The term regional scope in the context of economic cooperation or integration organisations does not refer to a strictly geographical understanding of the concept of region. Instead, it encompasses a much more diffuse and tenuous concept that has been the subject of extensive debate among scholars specialising in comparative regionalism over several decades. Given the current state of research and the blurring effects of globalisation on this point, it seems appropriate to reconsider, at least as a hypothesis, whether the regional, as a criterion, is still useful and necessary in its current understanding to define the phenomena of cooperation and integration. It appears to be becoming increasingly superfluous, unless its interpretation is substantially modified on a case-by-case basis.