Transnational governance, within a European Union framework, is both a subset of governance in general and an application of it to situations outside its usual limits of corporate or governmental hierarchies, whether regional or national. When such disparate hierarchies within the EU find common goals, typically within a conterminous geographic area, they seek to achieve them by integrating their various policies and activities. The goals of transnational governance, especially for areas previously divided by the Iron Curtain or pre-EU barriers to free trade and movement of peoples, is to foster economic and social development.