The Difficult Construction of the European Union: a Field of Institutional Imagination for the Problems of (Local) Public?

The chapter closes the second part of the book, edited by the author and dedicated to the debate about "Europeanisation: looking Through the process of institutionall change". Taking into considerations, the other chapters in this part of the book, it introduces a new perspective on this topic. While in fact most of the chapters included in this section discuss the contribution that planning can give to the process of construction of European Union, this chapter goes back to institutions, in order to propose a general discussion about the particular nature of polity of EU and the way in which it challenges planning principles and models. It is in fact argued that this specific nature can help planners in questioning planning. The author draws in particular from the exploration of existing literature which, both in EU and USA, looks at EU not as a model, but as an "eventual learning process", in which consolidated models of state, public, institutions and territory are questioned. and therefore planning too.