Sollte der Rechtsrahmen des Raumordnungsverfahrens weiterentwickelt werden?

The paper starts from the assumption that the legal framework for the spatial plan ning procedure has proved on the whole a success, and was improved in two points by the Spatial Planning Act of 2017. The authors nonetheless believe it necessary to dis- 172 2 5 _ RAUMORDNUNGSVERFAHREN cuss whether and how the legal foundations should be further developed and refined. In this context the paper considers: facilitating assessment of the field of application of spatial planning procedures, the entitlement of the spatial planning authorities to name (their own) alternatives/variants, the possibility of the findings of a procedure being more binding, and the call for a strengthening of the position of regional plan ning agencies in spatial planning procedures. The authors are particularly in favour of increasing the binding effect of the findings of a spatial planning procedure, although it should be possible to put this aside in particular scenarios