The power of ideas: the territorial dimension of EU Cohesion Policy and its impact on EU multi-level governance.

In the past, EU cohesion policy caused some crucial shifts in European integration, the most important of which was its influence on the emergence and ensuing dynamic of EU multi-level governance (MLG). Its current reform -- the so-called territorial dimension -- is prompting the creation of a new kind of region and thus is significantly influencing relations between the various levels of European governance. European multi-level governance is undergoing a fundamental transformation, which is directed by the European Commission not through hard pressure, but rather through ideas and new storylines. Which of these new regions will 'harden' and become stable actors in European governance, and which, by contrast, will gradually perish, remains an unanswered question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]