Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the framework of the EU cohesion policy 2014-2020 with respect to its potential to secure not only the resources necessary for climate action in EU regions but also an integrated climate adaptation approach. It also examines the prospects for Greek regions with respect to climate adaptation.

Using the regional policy approach as it is generally formulated and applied in the context of the EU cohesion policy, this paper seeks to identify the policy objectives, the funding opportunities and the conditionalities for climate adaptation action. It also examines the above-mentioned elements for Greek regions.

The context of the EU cohesion policy constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition for developing and implementing successful regional adaptation strategies. The process and content of regional policies are of significant importance in order for this context to be fully exploited.

Since this is the first time that climate adaptation at the regional level is directly addressed by cohesion policy, there is not much evidence on this issue, at least for Greek regions.

The approach followed in this paper may constitute a useful contribution to the formulation of regional adaptation strategies. This is of particular importance as climate adaptation, together with risk prevention, is one of the key thematic objectives of the EU cohesion policy 2014-2020.

This paper makes an original contribution by introducing and explaining a new challenging issue for the regional policies agenda, namely, the climate adaptation strategy, and stresses the need for a comprehensive approach to it, especially for Greek regions.

The chapter provides a radiography of the 2014–2020 Cohesion Policy, focusing on both main continuity and innovation elements (in terms of objectives, implementation rules and financial allocations) and on some of the likely effects of the current rules on the new European Union (EU) non-euro member countries. The closer link between EU funds and EU economic governance, which has been introduced in the current financial period, has the potential to influence negatively the evolution of the EU regional development disparities, especially in the EU eastern periphery. These new conditionalities (ex-ante and macroeconomic), whose main effects, in the case of non-compliance, would be the suspension of EU funds, might deteriorate even more the economic situation, particularly in those regions with the greatest needs in terms of infrastructure or administrative capacity. The Romanian case is particularly relevant for this debate.

The unequal distribution of economic activities, transposed in economic, social and territorial disparities is the general characteristic of the European economy. Gaps increased in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe and of the economic crisis, thus bringing new differentiations among member states’ economies. The main aim of the chapter is to emphasise the centre-periphery differentiations in the European economy, by using a composite index of peripherality, in order to better understand the determinants of growth and convergence in Central and Eastern European countries and to reach normative conclusions for increasing Cohesion Policy (CP) effectiveness. The first part of the chapter provides a short overview of the main theories and models of the peripherality analysis and the relationships between the centre and the periphery, in order to find out how this analysis relates to the research in the field. The second part provides a comparative analysis of the evolution of European economies during 2003–2014, in order to find out whether the EU enlargement process stabilised the EU core-periphery pattern or, on the contrary, the process of core-periphery structural convergence occurred. The third part includes the suggested model of analysis (methodology, data, and main results) from a multidisciplinary perspective, underlining the centre-periphery differentiations on the two axes, North–South and West–East. The results have been interpreted in conclusions, with a focus on their relevance for the European CP challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse income inequality for a sample of 14 European countries and their composite regions using data from the Cambridge Econometrics regional dataset from 1980 to 2009. The purpose of the paper is to provide insight into the dynamics of regional and national cohesion among the EU‐14 countries studied.

Initially, inequality is decomposed using the Theil coefficient into between and within country inequality to assess the extent to which convergence has occurred. To investigate the underlying causes of the changes in inequality, the Theil coefficient is further decomposed to assess the contribution of productivity and employment‐population ratio differentials to inequality.

The results indicate that while between‐country inequality has declined, within‐country inequality has increased by approximately 50 percent. Subsequent decomposition indicates that while productivity levels among regions have converged, the employment‐population ratios have diverged substantially driving increasing levels of inequality. This suggests that while EU cohesion policies have reduced productivity inequalities they have had little effect in stimulating convergence of employment‐population ratios across regions.

The paper argues that national priorities, particularly in the context of the current European economic crisis, are likely to hinder European Union level policies to reduce income inequality at a regional level. This may result in further increases in regional inequality among European regions.

This paper's main contribution is to highlight how national convergence can lead to regional divergence being overlooked. The value of the paper is that it provides policy insights, based on empirical evidence, for European cohesion policy.

This paper aims to analyse the competitiveness of the regions of the Visegrad countries (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) with respect to their sustainability and discuss the role of the EU cohesion policy in promoting regional competitiveness in this dimension.

The sustainable competitiveness of Visegrad Group countries was analysed with the use of a taxonomic method, to determine the regions with the highest, middle and low level of the sustainable development (competitiveness). The level of sustainable competitiveness of the Visegrad regions was indicated based on the author’s own set of diagnostic variables which define three dimensions of sustainability.

The analysis revealed that the regions of the Visegrad Group countries with high GDP per capita are not necessarily ranked high in terms of sustainable competitiveness. The obtained results confirm the assumption that traditional indicators such as GDP per capita do not capture all aspects of social and environmental sustainability. Thus, the cohesion policy in the Visegrad Group countries should be diversified and adjusted to the special needs of the regions with particular emphasis being laid on sustainability dimension and the level of their economic development. When identifying the directions of support under the cohesion policy, special attention should be paid to the development of modern technologies, including information and communication technology (ICT), that facilitate the transformation of regions towards the smart regions path.

Because of the data availability, it covers only one year, 2014, where it was possible. Further investigation should focus on the comparison of the changes over a certain period and changes that took place in the ranking. In addition, a detailed analysis of the regions with regard to their development of the “sustainable path” should be considered. It is essential to support less developed regions in the field of the sustainable and inclusive development through cohesion policy which is supported in 2014-2020. However, it is also important to promote the ICT investment in the lagging regions.

The analysed 35 regions of the Visegrad countries were ranked according to their level of sustainable competitiveness. The three groups of regions were distinguished. The first place in the ranking was occupied by the region which recorded the highest value of the TMC – a taxonomic measure of sustainable competitiveness and the last region – it is the region with the lowest value of the TMC.

The paper discusses the concept of sustainable competitiveness of regions. The level of sustainable competitiveness of the Visegrad regions was indicated based on the own set of diagnostic variables which define three dimensions of sustainability. The paper makes a contribution to the discussion on the regional smart and sustainable competitiveness and the role of EU cohesion policy in supporting the sustainable competitiveness.

The last enlargements of the European Union (EU) shifted the geographical focus of the periphery from the south to the east, upgrading the position of many southern European countries and regions, which were already in a process of convergence with the EU average. The current financial/economic crisis, however, which has particularly hit southern European countries, revitalized the traditional core-periphery division, known as the North-South divide. In parallel, the relocation of economic activity (industrial production and services) within the EU territory, from western-core countries to the eastern periphery, raised the competitiveness and economic significance of many areas in the new, vis-a-vis the old, periphery, leading to the emergence of a number of new centres in its metropolitan regions. A number of questions are raised in the context of the above development, such as: Which factors underlie the differences in growth paths and ‘resilience’ between the eastern vis-à-vis the southern periphery? How important has the industrial relocation from the West to the East been? And what has been the general impact of the EU’s Cohesion Policy? What would the implications of a possible further expansion towards the EU’s ‘Eastern Neighbours’ be on its core-periphery pattern? This chapter approaches critically some of the above issues, adopting a qualitative methodology with the use of graphical presentations. In its conclusions, the chapter examines the appropriateness of the new economic geography’s theoretical interpretation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the viewpoints of key stakeholders on the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation for a mechanism to resolve legal and administrative obstacles in cross-border regions. The mechanism known as ECBM, or European Cross-border mechanism, was presented as part of the legislative package for EU Cohesion Policy 2021-2027. The regulation will allow one Member State to apply their legal provision in another Member State for a concretely defined case. This proposal is particularly interesting as it does not give further competence to the European level, but changes how Member States may interact with one another, yet, it raises critiques as regards to its compliance with constitutional, international and European law.

This paper outlines the main elements of contention, which are legal justification, state sovereignty, compliance with the subsidiarity and proportionality principle, thematic and territorial scope, voluntariness and the administrative burden.

The author concludes that the assessment of the voluntariness of the regulation will be crucial in examining the regulations compliance with EU principles and suggests that a more nuanced reading as to which parts of the regulation are voluntary is needed. The author further expects the legal text to change substantial during the legislative procedure, in particular in regard to the thematical scope and the bindingness.

This piece summarises the debate currently held in the European Council and the European Parliament in a structured way to an interested readership. Examining the proposed regulation and the arguments for and against it offers the opportunity to review the main arguments that will be raised in any future debate on legal proposals on territorial development initiatives.

The aim of this article is to investigate how the use of financial instruments influences the development of Regional Development Funds (RFR) in Poland and to assess the maturity and coherence of the regional development financing system in this country.

The methodology is based on the multilevel governance literature and on data collected during 26 in-depth interviews in regional, national and international institutions.

The authors demonstrate that the use of financial instruments stimulates new kinds of cooperation between several institutions and contributes to the establishment of RFR. The authors also show that the Polish regional financing system is still developing and formulate recommendations about necessary improvements.

The main contribution of this article, in addition to taking up a new, relevant topic for the regional development policy in countries benefiting from European Union (EU) cohesion policy, is the application of the multilevel governance (MLG) concept to explain the development of the Polish regional development financing system. Moreover, the significant added value of this study comes from the use of data collected during 26 in-depth interviews (IDI) in regional, national and international institutions on the use of repayable instruments in regional development policy.

In this chapter, the authors discuss how the features of the business landscape affect policies aiming to promote regional development. Regional development policies have been central in the European Union and at the single-country level. Measures taken to promote development in a geographical area, based on the concept of clusters and (national or regional) innovation systems, often fall short of their objectives. That is discussed against the findings on features of the business landscape that emphasise its heterogeneity and the importance of specific couplings within and across geographical areas. Prior Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) research emphasised the importance of firm-specific linkages to places and across places. One consequence is the relatedness of one place with other places, which implies that crossing the (imaginary) boundaries of a place appears to be the essence of business activity. The chapter concludes by highlighting how regional policies can benefit from acknowledging and taking into account firm-specific interdependences.