The ESPON EGTC has concluded a service contract for the provision of support services to assist European-level institutions implementating ex-ante territorial impact assessments (TIA) of draft policy or legislative proposals. Within the duration of the service contract, the territorial impact assessments will be performed by applying ESPON’s TIA methodology.

The aim of the service contract is to serve the demand from stakeholders via supporting ex-ante territorial impact assessments of new policy or legislative initiatives. Territorial impact assessments implemented under this activity will aim at supporting European-level institutions in developing qualitative legislative and policy proposals. The objective of this activity is to also support the “Do no harm to Cohesion” principle where according to the CoR, for instance, a TIA is one of the cornerstones. The “Do no harm to Cohesion” principle was first introduced in the 8th Cohesion report and is endorsed by the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, the CoR and regional stakeholders (see European Parliament’s background note).

The TIAs object of this service contract will be implemented over the period of 3 years (2024 – 2026) and will consist of 15 - 20 TIAs in total. The main recipients of the ESPON service shall predominantly be the CoR and the European Commission. However, the service will be open to other European-level institutions or networks where conducting a TIA at NUTS 3 scale is feasible, such as INTERREG cross-border and transnational programmes, macro-regions, etc.

A territorial impact assessment will normally examine potential impact on social, economic and territorial cohesion, taking into account the baseline policy questions embedded in the ESPON’s TIA methodology. 

The following questions shall be considered:

• What are the direct and indirect economic, social, environmental and governmental effects and how they occur?
• Does the policy or legislative proposal have an effect on the economic development in territorial terms? In which economic fields?
• Does the policy or legislative proposal have an effect on the people in affected territories? On their living conditions? How and why?
• Does the policy or legislative proposal influence environmental conditions? Which ones? In which way?
• Does the policy/legislative proposal or its implementation affect the territorial governance systems? Why? In which ways?
• Are different types of territories affected differently? Which types of territories are affected in what way?

Expected results

The main outputs of the service shall be (for each territorial impact assessment):

• A set of new data and indicators collected for the TIA.
• Moderation of the TIA expert meeting at the requested venue and date.
• TIA maps produced.
• Any ad hoc analysis, depending on the subject of the TIA, for instance, maps or visualizations.
• A report presenting the process and results of each TIA.

Contractor

ÖIR, Austrian Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Planning (Austria)

Contact
Zintis Hermansons (Research and Policy Manager) [email protected], 
Caroline Clause ( Financial and Budget Manager) [email protected]