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European spatial governance underwent substantial changes over the past two decades with the expansion of European territorial cooperation programmes, the introduction of new instruments for cooperation and an increasing role of financial and regulatory framework in sector policies. Against this background the paper develops the argument that today’s European spatial governance has become more diversified and fragmented, leading to an increasing role for sector policies, and that the cumulative effect of these diverse activities on domestic planning processes are under researched.

This paper summarises the legal recognition of spatial planning and categorises European spatial governance as being composed of spatial policies, financial instruments and governance frameworks. This paper then presents three explorative case studies: the Common Transport policy as one European Union (EU) sector policy, a cross-border cooperation supported by the European Regional Development Fund and macro-regional cooperation.

This paper concludes that the increasing regulatory impact of European spatial governance on domestic spatial planning goes far beyond the pure Europeanisation of narratives and agendas or “ways of doing things”. Furthermore, this paper illustrates that European spatial governance is characterised by a process of sectoralisation, supported by the EU’s regional policy and the provision of governance tools. The paper calls for further investigation of the interrelatedness of these processes and their reciprocal influences on planning practices.

The value lies in recognising the incremental changes that have come alongside European integration, and highlighting the importance of these processes for domestic planning processes. This paper highlights the hidden process of sectoralisation that leads to an increase in planning competences at the European level.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the viewpoints of key stakeholders on the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation for a mechanism to resolve legal and administrative obstacles in cross-border regions. The mechanism known as ECBM, or European Cross-border mechanism, was presented as part of the legislative package for EU Cohesion Policy 2021-2027. The regulation will allow one Member State to apply their legal provision in another Member State for a concretely defined case. This proposal is particularly interesting as it does not give further competence to the European level, but changes how Member States may interact with one another, yet, it raises critiques as regards to its compliance with constitutional, international and European law.

This paper outlines the main elements of contention, which are legal justification, state sovereignty, compliance with the subsidiarity and proportionality principle, thematic and territorial scope, voluntariness and the administrative burden.

The author concludes that the assessment of the voluntariness of the regulation will be crucial in examining the regulations compliance with EU principles and suggests that a more nuanced reading as to which parts of the regulation are voluntary is needed. The author further expects the legal text to change substantial during the legislative procedure, in particular in regard to the thematical scope and the bindingness.

This piece summarises the debate currently held in the European Council and the European Parliament in a structured way to an interested readership. Examining the proposed regulation and the arguments for and against it offers the opportunity to review the main arguments that will be raised in any future debate on legal proposals on territorial development initiatives.