The EU Regional Policy: Distribution, Cohesion and the New 2020 Strategy for Growth

Abstract

Many experts have made an argument in recent months that EU money should be pumped into so-called "sectorial" funds – research, innovation, biotech, green energy solutions – rather than using the more traditional method of regional funding. The goal of European regional policy, from its first demarcation, is essentially to reduce the gap between the development levels of the various regions via so-called economic and social cohesion: an objective more important today than it was in the 90s, because of the Europeanization and the need for integration of new member states. Cohesion policy for the 2007-2013 period accounted for approximately a third of the total EU budget. Despite the need for certain improvements, the European Commission retains an "added value" that national governments lack in distributing EU regional funding, but many questions remain open: will regional policy maintain its overall chunk of the EU budget? Will it serve as one of the primary vehicles for achieving the 'Europe 2020' strategy for growth? And finally, who will ultimately distribute the money in order to achieve its objectives? This panel aims to discuss these open questions, welcoming contributions treating different regions both with a descriptive and a comparative perspective in this field of EU domestic policy.

Title	Details
From Regional to Cohesion Policy and Further: Intergovernmental Bargaining and a New Policy Network Leading to the PEACE Package in Northern Ireland	View Paper Details
Is There Trade-off Between Stakeholders? Adoption of Regional Advisory Councils’ Recommendations by the Commission	View Paper Details
Metagoverning Strategic Regionalism - Sub-national Authorities in the Macro-Region Alps	View Paper Details