The objective of this paper based on the results of the ESPON Project 3.4.1. “Europe in the World” is to explain what the dominant representations of the situation of Europe in the world are actually, and what the consequences of these visions of the world are for European spatial planning. We assume that many political decisions which are apparently related to purely “internal affairs” of European Union, are in fact based on a wider conception of the situation of the world. In other words, our conceptions of European spatial planning are strongly grounded in our mental representations of the world; the fact that we are not clearly conscious of this scalar relation is a real barrier for further progress in political as in scientific fields.
After a brief introduction (part. 1) we will therefore present firstly a brief overview of the three dominant views of the world that are used in Europe (“continent”, “centre-periphery”, “archipelago”), and their implications for European policies and territory – including shortcomings for spatial planning (part 2). Then we give a vision (“North South Regionalism”) that would not imply such shortcomings (part 3). We conclude with some political recommendations for EU internal and external strategies (part 4.)