University of Innsbruck Innsbruck School of Political Science and Sociology Günther Pallaver [email protected]

A European Region Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino

An Example of the Social Construction and Deconstruction of Borders and Regional Spaces

Paper presented at the conference Borderscapes as symbolic landscapes Trento 11-14 June 2006

1. Re-Territorialization

Michael Foucault identified the twentieth century as “the century of space,” strikingly characterized by how borders were overcome and how space was penetrated. Yet the conclusion of the East-West conflict (1989) and the virtually simultaneous intensifying of the European integration process (the Maastricht Treaty of 1992) have placed the questions of space and the territorial borders of Europe even more decisively on the political order of the day, now at the end of the twentieth century. Just as territorial borders of the former Socialist bloc were redrawn – either violently (for example, the Balkans), or peacefully (for example, the separation of Czechoslovakia) – so too have territorial changes occurred in Western countries (for instance, the unification of West and East Germany). This suggests that a reidentification of the political space, as an instrument of regulation, continues. Indeed, through the division of relevant spaces, the re-identification of the political space has significantly grown in importance as a means of shaping political realities. Among other things, this is a result of the diffusion of border areas in the process of the so-called globalization.

The re-territorialization of Europe occurs against the backdrop of decentralization, or better a regionalization, of the decision-making structures of nation-state systems, insofar as these are still dominant. And it is a phenomenon that is also linked to the European process of integration. Already more than twenty years before the conclusion of the East-West conflict, there existed a new type of re-territorialization in Western Europe. I’m speaking here not of an “external” re-territorialization, but of an “internal” one, namely regionalism: a type of reconquering of space at the periphery, which since the 1960s has been an important political European issue (Lafont 1967).

In talking about regionalism we can differentiate three types. First, sub-state regionalism, understood as a new definition of politics within a nation-state, which aims at reaching a fresh balance between center and periphery and brings about a variety of institutional reforms. For example, what happened in Italy with the emergence of a new regional party, the Lega Nord (Northern League), for instance, and the constitutional reforms of 2001 and 2005, or in Great Britain with devolution in 1999 (Bobbio 2002, 75). Supra-national regionalism, as a concept of international relations, led to an alliance of countries within a certain geo-political region, a case in point being the European Union. The third type, which we might call transnational regionalism, is defined by regional movements which, in the sense of sub-state regionalism, 2

seek to expand their political reach through cooperation with other regions (for example, the “Four Motors in Europe” 1 ), through cross-border cooperation (for example, the European Region of Tyrol), or through political actions within existing European institutions (Keating 2005, 53; Salih 2005).

The old regionalism was conservative; it operated within traditional social networks and was defensive and skeptical of Europe. The new regionalism, by contrast, is politically progressive, oriented towards modernization, and it leans towards being European.

Regionalism, obviously, presupposes regions. The problem with this, however, is that there is no clear terminology, not only in general, but also, indeed less so, on a European level. Fundamentally, this is because definitions for this term, on a sub-state level, are insufficient, not least because corresponding social realities vary greatly. A traditional juridical approach will therefore be of only very limited help, such that some authors suggest viewing the function of regions in the process of European integration in social, cultural, economic, political, or scientific contexts. Moreover, regions require other regions, which are different but formally equal, as measures of comparison (Pintarits 1996, 29-30). Essentially, one may understand regions as geographically defined spaces, which can be bound by a larger (or at least by another) constellation of political space. In effect, a region is not a predetermined and thereby objective and natural unit, but a hermeneutic construction (Salvatici 2005), which must be able to maintain its claims politically.

European regionalism is a very heterogeneous phenomenon (Le Galès/Lequesne 1998). And yet, it has often been ascribed, more unjustly than not, a peace-making function in the European integration process, since it has been assumed that regional cross-border cooperation could facilitate resolving ethnic conflicts that had emerged along state borders. The population living along these borders was thus thought to experience cooperation, not ethnic separation, which would then transcend ethnic problems (Bray 2004; Barth 1969).

European regionalism in all its varieties, like the concept of the border itself, was for a long time connected with the perception of its “natural”-ness, and it let itself be guided by territorial configurations (Prescott 1978).

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This term indicates an interregional cooperation without direct neighbor relationships: Baden-Württemberg, Rhone-Alpes, Catalonia, Lombardy, and Wales.

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The discussion regarding the European Region of Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino can be seen as a paradigm for the profound process of (border) transformation in twentieth-century Europe, as well as for the ways in which the question of natural territoriality has dominated political discourse since the beginning of the twentieth century. The division of the historical region of Tyrol after the First World War and the gradual cooperation by the successor regions in the two states of Italy and Austria, until the building of the European Region, provides a particularly vivid case for seeing regions not as natural creations but as social constructions. Such constructions can be steered by elites “top down,” or by civil society “bottom up.” In our concrete case we can demonstrate how a top-down “separatist strategy” was superseded by a bottom-up “cooperative strategy,” and how ideology was transformed by political pragmatism.

Furthermore, the process of cooperation within the European Region offers an illustrative example of how a region can be determined through social scientific categories. In the case at hand, we follow the theory of social transfers. Finally, observing some development processes in a European region allows us to verify how the roles of regions during the European integration process have changed: developing from a concept of ethnic federalism, and moving from old to new regionalism and from a Europe of regions to cross-border cooperation.

2. Historical Development in Stages

The historical identity of the landed principality of Tyrol, which since 1363 was ruled by the Habsburgs, has very strong roots. This is due to the very early abolition of Tyrolean serfdom (in the 14th century), and to the participatory rights of Tyrolean social classes (although within these classes, not all members were entitled to participate). Tyrol is thus often considered continental Europe’s oldest democracy. This strong identity experienced its first rifts in the era of nationalism, as the people of the Trentino region demanded autonomy, which the German-speaking majority consistently refused.

Yet it took several centuries for Tyrol, the “Country in the Mountains,” to become an administratively and territorially unified region, comprising three language groups: the German-speaking majority, the Italian-speaking minority, and the smallest group, the Ladins. 4

The first territorial caesura in the modern period occurred during the Napoleonic Wars, when between 1805 and 1813/14, most of the region was annexed by Bavaria, whereas the smaller rest went to Italy (Riedmann 1982, 165-179). From then onwards, strong regional differences and autonomous identities began emerging in historic Tyrol. Terms like “Welsch” Tyrol or Trentino, German Tyrol or South Tyrol, East Tyrol or (the most recent construct) North Tyrol became used in both official and common parlance (Geschichte und Region 2000).

The most dramatic historic caesura for the region occurred with the fall of the Habsburg monarchy following the First World War; that is, between 1918, when Tyrol was divided, and 1920, when South Tyrol and the Trentino were definitively annexed by Italy. The South Tyroleans were then refused the right to self-determination. Thereafter, the attempts at denationalization and assimilation by Italian fascism, beginning in 1922, drove the political elites of German-speaking South Tyrol largely into the hands of the Nazis (National Socialism), from whom they expected national liberation. But the occupation of South Tyrol between 1943 and 1945 by the German Wehrmacht did not lead to a formal reunification of the region with Tyrol. And afterwards, the expectations to be able to exercise selfdetermination in democratic Italy were thwarted by the victorious powers. In its place, the 1946 international Paris Treaty promised autonomy to South Tyrol, but its gradual realization would take decades and would include further negotiations at the United Nations in 1960/61 (Di Michele/Palermo/Pallaver 2003).

As a substitute for the de facto relinquishing of the reunification of both parts of the region, the claim of “Tyrol’s spiritual and cultural unity” was raised to North and South Tyrol’s official policy. Preliminary considerations regarding the creation of a “European Region of Tyrol” were thus based on this premise and pursued within the political context of the European integration process. At the same time, this process weakened the sovereignty of the nation-states, rendering the national borders increasingly permeable. With the Schengen Treaty (1995), however, controls of persons and commodities were largely abolished: at first by seven and later by ten member states (Morass 1996, 187; Caciagli 2006).

And yet, the weakening of state sovereignty and the liberalization of circulation for persons and commodities have also led to an enhanced importance of regions (Pintartis 1996), which have acted more and more forcefully as international players. The change from the industrial 5

to the post-industrial order, the appearance of problem areas involving a global dimension, the crisis of central government in the face of reduced capacities to solve problems – all of these factors have led to the point where state authority has in part been handed over to supranational institutions as well as to sub-national and regional units. The loss of this exclusive prerogative of state action (Krämer 1998, 15) has led to the emergence of a cross-border, trans-regional parallel diplomacy with state diplomacy. Or, in other words, of a sub-national foreign policy, whereby these terms designate all sub-national, non-central-government activities in international relations. In this way, regions have largely assumed the function of bridge-builders between sovereign states (Hocking 1998, 34).

Several developmental steps had to be completed until the majority of European regions were accepted by the national and supra-national entities as autonomously operating sub-national players. In the 1970s, attention turned to regionalism as an answer to government centralism. In the 1980s, a discussion developed that was independent from the domestic territorial structures of the respective states and focused on the ability to compete economically (KohlerKoch 1998). In the 1990s, as a consequence of the Single European Act, discussion arose as to possible negative effects on federal political systems. This debate and the issue of the participatory and influential odds these sub-national units have on European policies, led in 1991 at the EU’s meetings in Maastricht to the introduction into official policy of the phrase “Europe of Regions” (Keating 1995, 1-23). The “Committee of the Regions” (CoR), as an institution, and “subsidiarity” as a political principle, are results of this development. The political clout of the CoR – the Committee being a merely consultative body – however, is very limited. Today, Europe is heading less towards a “Europe of Regions” than to a “Europe comprising Regions” (Kohler-Koch 1998, 69).

In the 1970s, with the occurrence of a broad awakening of “regions which up to then had been deprived of historic consciousness” (Pasi 2001, 922-24), Tyrol and South Tyrol too became active, having at any rate cultivated cross-border regional cooperation since 1949. Based on the 1946 Paris Treaty, signed by Austria and Italy, the Accordino (1949) facilitated the exchange of commodities between the Austrian regions of Tyrol and Vorarlberg and the two Italian autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano.

Also starting in the 1970s was the building of more compact institutional forms of cooperation across the borders. In 1970 the first common assembly of the regional 6

parliaments of Tyrol and South Tyrol took place; in 1995, it was the turn for the first common assembly of both regional governments. In 1972, on the initiative of Tyrol, the “Arge Alp” was founded, in which Austrian, Swiss, West German, and Italian regions, provinces, and cantons – among them both Tyrol and the provinces of Bolzano and Trento – came together to deal with the specific problems of the Alpine regions. In addition, there have been crossborder, EU-subsidized “Interreg” programs, and in 1993, the 1980 Madrid Convention, which concerns cross-border cooperation of European regional administrative bodies, was signed on by Austria and Italy. In the framework of the Arge Alp, apart from the cooperation among regional administrative bodies, there is also an occasional cooperation among interest groups, such as trade unions and some of the political parties (Nick/Pallaver 1998, 2-3). The idea of a “European Region of Tyrol” (Luverà 1996; Pernthaler/Ortino 1997), 2 however, was not born at first under the political premises of cross-border cooperation, of which there already existed several examples along the German-Dutch and German-Belgian borders, such as the Euregio (1958) and the Euregio Maas-Rhine (1976), the Regio Ems-Dollart (1977), the Grenzregio Rhine-Maas-Nord (1978), or the Regio Rhine-Waal (1978) (Gabbe 1992, 179). Rather, the concept of a European Region of Tyrol was initially understood as a surrogate for Tyrol’s denied right to self-determination: that is, it was seen as an alternative means of bringing about Tyrol’s reunification. In order to supersede the Brenner border, a model was to be developed which would be neither a definitive re-annexation of South Tyrol to Austria under international law, nor the sovereignty of a reunited South and North Tyrol.

The gradual development of the European Region of Tyrol, which will be elucidated in the remainder of my paper, can be viewed as an exemplary case for how a policy that was originally ethno-national in orientation has mutated, through the European integration process, into a policy of transnational cooperation that is characterized by pragmatism and principles of governance (Piattoni 2005). With its contribution to overcoming national ressentiments, the European integration process has demonstrated in this case that it has peace-building potentials.

In what follows I will analyze the three essential stages that the project “European Region of Tyrol” has gone through. They are: (1) Old regionalism and ethnic federalism; (2) new

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For a virtually comprehensive bibliography on the “European Region of Tyrol,” see www.europaregion.info/de/23.htm.

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regionalism and the Europe of Regions; and (3) the European Region of Tyrol between institutionalization and pragmatic cooperation (Pallaver 2000; 2005).

Along with the proposition that the European integration process had an essential influence on the development of this project, I will also try to demonstrate that the concept of a “region” does not – as I have already stated above – refer to something predetermined “by nature,” as it were, but corresponds to a social construct, and that consequently its borders are decided through social transactions that are continually subject to change.

3. Old Regionalism and Ethnic Federalism

In the early 1970s, starting from the resurgence of ethnic claims, regional movements took on a new consciousness of their sub-national particularity: Scots, Northern Irish, Flemish and Walloons, Occitans, Catalans, Basques, Corsicans, South Tyroleans, Alsatians and others insisted on their regional identity, their particular traits, and their claims for territorial and political autonomy. These political-cultural claims were addressed vis-à-vis the national center, and as a consequence they were manifested as domestic conflicts. According to Dirk Gerdes (1987), these regional movements had three premises:

1) The existence of homogenous spaces within the nation-states, whereby this homogeneity was justified on the basis of historic-cultural, political and/or economic criteria 2) The claims to separateness of such regions, which were made with reference to an overriding unit of political space, usually a nation-state, which appeared to threaten their existence or identity under historical-cultural, political and/or economic aspects 3) The contention of the existence of homogenous spaces within a nation-state, which led to regionalism, no matter how diversely conceived regionalism was in its political articulation, such that it became an element of disruption and directly competed with antagonistically conceived systems of state and society.

The central starting point here is the concept of homogeneity. The so-called “old” regionalists present the population of the respective territory as ethnically and culturally homogenous. Or they at least emphasize a similar mentality, if not a commonality, by virtue of being affected 8

by any negative impacts incurred by outside/external forces. Based on such claims, they assert a concordance of interests of the concerned population in opposition to other regions or to the overriding system.

In order to even further reinforce this presumed homogeneity, be it in argumentative or in emotional terms, it habitually becomes coupled with the slogan of “Gemeinschaft” (community), which in this usage is in direct opposition to “Gesellschaft” (society), which corresponds to the concept of a secularized and pluralist political system. Thus “Gemeinschaft” is a pre-modern category based on familial and tribal structures, and it serves to deduce the presumption of common interests from allegedly common ethnic fundaments. “Gemeinschaft” in this context is employed as an absolute category superimposing and overriding all other fault lines, be they social, cultural, political, or economic. The categories of affiliation to a “Gemeinschaft” are expressions of a now supposedly democratically legitimated “Volksgemeinschaft.” Not only are the Others excluded from it, but also those citizens who breach its internal rules (Baur/Guggenburg/Larcher 1998, 272).

These notions underlie ethnic federalism (Salzborn 2005), a mixture of regionalism and nationalism. Citizen-based communities, according to this type of logics, are only stable and harmonious if, in the first place, they are based on a deep-seated similarity of personalities. Such political claims led to the concept of a “Europe of the peoples.” Europe was supposed to become politically stable through the creation of ethnically homogenous and autonomous territorial units. In this way, wherever several language groups inhabited a common territory, they should be as thoroughly disentangled from each other as possible (Blaschke 1980, 1012).

In 1985, the “Europa-Union Tirol,” founded in 1977 and committed to ethnic federalism, first introduced the use of the term “European Region of Tyrol.” It considered ethnic federalism a suitable model for solving the issues of ethnic relations in Europe on several levels: it would avoid the alleged “dangers” of becoming swamped by foreign ethnic influences; it would strengthen peace; it would eliminate hot spots of conflict and constant ethnic frictions; it would eliminate as well as increased administrative expenditures due to bi- or multilingualism, and it would ultimately guarantee the possibility of full development for the various ethnic groups (Stoll/Esterbauer 1979, 29).

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The focus of the model was the self-determination of South Tyrol and the re-unification of Tyrol. Bi-lingual territorial realities were to be dealt with by a system of enclaves for Italians, following the “homeland” model in South Africa. According to this type of ethnic federalism, historic, multilingual Tyrol would have to be ethnically homogenized.

The debate among ethnic federalists regarding the “right to self-determination for the people of South Tyrol” (Espiell 1987; Kimminich 1985) and the “constitutional model for a European free state of South Tyrol” (Emacora) continued throughout the 1980s, parallel to the debate around the conclusion of the South Tyrolean controversies (to be finally realized in 1992 with a dispute settlement at the UN between Austria and Italy). And it found many adherents in parts of the political elites in North and South Tyrol, especially in nationalist quarters.

4. New Regionalism and the Europe of Regions

While the representatives of ethnic regionalism went on to pursue concepts and strategies for South Tyrol’s self-determination, on issues such as South Tyrol’s statehood and for a reunification with Tyrol and thus with Austria, developments on the European level took on a new dynamics of their own. Ethnic federalists, too, had supported the proposition that perspectives of a geopolitical realignment for South Tyrol should be realized above all though the strategy of a “Europe of Regions,” but their change in perspective was not extensive. Ethnic federalism, after all, was still too strongly concentrated on the nation-state and on skirmishes with central governments, without becoming aware that the nation-state had for some time already slid into a crisis of its capacities to control political developments.

Although the state remained the main point of reference for political organizations, it gradually lost its exclusive monopoly of being in a privileged position for “policy making.” Politics and territory for some time already had not been congruent. Their drifting apart was the gradual result of a new type of global and continental, economic and political order, emerging in Europe in the 1980s with the domestic market, and at the beginning of the 1990s with the European Union Treaty (Pintarits 140). This development of the European Community, and subsequently of the European Union, had fundamentally modified the role of

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the nation-states. Part of their sovereignty passed to Brussels, and in 2002, with the Euro becoming a common currency, a fundamental step to further integration was taken.

With the strengthening of the European Community/European Union at the expense of the national states, the political point of reference of regional movements changed as well. Apart from the center-periphery axis, potentials of the EU-region axis for regional autonomies has now become increasingly taken advantage of, just as regionalism increasingly becomes a complement to the emerging political and economic systems.

The change in the balance of power through the shift of competences from the nation-state to the EU center has also led to a weakening of movements aiming at territorial separation. Regionalism acquired a new dimension and a new quality. Within the institutional architecture of the EU, regions are recognized as a third level between nation-states and supra-national organizations. This change in perspective from nation-state to supra-national EU was also observed with interest in South and North Tyrol. Here a certain simultaneousness of the “old” and “new” regionalism may be identified.

Between the representatives of the “old” and the “new” regionalism, however, there is also political continuity: namely, the aim of re-unifying both parts of South and North Tyrol. This goal constitutes the common ground of a large part of the political forces that are strongly committed in this issue, even if different strategies are used in its pursuit.

In the debate around the re-unification of Tyrol, the region experienced a new climax with the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the end of the East-West conflict, when some political protagonists of the nationalist wing within the South Tyrolean People’s party called for a “Slovenian way” to independence (Pahl 1991).

At the beginning of the 1990s, the concept of a European Region of Tyrol took on new dimensions. Thus in 1992, the South Tyrolean and North Tyrolean parliaments in a common assembly demanded from their regional governments that they convene a roundtable to further explore and develop this concept. Politicians and experts of Tyrol and South Tyrol participated. Later, in 1993, Trentino representatives also joined. The Italian-speaking population of South Tyrol, however, was strongly under-represented (Gismann 1997).

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The formal start to the conception and subsequent realization of a European Region of Tyrol was launched on June 2nd, 1993, at an assembly of four regional parliaments in Innsbruck (Tyrol, Vorarlberg, South Tyrol and Trentino), which called on politics, that is on the regional governments, to create a model statute for the future European region. They were asked “to elaborate a model agreement for the creation of a European region that is geared to the concrete constitutional and legal situation, with regards to their competences, of the regions of South Tyrol, Tyrol and Trentino, and that takes into account as well the existing international treaties between Austria and Italy, in particular the Paris Treaty and the Madrid Convention, and to provide for possibilities for participation by the region of Vorarlberg” (Stauder, 91). Vorarlberg soon retreated from this project and has now an observer status.

The aims were formulated in very general terms. The European region was to guarantee, in the framework of a statuary model, a cross-border collaboration, thereby achieving the greatest possible advantage for the residents of the three provinces.

During the debate about the framework conditions and working hypotheses predetermined by politics, the various orientations became apparent as to which substantial direction the European region was supposed to be heading for (Nick/Pallaver 1998, 4-6).

5. Transnational Cooperation between Institutionalists and Pragmatists

In the debate about the European Region of Tyrol, the overcoming of the state borders between South and North Tyrol remained a central goal. Particularly in the first phase, when models of this type were drawn up in the sense of the “new” regionalism, notions of the “old regionalism” still resonated, as the overcoming of the state borders was not exclusively understood in the sense intended by European integration. Rather, it was linked with a “cultural” fundamentalism and still coincided to a large extent with the ideas coming from the ethnic federalists. The concept was viewed first of all as a model for “national liberation.” Issues of democracy and peaceful cohabitation, or of collaboration among language groups in a multicultural perspective, were not addressed. Rather, the theoreticians of the institutionalized European region were oriented to the tribal concept of “Gemeinschaft.” Proponents of this school wanted to exclude the Trentino, or at any rate expressed strong reservations about including it (Pahl 167). 12

The “velvet” reunification of Tyrol should be realized through the construction of a crossborder Euro-region, the likes of which already exist in other EU countries. This model provides for bi- as well as multilateral inter-regional cooperation along state borders both within and at the peripheries of the EU. Apart from contributing to resolving economic problems of border areas, it allows for former cultural and economic communities to reconnect once again. Regions that developed such projects aim at overcoming state borders in order to better cooperate on social, economic, and ecologic levels, as well as in terms of infrastructure and culture.

A pioneering role was played by the regions along the German-Dutch-Belgian borders, where since 1958, five regions have pursued intensive cross-border cooperation (Hrbek/Weyand 1994). In contrast to the informal models of cross-border cooperation, the Institutionalists aimed at adopting a particular status that permits the establishment of the core for a future sovereign body. In order to dispel misgivings about an ethno-national construction, not only North and South Tyrol, but also the Trentino was at last to be included.

In the face of constitutional reservations raised by the governments of Vienna and Rome, North and South Tyrol as well as the Trentino did not consider the moment appropriate to launch the European region as a public body with its own legal status, despite the fact that all the preparations for this had already been made.

In the course of this debate on institutionalization, political bodies, such as the Greens, the Democrats of the Left, and protagonists of civil society, all of whom advocated the secular concept of “Gesellschaft” against the tribal “Gemeinschaft” ideology, increasingly entered the center-stage (Green Alternative Parliamentary Faction, 1998). In particular, with regards to the model of institutionalization, the danger of “border revisionism” was highlighted. As warning examples, the cross-border European regions between Germany and Poland and the Czech Republic were pointed out, which – being based on ethno-regional concepts – aimed at facilitating Germany’s penetration into formerly German areas that had been lost in 1945 (Goldenbach/Minow 1994; 1997). The idea of applying such a model also to North and South Tyrol is, after all, openly addressed among right-wing conservatives (Hatzenbichler/Mölzer 1993; Watschinger 1997).

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In opposition to such ethnocentric notions, those who resisted the national, nationalist and “völkisch” logic, promoted the multilingual and interethnic concept of a European region (Steurer 1996). According to this concept, cross-border regions are to be considered on the basis of the EU integration policies, and should thus be gauged by their capacity to overcome nationalism. From the point of view of these “cultural” Pragmatists, a European region will only have a realistic chance if it is free from the suspicion of becoming exploited for ethnonationalist purposes (Pelinka 1996).

After the failure to come up with a formal institutionalization of the European Region of Tyrol, the governments of the Trentino and Tyrol and the parliament of South Tyrol in 1998 adopted the “Agreement on the cross-border cooperation in the framework of a European region between the Autonomous Province of Bolzano-South Tyrol, the Autonomous Province of Trento and the Federal State of Tyrol.” This agreement is based on the general accord between the Republic of Austria and the Italian Republic on cross-border cooperation between regional administrative bodies, which was signed in Vienna in 1993 (Palermo/Wölk 2003, 389).

The text of the Agreement states, among other things: “The parties to the present agreement will promote and realize initiatives for cross-border and inter-regional cooperation, also in the framework of EU programs. To this end, they will create appropriate legal and operative forms of organizations which will reliably guarantee a well-organized, expedient, rapid, and cost-effective cooperation.” Henceforth, in areas of common interest, settlements were to be reached through an exchange of information, consultations, and consensual decision-making. These formulations point to the new and rather pragmatic character of the European Region of Tyrol. It reflects a political turn of tides that, alongside the political framework on the European level, also originated in a change in attitudes of the civil society, which in a poll taken in the three regions declared itself in favor merely of a functional cooperation, that is, of one that would not be driven by any historical or political agenda (Nick/Pallaver 1998). Support for such a construction was not general, however. The need to reunite North and South Tyrol, let alone the Trentino, virtually disappeared amongst the civil society a long time ago. Every poll taken on this matter since 1960 indicates that only a small minority would still favor reunification (Pallaver 2004). Eighty years of the Brenner border have led to a kind of neighborly normality between North and South Tyrol which, combined with the European

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process of integration, has relieved the issue of territorial separation from any risk of nationalist explosion (Nick/Pallaver 1998, 38).

Starting in 1996, a process of “normalization” and pragmatic cooperation between the three regions has thus set in. Their representatives now share an office in Brussels and, competing against other regional spaces, aim at covering policy issues in which they have common interests.

6. Re-Territorializing through Social Transactions

The rapprochement of the three regions thus did not come about by reverting to the common history, but by functionally needing to solve common problems, above all also with less capital-intensive expenditure (for example, the construction of the Brenner tunnel, the protection of the environment, road and railway circulation, common cultural initiatives, etc.), as well as through common interest representation vis-à-vis the respective nation-states and the European Union.

In conclusion, this normalization and intensification of the relationships among the regions in various states, the overcoming of borders and the emergence of new regional (economic) areas can be interpreted from several angles, which ultimately intertwine. An important aspect was surely the European integration process, which gradually dismantled the borders among the EU member states and which, aside from the already existing free circulation of commodities, as a result of the Schengen Treaty also introduced the free circulation of people. National borders thus lost much of their separating function. The reduction of legal barriers between states has thus led to the possibility for new flows of social transaction to develop in various regions as well as between them.

Almost forty years ago, Karl W. Deutsch pointed to this phenomenon as he attempted to explain, through a functionalist approach, the intensification and increasing compactness of relationships within a certain area. Deutsch presumed that borders are not simple, arbitrarily drawn lines; rather, he locates them in places where “a drop in the frequency of the flow of a social transaction” can be found. The more variegated and intense such transactions are within a given territory, be they of an economic nature, human relations, or the exchange of 15

information, the more homogenous and solid such a territory will in all likelihood turn out to be (Deutsch 1972, 97). The zones where these social transactions, like longitudinal waves, tend to fade out also mark the borders of the territory. Deutsch lists a number of structural elements of such transactions, which essentially determine a regional integration and go beyond the basic premises of variety. According to his criteria, transactions must be consistent, compatible, rapid, and significant. Moreover, transactions tend to increase when they are connected with certain rewards. However much common experiences in the past may have an integrative effect, it is after all certain expectations for the future, which are connected to such transactions, that constitute an essential factor in dismantling borders or in defining the extension of a region. For such integration, additional prerequisites are necessary, according to Deutsch, such as the compatibility of fundamental values, the predictability of behavior, the continuity of certain unbroken links of social communication, the readiness of elites to expand, and human mobility (ibid.).

Such a development of new flows of transaction can be observed within the European Region of Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino. Today, after the failure of the institutional “top down” setup, the large majority of cross-border activities is pragmatic in character and corresponds to a “bottom up” approach. One indication is the abovementioned 1998 “Agreement on the cross-border cooperation in the framework of a European region” between the three regions, which expressly distanced itself from earlier projects and at the same time translated the 1993 general accord between Austria and Italy into more concrete measures (Palermo/Wölk 2003, 274). The mentioned 2001 “Manifesto of the Alps” is another example which, as a declaration of intent by the three regions, points to common policies in areas such as agriculture, tourism, economic growth, transportation and infrastructure, education, science and culture, and the common use of European funding. Current cooperation includes also a number of Interreg programs.

New opportunities for “soft law” cooperation might ensue from Italy’s signing (2000) of the second appended protocol to the Madrid Convention. The relinquishing of ideological reservations against cross-border cooperation by the central governments also corresponds to the approval of common organisms to realize common projects on the part of the European Commission. As yet, these organisms for the realization of Interreg projects are still facing obstacles, insofar as the Interreg III initiative currently concerns only Tyrol and South Tyrol, not the Trentino. Legal possibilities for expanding these programs to bordering areas exist, 16

however. This could be a starting point for the creation of cross-border institutions as legal entities possessing decision-making powers of their own, a possibility that will depend on the ratification of the appended protocol to the Madrid Convention, in the course of which it is quite possible that substantial restrictions will be introduced. Moreover, a new AustrianItalian agreement will probably be necessary subsequent to the ratification. All of these potential projects clearly require much time to materialize. An additional difficulty is that there is until now no experience on how to handle such institutions (Palermo/Woelk 2003, 275-79).

Altogether it can at any rate be affirmed that the social transactions in the three regions have greatly intensified. Currently, the economic emphasis is on the transfer of science and technology, support for small and middle-sized companies through common marketing and employee-training programs, the creation of a European Technology Fund to support industrial production, the promotion of trades and crafts, a further opening and incentives for the cross-border job market, the improvement of agrarian structures, and the development of model programs for safeguarding the Alpine habitat and biosphere. Various agreements (1998: Resolution of the three regional parliaments on economic, social and cultural cooperation; 2001: Alps Declaration) declare the support of the framework accords for a selfdetermined sustainable economic and ecological development to be the most important goal of a European region (Eberharter 2004, 180-181).

For some time the cooperation has been functional and flexible as to the territorial issue – the terms “functional” and “flexible” pointing to the fact that in a European multi-level system, the complexity of policy areas requires forms of “governance” based on a division of tasks and on cooperation, and ways of administrating not geared to institutions but to activities in which representatives of varying sectors and levels (state, regions, companies, associations, interest groups, civil society, etc.) work together to elaborate solutions. Geographic flexibility means that the cooperation is not inevitably restricted to the three regions, but that depending on the situation and issue at hand, neighboring areas of the Alpine region, on a case-to-case basis, should also be included.

To summerize, we may once again provide an answer to the initial propositions:

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•

Regionalism in Europe has led to an internal re-territorialization of the political space, which in its functional dynamics does not stop at state borders.

•

In this context, new political spaces may emerge, whose borders do not depend on historical contexts but on the intensity of social transactions.

•

This in turn indicates that there are neither borders nor regional political spaces that would be predetermined “by nature,” as it were. Borders, just as much as political spaces, are social constructions.

•

The historical development of the European Region of Tyrol – South Tyrol – Trentino provides a good example for this: how borders are drawn politically, how geographic spaces may take on new shapes, how (European) regions cannot be decreed “top down” but require “bottom up” political legitimacy, and finally how regional spaces and their borders – beyond their historical contexts – are determined by flows of social transactions that over time may well change again or, depending on the policy area in question, geographically expand or retreat.

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