Competitiveness in sustainability: the territorial dimension in the implementation of Lisbon/Gothenburg processes in Italian regions and provinces

2000 and 2001 were years when substantial pressures for political-institutional changes were focused to define a new approach to territorial economics’ development. The hypotheses of the European strategic intervention deriving from the «Declarations» of Lisbon 2000 (reviewed in 2003 and 2005, 2007, 2009) and Gothenburg 2001, were joined in Italy by the administrative structure changes due to the reforms of the 90ies, summarised in the «Consolidated Law» of the Local Authorities (D.lgs. 267/2000). Guidelines, approaches, proposals and initiatives, different and sometimes conflicting, identify the Provincial (district) level as subsidiary of the ever closer relationship between spatial dimension and programming responsibilities in matter of organization and government of the territory, economy, society, environment. In this first dynamic and transitional stage, responsible subjects not always had the capability and strength to face the problem of available instruments, to anticipate and adapt to the rapid changes defined by the Lisbon and Gothenburg strategies, by enriching the offer with competitive and sustainable solutions to the real demand, in line with cultural changes and the new planning principles that were stated in those years. This has come to concretely exclude, in our country, all provincial organisational and planning choices from the role and competence that EU asks to be done, specifically with regard to the regulation of economic-territorial competitive development, thus negatively affecting upon changes introduced by the «Reforms» of the Title V of the Constitution 1/1999 and 3/2001, 131/2003. The results of the trans-national research projects promoted between 2000 and 2006 by the European Spatial Program Observatory Network (ESPON) , and specifically by the one titled The territorial dimension of Lisbon/Gothenburg strategies , gave substance to this thesis and defined common policies and criteria on which to simultaneously develop (within 2020) an economy based on a competitive (Lisbon) and sustainable (Gothenburg) knowledge, in all countries, regions and provinces of the European Union, elaborating a new methodology and applying new measure indicators. All international and national debates arising from this experience led to apply the new criteria to the analysis of Italian provinces, to face the theme of Competitiveness in sustainability: the territorial dimension putting into effects Lisbon/Gothenburg processes in Italian regions and provinces, through the use of an international scientific system that is innovative in terms of geographical “practice”. Such system was adopted by the workgroups promoted by the Italian Geographers Association (A.Ge.I.). GEOTEMA receives a summary of the wider contribution resulted in two years of effort (2007-2008), with the active and enthusiastic participation of (mostly young) colleagues from several universities and non-geographical disciplines such as statistics and political economics . Working group meetings made possible to measure many skills, many themes, the many suggestions that the geographical-economic research is able to catalyze. Among them, there is the always more concrete theme of federalism, which can’t omit to consider the provincial territory as a central place of European subsidiarity. The matter, addressed directly in all its complexity, make it possible to formulate a clear project proposal, with an evident strong innovative component through methodology (STeMA for TIA) and the tools used to manage data (TIA GIS) as well. With this initiative and with the help of A.Ge.I, research coordinators became promoters of a possible educational model for those young people that want to study geography with a critical and proactive approach, asking all of them to discuss a theme on the basis of shared principles and tools of the unified European culture. By a quick look at the different contributions of this publication, a certainty, sometimes a concern, seems to surface: that the regional and provincial organisation model, not a solution to the global economic competition yet, is not always able to give positive answers to the demand of integration and cooperation between territories, identities and citizens. Nevertheless all our country's regionalisms are not so different from those of Europe, always a summary of diversities, and therefore always a positive concentration of different potentialities for a sustainable and competitive development. The A.Ge.I. research endorsed territorial diversity as its own relational good, focusing on it both an hypothesis of fundamental values that goes beyond the mere institutional organisation with which to manage economic and territorial development, and all needed ordinary and extra-ordinary actions for its practical application. A useful example could be the choice to make sustainability a shared principle for a long-duration competitive development; a choice often declared and proposed by important public documents, but not always applied. Through this research we want to contribute to move beyond the now-recognized principles of subsidiarity and equalization, at the foundation of the Italian federalist question. In fact, the province analysis added values that nowadays move our generation in all choices we are going to take in favour of our country, so that it will be clear what and by what means we can pass on to future generations, and so that they will not lose the thread that binds them to the historical moment of transition and transformation that we are now, not without difficulty, facing. The team work wanted to reflect and choose on this matter with an approach more complex, articulated and inter-disciplinary, than the many compartment hypotheses that were coldly planned in the past; to better meet a political inter-generational challenge which has a great ethic and social weight. This challenge has positively and originally interpreted all European contributions and all 2000-2006 experiences, thus achieving a political-institutional model offer that catches the real demand of citizens, the first actors of this change. At the same time it also detects everybody's need, economic and political forces too, to re-establish a dialogue, with appropriate rules for development needs and demands, then recalling new determinants. In this vision, the province is the main voice of a new role, instead of the region: territorial programming. It is also the best expression of a new governance, to be considered as a social cohesive instrument, rather than a regulation tool, as testified by achieved results.