I start a regular weekly collaboration with the Sul Informação under the generic name of “Chronicles of the Southwest Peninsular”.
The themes of these chronicles concern European issues, the Europe of Euroregions and Eurocities, cross-border issues and Iberian and peninsular issues, the problems of articulating the Atlantic and Mediterranean axes, but also the Euro-Atlantic projection of the southwestern peninsular, whether in the CPLP space or in the broader relations of the transatlantic space, and, obviously, to the framing and external projection of the Algarve city-region in all these spaces of integration and relationship.
As we know, delimiting the borders of a region in the present time is a very thankless task, since everything, or almost everything, passes, nowadays, over the borders, at least in the European space.
In any case, we need at least virtual boundaries to create a desired geography, an identity territory and a self-governing community. It will be like that, too, with the Great Region of the Southwest Peninsular.
So let's do a small delimitation exercise:
1. In a strict sense, the Southwest Peninsular Region is the region that extends between the metropolitan area of Lisbon and the metropolitan area of Seville, that is, the region that includes the sub-regions of Alentejo, Algarve and Western Andalusia, if you like, a large corridor that connects the two metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Seville and which has everything to benefit from its integration in these two areas of influence.
2. In a proper sense, the Southwest Peninsular Region coincides with the AAA Euroregion, that is, the large region that comprises the regions of Alentejo, Algarve and Andalusia, with expansion, if necessary, to some territories of the Spanish Extremadura; if you like, a large peninsular corridor that links not only the two metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Seville, but also the Atlantic axis to the Mediterranean axis and northern Spain to the south of the Iberian Peninsula.
3. In a broad sense, the Southwest Peninsular Region is an open and articulated space that integrates the two metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Seville and the AAA connecting corridor, but also the Iberian and peninsular articulation and projection for the Mediterranean basin and the Maghreb sub-region, the Lusophone and Ibero-American space and the transatlantic relationship.
Any of these approaches carries an opportunity cost and a differentiated return, not only in terms of the resources used, but, above all, in terms of external prestige and projection, particularly in large spaces where the Iberian and Peninsular influence has a fundamental role to play in the near future.
I am convinced that, in the European Union, decentralized interregional cooperation will be the necessary and indispensable counterpoint to moderate the most harmful effects of the transnationalization of economies. The multi-territoriality of cross-border cooperation will always be a deterrent.
In the end, we will perhaps be able to conceive of three types of peninsular relationships:
a) The Europeanification of a peninsular macro-region, that is, a peninsular pole with 65 million inhabitants, according to a certain concept of a European political union of a federal nature, to carry out the trans-European networks;
b) The capitality of peninsular relations, to the rhythmic and realistic pace of the Iberian summits, in accordance with the state and additive logic still prevailing today and a “pointed political case” under the control of the two capitals; beyond, evidently, the external projection of what we could designate, with some reservation, the peninsular “iberophony”;
c) Decentralized interregional cooperation, according to a plural and diversified logic of “European groupings of territorial cooperation” (EGTC), whether in the form of Euroregions, Eurocities, networks of thematic cities and a very wide network of public partnerships. for example, in the area of parks and business centers.
In conclusion:
The cohabitation of the three types of peninsular relationships is a realistic and, at the same time, promising hypothesis. In this context, the construction of a Southwest Peninsular Euroregion is a medium and long term objective, which does not mean that we should not take initiatives and decisions now.
In the open and competitive world in which we live, the constitution of a new territoriality, with its own attributions and competences, presents itself as an extremely attractive approach, in the sense of agglutination of resources, territorial cohesion, mutual gains from economies of scale and projection of regional economies in larger markets, according to an intelligent commitment to competitiveness and cohesion.
Despite the constraints, difficulties and existing institutional asymmetry, we finally believe that the Southwest Peninsular Euroregion is justified for three reasons:
– Trans-European networks, accessibility, high-speed transport and logistical platforms bring territories and their areas of influence together and will, sooner or later, create new functionalities and territorial centralities that will induce new poles and networks of knowledge and initiative; urban and regional networks will be a priority for the next generation of European structural funds and this circumstance will “force” the constitution of new territorial entities; generally speaking, we have reason to think that the gradual introduction of Trans-European Networks and their undeniable ability to create new territorial functionalities, through the appreciable reduction of the “Generalized Cost”, will constitute an important contribution to the gradual constitution of the “Euro-Region”, given also to the fact that activities such as tourism are “travel intensive”;
– Geopolitics and geostrategy will also contribute, in their own way, to the constitution of a Southwest Peninsular Euro-Region, whether through the projection in the space of the Western Mediterranean, Latin American or Ibero-African; the external projection of this effort must always correspond to the identical internal projection effort;
– The deepening of political-institutional and business dynamics between cities and regions is unstoppable; political-regional statutes will be all the more demanded the more the State proves to be powerless to promote balanced development and interregional cohesion; within the framework of the single market and the economic and monetary union of the European Union, cities and regions will want to have their own “foreign policy”, in the first instance with neighboring cities and regions and local markets; to this extent, the Europe of Regions and decentralized territorial cooperation are unstoppable;
Finally, on the symbolic level, it is necessary to take some emblematic decision that marks the beginning of this “great adventure” in the southwest of the peninsula; we believe that the creation of the “University of the Peninsular Southwest”, under the high sponsorship of the European Union and in the form of a “European grouping of cooperation” could be considered of geostrategic interest in the Western Mediterranean space, in the community of Portuguese-speaking countries and, in general, in the Ibero-American space as a vector, let us say, for the projection of the peninsular “iberophony” in the world of Latin culture. And why not?
Author António Covas is a full professor at the University of Algarve and a PhD in European Affairs from the Free University of Brussels
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