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54 peer-reviewed article 55 The case of the Baltic Sea area SPATIAL POLITICS & FUZZY REGIONALISM By Norbert Götz istorical atlases are an illustrative remedy against from bonds that bridge unattached areas. They may live on as geographical essentialism. Shifting political borders “transterritorial” regions, such as a Commonwealth or la Fran- as an outcome of power struggles, and the reframing cophonie.4 Concepts like “Scandia major” or “Greater Norden” of bounded space resulting from the establishment of have clustered the Nordic states together with “exclaves” like the new hierarchies of meaning, make geography a moving target in Netherlands, Canada, Japan, and other remote countries that history. Europe has been a container for varying sets of sub-re- see themselves bound by common values and a similar conduct gions at different points in time, showing that history involves a of foreign affairs.5 Another example of relational patchiness is permanent renegotiation of space. Basic divisions include those the so-called Western European and Others Group in the United of classical antiquity, the divide between South and North, and Nations. It is considered a distinct regional electoral group, al- the Cold War distinction of Western and Eastern Europe though it encompasses countries like Australia and Canada.6 As (a view with predecessors among the eighteenth century “inven- applied to politics, space and region are flexible concepts that tors” of Eastern Europe).1 The currently prevalent distinctions may stretch our geographical imagination and even take the between Western, Northern, Central, Southern, Eastern, and edge off a language of “othering”. Southeastern Europe represents one of many possible ways to Scholarly approaches likewise reveal great differences in rescale Europe into meaningful units larger than the nation- understanding regions. They are seen as territorial representa- state, but smaller than the continent.2 Other suggestions refer tions of given natural or cultural traits, or as political or heuristic to the correlating notions of tools that enable researchers northeastern Europe and the to analyze network patterns Baltic Sea region, an entity that abstract and imagined communities reappeared on mental maps This article engages with political region building by examining the on other scales than that of with the fall of the Iron Cur- diverging conceptions of the Baltic Sea region since the 1970s. It the nation-state.7 Studies as- tain.3 While none of the areas maps the fuzzy geography arising from the enmeshment of territory suming regional substance, mentioned is unhistorical, and with a multitude of frameworks for regional action. After 1989, the when looked at in their mutu- while borders are often a mat- region became the object of interregional and neighborhood policies ally contradictory diversity, ter of contention, they all rep- established by the European Union, with shifting territorial delimita- corroborate constructivist resent significant perceptions tions according to various internal and geopolitical needs of the day. epistemology. However, con- of spatio-cultural coherence. Drawing on functional, relational, and administrative perspectives, it is structivist approaches do not However, geography may shown how spatial definitions surrounding the Baltic Sea region have preclude the essentializing also be fragmented. Colonial varied over the past fifty years, revealing those transnational connec- tendencies of a “regionalism empires are non-contiguous tions that have been valued as worthwhile political investments. as prescription”.8 Constructiv- geographical conglomera- KEYWORDS: Northeastern Europe; EU; macro-region; international or- ism has been an inspiration tions, their cohesion arising ganizations; region-building; marine environment; neighborhood policy for region-building projects ILLUSTRATION: RAGNI SVENSSON 56 peer-reviewed article in which present-day academics assume “the role of Herder, Belarus and Norway; and the Northeast of Germany and the Fichte, Mazzini, and the like, in the new era” of multilevel gover- northwestern Federal District of Russia.14 However, an overall inte- nance.9 Hence, Ole Wæver, a major proponent of constructivism grated development has become an increasingly intricate matter in the study of international relations, maintained in the late due to political tension with Russia, first in connection with the 1990s that the Baltic Sea region had by that time been “talked conflict in Georgia, and more recently, following the country’s an- into existence”, something that he believed correlated with the nexation of the Crimea and participation in the ongoing conflict establishment of a regional identity.10 The assumption that there in Ukraine.15 The Russian government failed to sign an economic is a region per se, rather than a multitude of territorial designs agreement with the EU in connection with the previous Interreg adjusted to distinct relational patterns, functions, and admin- program and, as a consequence organizations based in Russia istrative customization, is not substantially altered when based did not become eligible for funding (although various forms of on the notion of historical contingency rather than on certain involvement were practiced).16 For the current program, it is un- objectified features. Neither is it changed by the awareness that clear if and when financial agreements with Russia — and now Be- a region, despite being spatial, need not refer to a clearly delin- larus as well — might be signed. On its website, the Interreg Baltic eated space, and that the Baltic Sea region is determined by the Sea Region Program encourages applicants to associate Russian or connectivity of its nodal area rather than by any distinct perim- Belarusian partners, adding the reservation that funding for them eter.11 Therefore, while a constructivist approach constitutes a needs to be sought from alternative sources.17 The discrepancy be- necessary step towards the critical study of regions, it alone is tween a larger official area of EU-sponsored regional cooperation not sufficient. Constructivism becomes a critical force only when and a more restricted de facto area renders the meaning of the exercised from a rigid academic standpoint without prescriptive “Baltic Sea region” ambiguous as a space of cross border coopera- investment in the region-building enterprise itself. tion. Interreg maps have also usually cut off the eastern parts of The present study concurs with the observation that ontologi- the Russian territory that was formally included. cal confusion prevails about what the Baltic Sea region is, and Moreover, the Interreg III B and IV B programs for the Baltic that boundaries significant to the region have been inadequately Sea region — in force from 2000 to 2006 and from 2007 to 2013, studied, but it does not content itself with an examination of respectively — had a different territorial outreach than the cur- recent EU policy.12 Rather, it shows how fuzzy geography may, rent one, only covering the western and central parts of Belarus in fact, become enmeshed in human agency. It does this by in- and the westernmost districts of Russia.18 Even then, however, vestigating diverging territorial framings of the Baltic Sea region the European Commission took into account a request of the in a variety of international organizations and policy programs governments of Finland and Sweden that cooperation with Nor- since the 1970s, arguing that spatial definitions surrounding the way and Russia in the Barents Sea area be among the priorities of Baltic Sea region have incorporated intersecting administrative, the Baltic Sea program.19 functional, and relational perspectives of many sorts over the past fifty years. These scripts are revealing beyond the region THE FIRST INTERREG PROGRAM specifically designed for the itself and are gauges of the models of transnational collaboration Baltic Sea region — II C, in force between 1997 and 1999 — still envisioned by the political projects to which they have been at- represented a markedly different understanding of the region. tached. While involving the same eleven countries that reappeared in subsequent programs, only the territory of Finland and the Interreg: spatial planning visions three Baltic republics was regarded as entirely belonging to the of the 1990s Baltic Sea region. As is still the case with Germany and Russia, The history of the Baltic Sea region in European Territorial the major powers in the area, only the littoral zones and selected Cooperation (ETC; better known as the EU Interreg programs) hinterland areas from the five other countries were understood shows how the definition of a geographical entity can vary as forming part of the region at that time. considerably, even within the same program structure. This The consecutive reframing and resizing of the Baltic Sea scheme is a key instrument of the so-called cohesion policy. region in the definitions of the same EU program structure il- Thus, the current Interreg Baltic Sea lustrate that the determination of this Region Program for the period 2014 “DESPITE MINOR space is subject to considerations of to 2020 states as its overall objective expediency and policy-making. Its the strengthening of “the integrated DEVIATIONS, THE VASAB borders are fluid and subject to ne- territorial development and coop- UNDERSTANDING OF gotiation and evolution. While such eration for a more innovative, better THE BALTIC SEA REGION adaptability may be a strength