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Abstract: During its preparation (1989-99), the United Kingdom’s (UK) attitude towards the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) was influenced principally by the government of the day’s relationship with view the European Union (EU). The differences between "town and country planning" as practiced in the UK and "spatial planning" at the European level were also significant. A series of other more general issues – geographical position; legal issues such as competency, subsidiarity, proportionality; the UK Presidency of the EU; and the need to obtain unanimous agreement – also played a part.
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to give a planning readership the benefit of an insider’s view of how the planning process operates at the international level. There is currently only one example of the genre, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP). But studying the process of producing the ESDP is seen to have a relevance to planning at other spatial scales. Some might also argue that a "perspective" is not a plan. However, in the author’s view that would be merely a semantic point. The ESDP displays most of the features of a plan, from its starting point in a vision to the recommendations it contains for subsequent review.
As someone directly involved in the making of the ESDP, the views presented here are set out from the perspective of one of the fifteen European Union member governments. Together with the European Commission (EC) based in Brussels, they formed the team which drafted and then agreed the document at Ministerial level. A more rounded view comes from analyzing a fuller set of national impressions of the process. This note, therefore, forms one of a set of three which examine the ESDP from different national viewpoints.
The major factor
By far the major influence that was brought to bear on the British attitude to the Perspective during its preparatory period was the general policy stance taken by the government of the day towards the United Kingdom’s relationship to "Europe". This hinges on the degree of sovereignty exercised by a nation state, as opposed to that exercised by the European Union (EU) of which it is a member.
The start in 1989 of the process which led to the eventual publication of the ESDP, coincided with the last full year of the Conservative government led by Mrs. Thatcher. This period was characterized by growing concern in the United Kingdom about the degree of influence being exercised by the EU. The expectation would, therefore, have been that the British Government would oppose the ESDP, particularly as this was a new activity which could be seen as an extension of the EU’s powers. The interpretation of events at that stage is that the proposal was so nebulous that later UK concerns about the status of the Perspective could not reasonably have been anticipated.
The main period of preparation of the ESDP fell under the Conservative governments which followed Mrs. Thatcher’s resignation. Covering the seven years 1990-97, this period can be characterized as one of uncertainty as far as the policy towards the EU was concerned. At times the approach was to try to be at the "center" of European affairs playing a major part in the debate. At other periods, often depending on the general balance of influences within the Conservative Party, there was a generally negative attitude to the EU and in particular to any extension of its activities.
The main effect was that the UK acted as a brake on progress of the ESDP by being generally skeptical. For example, the UK government did not take the opportunity it had to convene an informal Planning Ministerial meeting during its Presidency of the EU in 1992. Further, at the informal Ministerial meeting in Corfu during the Greek Presidency in 1994, the British Minister stated that planning is an evil, albeit a necessary one. By the end of the meeting, and in the light of the somewhat hostile reaction to the remark, it was modified to planning being a very necessary evil.
The turning point in the British perspective on the ESDP came with the national election in May 1997. The incoming left-of-center government was naturally keen to make its mark and to show how it differed from its immediate predecessors, particularly in terms of seeking a more positive relationship with the EU. In addition, the ESDP fitted well with the Government’s own agenda for modernizing the domestic planning system. Coming as this change of policy did, when the Perspective was nearing a point at which it could reasonably be finalized, it allowed the concluding drafting stages to pass comparatively smoothly.
UK/European planning comparisons
While emphasis has been put above on the political nature of the planning process, this is not to imply that technical aspects were absent or completely unimportant in influencing the UK’s attitude to the ESDP. In fact one of the spin-off effects of preparing the Perspective has probably been to assist the process of convergence between the different approaches to planning in the EU’s fifteen member states.
The first and obvious point is that although a highly centralized country, at least prior to the election in 1999 of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies, the British planning system is in the first instance rooted in local government. There is no tradition of national planning and little by way of consistent planning achievement at the regional level. The need for an international approach to spatial planning does not readily occur to those brought up with the British and dare it be said the American concept of planning.
Further, for most of the period during which the ESDP was in preparation, successive Conservative governments took a decidedly market-led approach to policy. The planning system was left intact even though deregulation was pursued in almost every other field of government action. However, planning was not seen as an important policy area. This naturally spilled over into the European arena and the ESDP was never treated with any priority.
The term "spatial planning" was also new to the UK. "Town and Country planning" and "land use planning" are the terms in general use. Having a well-established statutory planning system, which has all-party support, made it more difficult to accommodate a new form of planning. This was particularly so because the concept of spatial planning was itself undergoing refinement in the course of the ESDP preparation processes.
Aside from land use/spatial planning differences, the British system is plan-led and not plan-based. It is not a zoning system as in many other European countries, as well as in the United States. This directly impinged on the Perspective, the adoption of which might have been seen as a signal of a willingness to change radically the basis of development plans in the UK.
Also, the evolving view of planning in the United Kingdom, which fits into a more market-led approach, was of planning as a process as much as (or possibly more than) the preparation of an end state plan or document. The process of working together with other European countries, in what was seen as basically an experiment in continental level planning, was seen as valuable in itself. Certainly, there were serious doubts about the benefits of committing the results of the exercise to paper at too early a stage.
One of the novelties of the ESDP, as far as the UK was concerned, was the use of visions in the planning process. The approach to planning being pursued domestically was a more hardheaded one of objective achievement. Again the ESDP was seen to be at odds with planning as generally practiced in the UK in the 1990s.
Finally, in this section highlighting the technical challenges presented to British planning by the ESDP preparation process, planning in the UK is generally seen as a professionally dominated subject. The Royal Town Planning Institute has a charter which protects the name of the profession. The disparate group that constituted the Committee on Spatial Development (CSD), charged with producing the ESDP, did not fit neatly with the idea of a protected identity for a group of professionally qualified planners.
Other main issues (The 5 "Ys")
The major influences on the British view of the ESDP process were, as with the planning process at any level, related to political and technical factors. However, there were other considerations which help give more depth to the picture.
The first is the geography of the UK and particularly its peripheral and detached location. It was thought that while, for example, in many instances the French government might have to frame its development planning policies in conjunction with neighboring countries, that did not apply to the United Kingdom.
Secondly, the question of EU competency was troublesome, particularly at times when the debate on the respective powers of the EU and member states was running strongly in the UK media. In fact at that time there was a sideways reference in the European Union Treaty to "Town and Country Planning", but only as an exception to the general rule for environmental measures that qualified majority voting applied. This cut both ways. It might indicate a European competence, albeit limited to the unlikely circumstances of planning with an environmental as opposed to any other purpose. But at least unanimity was necessary so that a single country could block a planning measure with which it did not agree.
The third point, in this major issues section of the paper, centers on a Euro-jargon term – subsidiarity. Despite the comparatively recent rediscovery of the word, the question of the appropriateness of the level of government to deal with a particular policy area is an important concept. However, although it was invoked during the preparation of the ESDP, it was accepted as appropriate for the EU level to be involved in planning at the European scale.
The argument then leads on to the fourth point, proportionality, a word also incorporated in the European Treaties. Basically while it might be appropriate for the EU rather than another level of government to tackle planning at the European scale, is it necessary for it to do so? This is more a question of political judgment. While the British government had doubts on this score throughout the majority of the period during which work on the ESDP took place, the position changed after the election of the current government in 1997.
Fifthly, the position the United Kingdom held in the Committee on Spatial Development helped to color the British government’s view of the ESDP. As has been mentioned when the UK first held the Presidency during the preparation of the ESDP it chose not to advance the process. However, in the same position in the latter half of 1997 it decided to put a major effort into producing a first complete draft of the Perspective.
Also, in between the two Presidencies, the "troika" system was introduced in the CSD. This effectively created an inner group to steer the ESDP preparation process, consisting of the immediate past, current and next Presidencies, together with the European Commission. This bound the UK firmly into the ESDP for a longer period than just its six-month standard presidency period at the end of 1997.
Finally comes unanimity. Although every word of the ESDP had to be agreed by every member state and the EC, this helped the spirit of compromise. In order to secure your points you had to bargain effectively with other countries with overlapping agendas. This can lead to a lowest common denominator result. However, in the case of the ESDP, possibly because of the good working relationships at official level formed over many years, it led those involved to strive for the highest common factor.
Conclusions
While the above may look at first glance like a one-off example of the planning process stemming from a unique example of international planning, closer examination reveals some systemic features that will be familiar. In the first place political will is more important than technical argument in overcoming obstacles. Secondly, the larger political agenda is more important than the details of any particular planning exercise in process at the time. Thirdly, national self-interest can be identified as the main negotiating motive, in both a negative and positive sense. (For "national" read "local" in joint planning exercises at a smaller spatial scale.) Fourthly, planning is a bargaining process. The more equal the bargainers the more likely a highest common factor than a lowest common denominator result.
References
"European Spatial Development Perspective", European Commission, 1999.
"EU Compendium of Spatial Planning Systems and Policies", EC, 1997.
"The Impact of EC Environmental Law in the UK", Jane Holder, Wiley, 1997.
"The Impact of the EC on Land Use Planning in the UK", RTPI, London, 1993.
"The Impact of the EU on the UK Planning System", DETR, London, 1998.
"Subsidiarity and Proportionality in Spatial Planning Activities in the EU", DETR, London, 1999.
"European Spatial Planning and Urban/Rural Relationships:the UK Dimension", DETR, London, 2000.
"Peripherality and Spatial Planning", DETR, London, 2000.
Author and Copyright Information
Copyright 2001 by Author
John Zetter is a visiting Professor at The Bartlett School of Planning at University College London, where he directs a course on European Spatial Planning. He is active in the work of international and national NGOs, being Vice-President of the International Society of City and Regional Planners, the International Federation for Housing and Planning and the Town and Country Planning Association. He is a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. Between 1990 and 2000 he was the Assistant Secretary responsible, inter alia, for International Planning in the UK government’s Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
John Zetter
The Bartlett School of Planning,
University College
22 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0QB,
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 4873
Fax: +44-(0)20 7679-7502
Email: bartlett.planning@ucl.ac.uk
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