The sub-regional dimension of European local development policies

This chapter discusses European territorial development policies’ sub-regional dimension. The focus is policy-oriented, and three central features emerge, shaping policy and representing the contents of the following sections. The first reflects on the ‘functional area’ (OECD, 2020a) or the appropriate dimension of local development: How local should local development be? We provide evidence for a synthetic but effective slogan: ‘large enough to cope, small enough to care’. The topic is far from trivial because the European Union (EU) recognises administrative regions (Nomenclature des Unités territoriales statistiques, NUTS 2) but not necessarily aggregations of municipalities within NUTS 2 partitions. The second is the ‘place-based approach’ (Taylor and Buckly, 2017) and its relevance in the post-COVID era. Since the Barca Report (2009), the concept has firmly entered the policy debate, recently reinforced by the evidence that a disruptive shock – such as the outbreak of the pandemic – generates asymmetric impacts on localities and communities, mainly depending on their various structural features and dynamics (OECD, 2020b). The third section broadly examines the European local development pol- icies’ objectives, actors, and instruments. Special attention is given to the evolving interest in local development as a specific approach – also called the territorial approach to local development (European Commission, 2016) – with its characteristics and determinants as part of the broader EU Regional and Cohesion Policies.