From Stockholm To Hamburg: Do the Actors involved have the same Corridor in Mind?

Abstract: In the course of the European Commission’s aim at planning for economic territorial cohesion, an increased accessibility of the European regions and a strengthening of the regions’ competitiveness, focus have been drawn on the improvement of infrastructure for transport. This research deals with what can be seen as a pre-discourse in the front end of a planning process for a future transport corridor between the cities of Hamburg and Stockholm, during which the actors are positioning themselves. This is done by a qualitative analysis of selected policy documents from the national, regional and municipal level in Sweden, Denmark and Germany and the European commission. The results indicate that the actors involved interpret the concept of a transport corridor in various ways, since the policy documents that have been analysed for this research reveal possible inherent conflicts. The most considerable differences can be seen between the authorities on the national level on the one hand and the authorities on the regional and municipal level on the other. However, the location of a municipality or region does also influence their interpretation of a future transport corridor.