This month ESPON presents insights on the international migration flows towards an enlarged Europe. The consolidation of migration flows towards the EU allows to raise some questions. Is migration a selective process? Does the migration flows towards the EU fit with the European labour market needs?

This month ESPON presents insights in the sensibility of regions to variation in energy prices and energy self sufficiency. The rationale behind this map is that achieving a higher degree of self sufficiency has a price tag on it. Energy could become more expensive if less obvious energy sources are used. But the less self-sufficient a country is, the more costly it could be the change. The main question is: What are the costs and benefits of a higher degree of energy self-sufficiency?

Which population development profiles do the various regions in Europe have? This month, ESPON presents a map that was included in the Territorial Observation No.1 on a European regional typology with regard to population development. The typology combines the two components of population development: natural population change and net-migration. The map of the month shows the development 2001-2005 of the various European regions with regard to population development and its relation to regional competitiveness and territorial cohesion.

This month, ESPON presents trends in population development, namely on population growth in EU and its neighbourhood. Demographic development will have a major influence on future territorial development in Europe. The human resources have a significant impact on the economic development of regions and cities. It is therefore a key concern for policy makers to attract and develop a highly skilled labour force in their regions and cities.

The Territorial Agenda of the European Union states that “Mobility and accessibility are key prerequisites for economic development of all regions of the EU.” In practice this means that regions having a high accessibility to raw materials, suppliers and markets are in general economically successful regions and improve their competitive position in the global market. If so, transport infrastructure improvement might be an important policy instrument to promote regional economic development. Therefore it is highly policy-relevant to know if regions with high accessibility are at the same time economic successful regions. To understand this, ESPON compared the potential multimodal accessibility of regions in 2006 with GDP-PPS per capita in 2006.

Generally it is assumed that regional accessibility is important for the economic and social opportunities of a location or a place. Recent research on agglomeration economies suggests that economic growth, labour migration and accessibility are closely interrelated in reality. However, around 1/8 of the European regions have a high GDP per capita despite a low accessibility. Apparently these less accessible regions found other ways to overcome deficits of low accessibility and reached a good economic welfare.

The accelerating globalisation and new emerging markets will have major impacts on Europe and in particular on its territory, its cities and regions. European policy making related to the territorial development, competitiveness and cohesion, has in future to consider deeper the global context. Countries, regions and cities will increasingly need to understand their development opportunities and weaknesses by examining their position as part of a world-wide competitive reality.

Accessibility is an important aspect in the debate of regional development. It is used as an indicator to describe the territorial aspects of the transport system. Access to and from a region or city is considered an important aspect of the competitiveness of the location. During the last years efforts have been made to improve the accessibility of cities and regions in large parts of Europe. Many of these efforts have been related to improvements of the rail networks. 

Balanced overall growth is considered a precondition for reasonable equilibrium in living conditions across the entire EU territory. The economic success of a region can be assessed in many ways. A measure that is most often used is Gross Domestic Product (GDP) both in absolute figures and as a rate of change, the latter being helpful to measure economic growth.

Europe’s mountain areas are in many ways of great importance as they comprehend a set of features to be considered as territorial potentials, in particular as water resource, they have an ecological, cultural and environmental diversity, which is an asset.

One of Europe’s features is its multitude and diversity of coastal areas. Today 35% of the European population lives close by the sea. Of all regions at Nuts 3 level, 29% are considered coastal regions. Traditionally, coastal areas specialised in fishery and trade resulting in the development of numerous harbour cities along the coast. Large metropolitan regions have then grown along the waterfront together with a large amount of small and medium sized cities. Nowadays harbour functions of coastal cities have developed into a dense network of maritime transport.