THE ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION MACROREGIONAL STRATEGIES – BETWEEN THE STEADFAST COMMITMENT OF PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES AND AN AD HOC APPROACH

Sažetak

The European Union macro-regional strategies represent a policy framework
that aims to enable EU Member States and third countries sharing common
interests to better coordinate their potentials in order to make the best possible
use of available opportunities. This paper looks into the specificities of four EU
macro-regional strategies covering 19 European Union Member States and nine
non-EU countries. Given the challenging situation caused by the COVID-19
pandemic, it also considers the future perspectives of EU macro-regional
strategies as well as their adaptability to new circumstances. More specifically,
it focuses on intergovernmental initiatives and their implementation, underlying
the importance of the application of the principle of subsidiarity. In addition, the
aim of the paper is to provide a critical overview of the subject by highlighting
two pivotal elements. First, it assesses whether the EU macro-regional strategies
could be genuinely successful, given the fact that they do not have their separate
allocation but use the existing funding instead. Second, it explores the ability of
the EU macro-regional strategies to bridge wider EU-level policies on the one
hand and local policies on the other. Finally, the idea of the paper is to offer an
overview of the state of affairs when macro-regions are concerned.