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The SER endorses the following four national spatial planning policy objectives as identified in the policy document: (i) reinforcing the competitive advantage of the Netherlands; (ii) stimulating strong cities and a thriving countryside (iii) maintaining and developing important national and international spatial planning principles; and (iv) ensuring public safety in general.

The barriers to the international mobility of goods, factors and ideas have been steadily falling. This is fostering the creation of a global market for goods, factors and ideas. The central questions addressed in this paper are whether and how these globalization phenomena can be expected to change the geographical distribution of economic activities in the case of Finland.The foregoing questions are tackled from the specific point of view of "new economic geography", an approach to economic geography firmly grounded on recent developments in mainstream industrial organization and international trade theory. The theoretical predictions of new economic geography are critically assessed in the case of Finland by investigating the forces that have driven regional economic performance during the last decades.

To clarify Finland's choices, the essay first situates the present Digital Era in historical perspective. It then considers the changing problem of Value Creation in a Digital and Global Era. The "global" and the "digital" constantly shift the levers of advantage. Company internal functions become products, products become commodities, and the sources of differentiation for products and process are constantly evolving. Traditional tools of strategy and policy analysis will not suffice. The analysis leads to the roles of experimentation in corporate and national adaptation. Companies will have to look at their initiatives as experiments, attempts to find their way through a maze of uncertainty. Company responses must be considered experiments in the face of quite fundamental uncertainty. Each effort and each effort of a competitor must be culled and systematically assessed for lessons in an ever-evolving competition. Governments must consider what it will require an Experimental Economy, an environment for firms alone and in networks or clusters to experiment effectively. Finally the paper considers the implications of the emerging digital era for Finland. Finland's traditional strengths may not be enough. For Finland to sustain its growth, innovative globally competitive firms must emerge from outside the forest products and telecom sectors. But there are not going to be any silver bullets.

The structure of land tenure in Spain derives from legislation of which the chief mile-stone is Law 83/1980 of 31 December, which replaced a law passed in 1935 and adapted the rules on farm leases to two new realities: the passing of Spain?s 1978 Con-stitution and Spain?s subsequent accession to the European Union.The 1980 Law was repealed by Law 49/2003 of 26 November on farm leases which, according to its preamble, sought to make the existing rules on farm leases more flexi-ble and dynamic. But its passage through Parliament revealed the opposing positions in respect of the minimum duration of contracts and the disappearance of the right of pre-emption, along with professional farmers? poor opinion of it ? aspects covered in the draft bill with which the Opinion deals.The Council made a thorough analysis of the figure of professional farmer included in the draft bill. Although the Council questions whether this bill is the appropriate vehicle for introducing such a definition, since the bill refers only to farm leases, it judges that, if Parliament sees fit to include this figure in the bill?s text, it should be defined pursu-ant to what is provided in Law 19/1995 of 4 July, which defines the figure without re-gard to the sphere in which it is to be used.The definition of the figure of professional farmer should also include references to farming cooperatives, community land-working cooperatives and agricultural transfor-mation companies. The definition should also include community of property in respect of community members engaged in farming, and, where applicable, complementary activities in the rural environment.As regards the duration of leases, the Council unanimously welcomes the extension of the minimum period specified in the draft bill, from three to five years. But it notes that the specific duration should be in line with the provisions of the various structural measures and programmes affecting the sector.The Council assesses positively the recovery of the rights of pre-emption and preferen-tial acquisition in favour of the tenant, in keeping with the multifunctionality advocated by the CAP in farming activity. For these purposes the bill re-establishes the provisions of Law 83/1980 of 31 December, but not in their entirety. It would be advisable, as far as legislative technique is concerned, to transfer the text of the aforesaid law in its en-tirety.The Council also welcomes the requirement of written form for contracts made as from the Law?s entry into force.Given the widespread practice of making verbal contracts, for all contracts entered into before that date, the Council favours the presumption of the existence of a lease, in the absence of proof to the contrary, which would give improved protection to tenants. Finally, the Council judges that the effects of that presumption should not affect the rental amount. In this respect it notes that the updating of rental prices should be in line with the changes in the prices actually received by farmers, as was provided in article 38 of Law 83/1980 of 31 December, and, secondarily, with the retail price index.The organization ASAJA announced at the plenary session that it would submit a dis-senting Opinion.

In the opinion of the CCA, there is every reason to improve law enforcement at both national and European level with respect to cross-border infringements of consumer laws. Closer cooperation between the Member States? various enforcement authorities may well lead to a higher level of consumer protection. Although the CCA believes that the European Commission has not provided sufficient arguments to support its proposal, it does not wish to see any delay in the Regulation. There is a need in the Netherlands for a public enforcement authority with the necessary powers, and further postponement would therefore not be desirable.