The Reform of European Regional Policy: Underlying Debates

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the key issues associated with the process of reform of European Regional policy for the next programming period 2007–2013. Future European Union (EU) Cohesion policy will be the result of three intertwined debates — the reform of the Cohesion policy itself, the next Financial Perspective 2007-2013, and the EU Constitutional Treaty — in the context of both enlargement, which has doubled the gap between European regions, and slow progress of the EU in meeting the goals of growth and competitiveness set up by the Lisbon Agenda. Even though the debate points to the necessity of reforming especially Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the EU Cohesion policy, in order to ensure efficient operations in an enlarged EU, it needs to be stressed that, to a great extent, the motor of reform has come from financial concerns. Future Cohesion policy will increasingly be concentrated in promoting growth and job creation in the less favoured regions of the less favoured countries of the Union, which means a shifting of resources from the less favoured regions and countries of the EU-15 to the new Member States.