EU cooperation with the neighbouring countries has long been an important issue for the European Union. The rise of the regional integration in America (Nafta) and namely in Eastern Asia ("Asean Plus Three"), the Arab Spring and the European need for new markets since the beginning of the financial crisis, have made this issue still more relevant.
The key objective of the ESPON ITAN project (Integrated Territorial Analysis of the Neighbourhoods) is to contribute to increasing the macro-regional knowledge of the European neighbourhoods with the expressed need for a multi-level understanding of territorial cohesion. The project will thus present the basic regional socio-economic status and development trends based on statistics at various levels for the European neighbours and clarify on which territorial level actions can be taken to support a successful implementation of territorial neighbourhood policy. It also focuses on the territorial structures, flows, cross-border cooperation patterns, and policy to understand each neighbourhood: Mediterranean, South-East and North-East. As such the one of the goals of the project is to build a robust and long-term data base on the European Neighbour Regions. Particular focus will be put on case studies.
Nordregio is responsible for WP3 on the North and Northeastern Neighbourhoods in terms of both data gathering and case studies.