Modelling European regional scenarios: aggressive versus defensive competitive strategies

The aim of the paper is to tackle the question of what the European territory will look like over the next fifteen years by providing quali – quantitative territorial scenarios for an enlarged Europe, under different assumptions about the future direction in which the driving forces affecting development will move. Based on an econometric model, called MASST, two scenarios are built on the bases of alternative strategies put in place by the EU 15, the New 12, and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, on which alternative behavioural patterns in the driving forces of change depend. The scenarios presented are not policy scenarios: a more general approach is chosen, and more general issues of external competitiveness and global confrontation are emphasised and placed in the forefront of reflection, in an endeavour to define, through the use of the MASST simulation model, their likely impact on territorial trends, regional convergence, and general economic performance. Major determinants of territorial trends are attributed to the competitive game between the three above-mentioned blocks of countries. The model is able to provide the simulations for twenty-seven countries (the ‘Old 15’ EU members and the ‘New 12’ Eastern EU members) and for their 259 regions of GDP and population in 2015 in the two scenarios.