The Prespa Lakes region, shared by Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia, is a critical ecological hotspot and a classic “internal periphery” of Europe. It sits at the intersection of EU environmental directives, cohesion policy, and enlargement dynamics while remaining economically fragile and institutionally fragmented. This paper uses Prespa as a case to explore how green transition agendas, governance arrangements, and cross‑border cooperation shape who benefits from “sustainability”—and who is left further behind. Theoretically, the paper is grounded in the socio‑spatial dialectic and the idea that space actively produces and reproduces social relations (Harvey 1973; Soja 1989, 2010). It deploys the notion of spatial justice, understood through its distributional, procedural, and recognitional dimensions (Fraser 2008; Soja 2010), to link classical core–periphery thinking and uneven development (Wallerstein 1974; Krugman 1991; Rodríguez‑Pose 2018 on “places that don’t matter”) with debates on inner peripheries and territorial cohesion in Europe (Böhme et al. 2017). Within this framework, Prespa is approached as a laboratory where European environmental, cohesion, and border‑governance agendas intersect with the lived realities of peripheral communities. Empirically, the paper draws on territorial analysis, ecological and land‑use mapping, and a review of more than two decades of cross‑border initiatives under the Prespa Park framework. It shows that environmental and ecological policies have not halted the lake’s degradation, partly due to weak, under‑resourced, and fragmented governance. Economic development incentives in agriculture, tourism, and infrastructure remain unevenly distributed around the lake, reinforcing existing disparities, while local communities—especially in the Albanian municipality of Pustec—are only marginally involved in decision-making on natural resources, tourism, and land use. Building on these findings, the paper proposes a governance‑ and policy‑oriented agenda for a just and regenerative green transition in Prespa that combines strengthened transboundary management, regenerative place‑based economic models, and a pilot approach to community‑centered green transition in Pustec. It argues that the outcomes of a green transition in ecologically sensitive border regions depend critically on the quality of governance, the design of international cooperation, and the extent to which spatial justice is explicitly embedded in policy.
Intersecting Landscapes, Uneven Transitions: Governance, Spatial Justice and Green Development in the Prespa Lakes Borderland
Bejko, Anila
Primo
Writing – Original Draft Preparation
;
2026
Abstract
The Prespa Lakes region, shared by Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia, is a critical ecological hotspot and a classic “internal periphery” of Europe. It sits at the intersection of EU environmental directives, cohesion policy, and enlargement dynamics while remaining economically fragile and institutionally fragmented. This paper uses Prespa as a case to explore how green transition agendas, governance arrangements, and cross‑border cooperation shape who benefits from “sustainability”—and who is left further behind. Theoretically, the paper is grounded in the socio‑spatial dialectic and the idea that space actively produces and reproduces social relations (Harvey 1973; Soja 1989, 2010). It deploys the notion of spatial justice, understood through its distributional, procedural, and recognitional dimensions (Fraser 2008; Soja 2010), to link classical core–periphery thinking and uneven development (Wallerstein 1974; Krugman 1991; Rodríguez‑Pose 2018 on “places that don’t matter”) with debates on inner peripheries and territorial cohesion in Europe (Böhme et al. 2017). Within this framework, Prespa is approached as a laboratory where European environmental, cohesion, and border‑governance agendas intersect with the lived realities of peripheral communities. Empirically, the paper draws on territorial analysis, ecological and land‑use mapping, and a review of more than two decades of cross‑border initiatives under the Prespa Park framework. It shows that environmental and ecological policies have not halted the lake’s degradation, partly due to weak, under‑resourced, and fragmented governance. Economic development incentives in agriculture, tourism, and infrastructure remain unevenly distributed around the lake, reinforcing existing disparities, while local communities—especially in the Albanian municipality of Pustec—are only marginally involved in decision-making on natural resources, tourism, and land use. Building on these findings, the paper proposes a governance‑ and policy‑oriented agenda for a just and regenerative green transition in Prespa that combines strengthened transboundary management, regenerative place‑based economic models, and a pilot approach to community‑centered green transition in Pustec. It argues that the outcomes of a green transition in ecologically sensitive border regions depend critically on the quality of governance, the design of international cooperation, and the extent to which spatial justice is explicitly embedded in policy.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
