The Euroregional Planning Approach as a Possible Variant of Regional Planning in Complex Multi-Regional Spaces Introduction to this Special Issue of disP

The paper explores the validity of reading and interpreting the process of Euroregion’s construction, in the terms of the “regional planning”. Given that this exploration is aimed at a more general debate on the Euroregions, it could be named “Euroregional planning approach”. A discussion on this possible variant of traditional regional planning, requires, to be sufficiently consistent and appropriate, a confrontation with the issues connected with the Euroregion’s construction as well as with the basic concepts of region and regional planning. To this aim the first part of article will be devoted. Then, after an interpretation of the whole discussion contained in this special issue, an effort to define the essential features and tools of this Euroregional planning approach, will be made. The exploration of a possible Euroregional planning approach is done neither to set up a possible handbook on how to build Euroregions, nor to make a definite report on a specific Euroregion that has successfully concluded its self-building experience. Instead this concept is tentatively introduced to label and distinguish those long and complex processes, of mutual understanding and learning, that characterise many parts of the European space towards possible forms of more strengthened and stable inter-territorial cooperation. Moreover, also the concept of "Euroregion” has not to be intended here as a strictly formalised concept but rather as the soft institutional perspective towards which to address the long processes regarding the different territories that want stably to cooperate each other. For the same reason, the Euroregional planning approach has to be viewed neither as a direct consequence of the geographical scale of application (the European scale) nor of the regulative implications of planning in the Eu context but rather as the variant of planning to take in consideration when looser ways of institutionalisation and of governance become necessary in fragmented and differentiated multi-regional spaces. Therefore it makes reference to the complexity of the governance efforts rather than to the specific spatial and political context.