Regional Development in the EU borders'' area: the EU regional policy experience for Ukraine

The value of regional development policy for today’s Europe, being in the process of further integration, cannot be overestimated. Regional processes tend to become an integral part of the all-European growth and establishment of favourable conditions for economic integration. The regions thereto become sub-national political-territorial units of regionalization in the European integration process. To our belief, the above mentioned factors conceptualize the functioning of ‘young’ European regions and regional associations, being constructed around specific regional interests and deriving from the socio-political ‘bottom’. Thus, the concept of ‘Europe with the regions’ promotes development of a new regional reality, less idealistic and corresponding to a strategic rationale – economic and (geo-)political independence of the regions. The relevance of the comparative discussion of regional development and policy experience in EU eastern borders’ area is hereby conditioned by the growing influence of the integration processes, taking place in the EU, on the development of the cross-border regions, belonging to the post-socialist states (with Ukraine among them). In recent years, the border regions (powers) of western Ukraine proclaim to become active participants of cooperation programs between Ukraine and the EU in the sphere of cross-border integration. Herewith, we may look at Euro-regions as those, playing the role of certain integration models between Ukraine and European Union on the regional level, might not we? Taking into consideration the state and regional management experience of the EU and its member-states in the field of regional policy, we can profoundly think about new perspectives of regional development for Ukraine.