Transnational Neoliberalisation and the Role of Supranational Trade Agreements in Local Urban Policy Implementation: The Case of the European Union

Abstract

This chapter aims to display dysfunctional consequences of transnational neoliberalisation in cities where supranational organisations that aim to control and regulate the global trade create interventions in the local policy making. While urban development projects have been widespread throughout Europe since the 1990s, the local governments are confronted with the Single European Market regulations, which are aiming primarily at fair and transparent competition between the member states. These EU regulations create impediments for various forms of cooperation between the public and private stakeholders as they tend to be restrictive and inflexible. Within this general framework, this paper has a particular interest in the local land development dynamics of these projects. Claiming that the nature of the partnerships between public and private parties are strongly affected by the individual land and property market dynamics, which are not taken into consideration by the supranational regulations and agreements, the aim of this paper is to highlight these individual practices and to display the reflections from various urban development experiences in the form of public/private relations to the common European market regulations.