Spatial Dynamics of European Economic Integration: Prologue

Abstract The process of economic integration within Europe is a highly complex and multi-faceted phenomenon. There is little doubt, however, that the European Community has made persistent efforts to encourage the widening (territorial enlargement) and deepening (increasing the integration of existing member countries) of the integration process. This was true of the first territorial enlargement in the 1970s, and is even more so in the 1980s and 1990s, when the Community decided, ambitiously, to enlarge and deepen at the same time.