Despite the fact that spatial planning forms one of the key constituents of territorial politics, territory and territoriality have been largely neglected in the studies of European spatial planning. This article seeks to address this shortcoming by considering spatial planning through the recent research on territories and territorial politics in political geography. The article suggests that European spatial planning ought to be conceptualized as a political technology of territory of the European Union, whose effectiveness is not dependent on the acquisition of formal policy status but stems from its capacity to fuse populations and geographical areas into manageable entities, from its reputation as apolitical management of space as well as from its resonance with current political tastes.