of their borderlands. The dissertation then provided a thick account of the LDE’s institutionalization, its structure of governance, its accomplishments and failures during the seven years of functioning, as well as of the influences supranational and national forces have on the LDE’s development. This section demonstrated the bewildering complexity of the forces shaping transborder reterritorialization in the lower Danube space as well as the contingent nature of transborder reterritorialization in the region. I concluded with an analysis of the LDE as a territorial unit aimed to reterritorialize social relations across national borders. In analyzing the LDE, I identified several dimensions of reterritorialization that revealed the nature of state transborder reterritorialization in the lower Danube lands, and has demonstrated how the emergence of transborder spaces is often at odds with the logic of the territorial state and, lately in this region, with the logic of the EU as well.

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There can be identified several areas where the findings of this LDE case study contribute to the understanding of transborder regions and state transborder reterritorialization. First, this research has set the stage for future inquiries regarding the direction and the form of the changing meaning of East European space induced by the contemporary round of globalization. The present research has shown that state transborder reterritorialization takes different forms in different geographical locations, according to the political, social, and economic context of the territories involved. In particular, the LDE case study shows how reterritorialization is taking place outside the EU space. There is limited understanding of the performance of Euroregions straddling borderlands situated entirely outside the EU space (Kennard 2004). While there are numerous similarities between Euroregions situated in these two spatial contexts (inside and outside the EU), this research demonstrates that East European Euroregions display a qualitatively different context for transborder reterritorialization. Understanding Euroregions in Eastern Europe furthers the understanding of transborder regions in other parts of the world where the presence of a supranational scale is only marginally involved in transborder reterritorialization. The most important aspect this research has uncovered consists in the fact that in the absence of a supranational framework, national governments assume the control of various functions of Euroregions to a larger degree than is often the case in the EU space. This has resulted in a situation in which national governments have vast powers in shaping the process of transborder reterritorialization. The Romanian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian states are involved to a large extent in their own transborder reterritorialization. In these circumstances, there is significant correlation between good neighborly relations between Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine and the depth of the reterritorialization process in their LDE borderlands. In addition, the lack of a process of supranational integration in which these governments can actively partake (Prohnitski 2002; Crowther 2000) has generated limited incentives for in-depth reterritorialization and provided large temptations to use Euroregions as tools towards achieving national aims. National governments are less interested in creating integrated spaces of living across their borders and more interested in bringing benefits to their own borderlands. Another important aspect revealed by this research is the importance of the process of EU-lead European integration for transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe even without a de-facto presence of the EU framework (Anderson and Bort 2001; Kempe 2001; Yoder 2003).

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The desire to partake in the European integration process, as well as to attract EU funds for border regions, has been an intrinsic part of the rationale for establishing the LDE. The drive to harmonize national and EU regulations in Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova led national governments to enact EU-inspired policies in their borderland although they are not EU members. This has both positive and negative consequences on transborder reterritorialization. On the positive side, the signing of the Madrid Convention and its Additional Protocols by Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, as well as the passing of domestic legislation to allow local authorities to get involved in transborder cooperation came from national governments’ desire to be in agreement with European norms. However, on the negative side is the institution by the Romanian government of visa-based border crossing between Romania and Ukraine at the insistences of EU officials. This limits transborder activity in the LDE. An important contribution to the understanding of Euroregions made by this research consists in documenting the existence of a complex geopolitics of Euroregions. Nation states are aware of the territorial potential of Euroregions (Negut 1998; Baker 1996; Delli Zotti 1996) and they try to use them to their benefit in international politics. Romania imagined the LDE primarily as a mean of maintaining contact with its co-ethnics in Ukraine, while Ukraine and Moldova imagined the LDE as a part of their national strategy to partake in the process of European integration. This research has also demonstrated that understanding Euroregions as transborder devices to solve unsettled international issues subverts the goals of Euroregions. Relying on overwhelmingly ethnic and political criteria in establishing the LDE at the expense of more local economic and social criteria has guaranteed its lethargic performance as a space of transborder integration for the civil society. Consequently, significant devolution of power to local authorities has not taken place, and the functioning of the LDE has depended on the good will of the national governments involved. The LDE case study has emphasized the geopolitical significance of Euroregions in the complex process of changing meanings of territoriality of the international state system in Eastern Europe. By focusing on the geopolitical implications of the creation of the LDE, this research has shown that the process of transborder reterritorialization is imbued with power relations that range across national and local scales. The present research fills a gap in the literature on transborder reterritorialization by revealing the paramount role the concepts of territory and territoriality play in the shaping of transborder spaces such as Euroregions. Most research on Euroregions has focused

290 predominantly on their institutional aspect, demonstrating the emergence of networks of multilevel governance across national borders (Perkmann 1999, 2002, 2003; Scott 1999). Often, such research tends to take territory and territoriality for granted, or assumes that the existence of transborder multilevel governance in Euroregions is somehow equivalent to loosening the straightjacket of the territoriality principle. The LDE case study shows that while traditional state territoriality in Eastern Europe is being modified by the functioning of Euroregions, territoriality continues to play a crucial role in imagining Euroregions. Starting with the delineation of the LDE’s territory, going through the LDE’s employment in national geopolitical strategies, and ending with the LDE’s role in the EU’s eastward policies, the Euroregion is shaped to a large extent by territorial considerations. This research has demonstrated that transborder reterritorialization fundamentally involves territoriality as a concept. The territorial trap remains even under reterritorialization. The LDE case study has also revealed how transborder reterritorialization is driven by the territorial state’s design limitations in providing solutions at sub-national level beyond its borders. The need to find solutions to the issues confronting their lower Danube borderlands constitutes one of the main reasons the Romanian, Ukrainian, and Moldovan governments embarked upon the establishment of the LDE. At the same time, nation-states’ territorial design limitations function as a break for the consolidation of transborder spaces. Thus, the transborder governance and regulation deficits in the LDE can be re-cast as a direct function of such limitations. The border-induced territorial logic of the nation-states clashes with the border- bridging territorial logic of Euroregions. Transborder reterritorialization takes place at this juncture. This project has unveiled the complexity and contingency of the processes and actors involved in the creation of transborder spaces by examining the intersection of multi-scalar local, national, and supranational incentives and disincentives involved in the creation of new political-territorial entities that challenge traditional understandings of state territoriality. The multi-scalar approach used to document how the EU-national states-Euroregions nexus plays out between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova provided a unique perspective into the complex political-territorial environment in which transborder reterritorialization operates in the LDE. Such multi-scalar approaches have been rare so far in the analysis of the East European Euroregions.

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This project expands the understanding of phenomena at work in transborder reterritorialization by analyzing the relationship between the existence of a supranational framework for transnational integration and the intensity of transborder reterritorialization through Euroregions at the sub-national level. The LDE case study has demonstrated that this relationship is highly contingent. On the one side, the presence of the EU institutional framework, and even its indirect influence, is enormously beneficial for the development meaningful Euroregions. On the other side, the presence of the EU is not essential for Euroregions to develop since the LDE had started and functioned for seven years outside the EU space. In addition, the high level of spatial integration of social relations between the Romanian and Moldovan borderlands during the 1990s proves that when national interests are similar, transborder integration can proceed without a supranational framework. Nevertheless, such situations remain overtly dependent of good intergovernmental relations. The current circumstances created by the arriving of the EU external borders within the LDE bring the contingency of the supranational - sub-national territorial relationship into the spotlight. The beneficial effects for transborder integration that the supranational framework brings are not to be taken for granted in all spatial contexts. Euroregions located at the fringes of the EU space after 2007 will likely experience less beneficial effects unless the EU decides to change its external border regime. Ultimately, this research has enriched our understanding of the contemporary readjustment of political-territorial social relations (Brenner 1999). The establishment and the subsequent development of the LDE indicate that a process of transborder reterritorialization is under way outside the EU space, between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. The LDE, as well as other Euroregions in Eastern Europe, constitute political transnational spaces situated beyond the territorial logic of the traditional nation-states, but they are far from being autonomous political- territorial units in the world political system. The LDE case study shows that so far the process of reterritorialization does not penetrate deep enough into the civil society for the Euroregion to challenge the hegemony of the state as the locus of social power in people’s consciousness and to provide a meaningful transborder space of living. Currently, the significance of East European Euroregions as transborder reterritorialization spaces resides largely in their potential rather than in their overall achievements. What further changes transborder reterritorialization in the region will experience will be contingent upon future developments in the context of the multiscalar

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forces driving state reterritorialization. In the circumstances in which national states continue to adapt to challenges of a world of flows, it is possible that in the medium and long run the LDE as well as other Euroregions in Eastern Europe will consolidate their powers and will become more meaningful spaces for the organization of social life along with national-states. There are certainly many interesting issues that remain to be studied regarding the LDE that this research did not cover. These issues can be useful for future insights into the process of transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe. It will be useful to follow the unfolding process of EU expansion into the lower Danube space, and the evolution of the EU’s external border regime. At the time of writing this dissertation, despite the fact that the EU external borders had not arrived yet in the LDE, the effects of this upcoming event have already been felt in the Euroregion. When the EU borders will de-facto separate Romanian borderlands from their Moldovan and Ukrainian counterparts, their impacts on the LDE will only increase. The EU’s ENP policy will have enormous consequences for the LDE and for the entire borderlands between the EU and non-EU members. It will be important to understand what these consequences will be, who will take advantage of them, and how they will further change the LDE as a spatial entity. Future research on identity in the LDE can be of great interest for enhancing our understanding of transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe. The lower Danube region is home to a bewildering diversity of cultural and ethnic groups. Population policies carried out by ruling powers at various times in history have generated a puzzling spatial pattern of these cultural and ethnic groups. Examining how these rather localized identities are negotiated with the broader national identities these groups belong to can prove essential for understanding if the emergence of an integrated transborder identity is even possible in the lower Danube space. Additional research can be conducted to examine the extent to which the LDE is active in shaping a local transborder identity, and if there can be identified age or socio-professional differences with regard to the emergence of a transborder identity. Another interesting research direction concerning the LDE could be the systematic examination of the civil society. The present research has dealt primarily with civil society’s leaders and with national elites involved in the LDE’s development. However, for a thorough picture of the opportunities and drawbacks for meaningful reterritorialization in the LDE, the meaning the Euroregion has for the local inhabitants is crucial. To this end, an extensive use of

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various types of surveys in all three LDE national borderlands can bring a wealth of data to be analyzed. In addition, undertaking comparative studies between the LDE and other Euroregions straddling the EU external borders in Eastern Europe as well as in other regional contexts or inside the EU space would likely be insightful. Such comparative research can help us to identify common trends in reterritorialization, and it can offer solutions to common issues Euroregions in different regional contexts face. These examples are only a few among the numerous possible directions to expand the study of state transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions that can provide a more accurate understanding for the way international political territoriality is transformed under the circumstances of contemporary globalization. It is apparent that the LDE case study offers excellent insights that further the understanding of the relationships between civil society and the political organization of space.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Gabriel Popescu was born in 1971 in Slatina, Romania. He is currently an Instructor in the Department of Geography at Ball State University, and will hold the position of Assistant Professor at Indiana University South Bend in Fall 2006. He has been awarded degrees from the University of Bucharest, Romania (BA-1996; MA-1997), from Kent State University, Ohio (MA-2001), and from Florida State University, Florida (Ph.D.- 2006). During 1998 and 1999 he worked as a GIS analyst for the National Commission for Statistics, Bucharest, Romania, and as a Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Valahia University, Romania. In 1999 he moved to the U.S. to continue his academic career. Popescu’s research is situated at the intersection of critical geopolitics, border studies, cross- border regions, territoriality, state reterritorialization, ethnicity, nationalism, diaspora, identity politics, and transnationalism. His research focuses on understanding changes in the political- spatial organization of society, as well as the interconnections between identity and geopolitics. His personal pursuits include rock climbing, world travel, and wine appreciation. His most recent publications include: 2006. (In press). Caught between the Scales of European Union Expansion: East European Borderlands between the Supranational and the National. In Scott, James. ed. EU Enlargement, Region-Building and Shifting Borders of Inclusion and Exclusion. Ashgate: Aldershot. 2006. Diaspora. Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. Sage Publications. 2005. Diaspora Geopolitics: Romanian Americans and NATO Expansion. Geopolitics 10, 3: 455–481.

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