THE REASONS AND STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH

Facing the hypotheses of political-strategic intervention derived from the «Declarations» of Lisbon (2000, 2003, 2005, 2007) and Gothenburg (2001), countries and regions in the enlarged EU have reacted differently, offering many possible interpretations to the concepts of competitiveness and sustainability, and so reviewing critical literature (Cf. chap.4). Italian regions and provinces are no exception: the first ones through addresses and policy measures related to Operational and Programming Documents, the second ones through budgets and focused PEG, beyond the general, but not always convincing, adoption of a prospect of change and innovation resulting from the "required" transition towards a competitive knowledge-based economy, in order to generate employment, growth and social cohesion, in respect of the environmental issues. How necessary was a common European economic policy for employment and environment, and how necessary was to monitor its performance by use of (not only structural) common indicators, are topics which are only now beginning to discuss. Between 2000 and 2006, the need of «strong reforms» to be brought to sectors traditionally open to competitiveness, coupled with limited financial resources available in the countries after enlargement, pushed the EU to confirm traditional structural directions, side by side with integrated strategies (contrast to unemployment and the widening gap in global trade, education, research and development), concentrating national and regional investments in three fields: networks and quality knowledge; industries and services competitiveness through environmental technologies; contrast to the ageing of the workforce, so to enable them to stay longer in the labour market and thus lower the cost of welfare. A still positive (though slightly so) economic trend between 2004 and 2006 had convinced our country to postpone investments in sustainable public policies aimed at combating climate change, risks to public health, poverty and social exclusion, depletion of natural resources, pollution, traffic congestion and land use. Emergency measures undertaken by the European Commission after 2005 – then followed by the latest anti-crisis initiatives – aimed to granting present and future generations a clear improvement in quality of life, do not affect the spatial (provincial) planning of Italian regions and do not take on the perspective review of Structural Funds and the major policies (including the new PAC). Between 2004 and 2007 the Operational Documents and Programs of many Italian regions, in an attempt to combine simultaneously the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives, focused on the interaction of policy choices and concluded that: growth and development are not converging objectives; an overall strategy for regional competitiveness can be effective only if independent from the environmental dimension, assessing the relative territorial scope only in social and economic terms; sustainability on a global scale (climate change, public health, biodiversity, accessibility) implies a change of macro and microeconomic behaviour. Given the results achieved on this subject in Europe (Prezioso, 2007), the research participants were asked to apply, in a practical and operational way, to regions and large provincial areas the experimented methodology for the integration of the Lisbon/Gothenburg strategy, following a precise working method (SteMA), in order to select, among the many policy options provided, the most appropriate according to the reference regional potentials, avoiding diseconomies of congestion and excessive generalizations. These tasks had to be performed with a view to equitable and balanced distribution of regional capital and support of the choices of political coordination in matter of competitiveness and sustainability, defined by the EU with the use of preventive Impact Assessment (Dir. CE/42/2001 and CE, June 2005)