Economic crisis, Cohesion Policy and the eroding image of the European Union at the regional level

Abstract

As a result of a combination of political and economic crises engulfing the European Union (EU)since 2008 has deteriorated considerably its image among the citizens, undermining its legitimacy and future. Cohesion Policy, providing funding for a variety of investment projects across the European territories that have a direct impact on the lives of the EU citizens, is one the key instruments at the disposal of the EU that could positively influence that image. But does it? The paper probes the extent to which the regional performance in implementation of Cohesion Policy affected the perceptions of the EU before and after the apogee of the economic crisis to shed more light on the capacity of this policy shape the citizens' EU identity across different European regions.

From Cohesion Policy Implementation to European Identity

“…Smętkowski and Dąbrowski () analyse in depth the association between the implementation performance of Cohesion Policy and the support to the EU. While they confirm what found by Brasili et al (), namely, a non‐significant effect of absorption capacity of regions and citizens' positive perception of the EU, they draw a complex picture of the relationship between the extent of funding and EU support.…”

“…Cohesion Policy could be a powerful tool for promoting European identity, if the target of reduction of inequality within the EU is achieved (Aiello et al, ; Capello & Perucca, ; Dąbrowski et al, ). At the same time, however, this is likely to happen only if effective strategies of information, communication and involvement will be developed and implemented (Brasili et al, ; López‐Bazo & Royuela, ; Smętkowski & Dąbrowski, ).…”

When Country Matters More than Europe: What Role for EU Cohesion Policy?

“…Recently, this issue received great attention, witnessed by the funding of two Horizon 2020 projects 6 (Capello and Perucca, 2018;Aiello et al, 2019), aimed at understanding the relationship between Cohesion Policy implementation and citizens' identification with Europe. This stream of research generally pointed out a positive association between EU funding and European identity, subject however to the mediation of several factors, namely the level of awareness and satisfaction with the actions undertaken (Capello and Perucca, 2019), the implementation of effective strategies of information, communication and the involvement of the local population (López-Bazo & Royuela, 2019;Smętkowski & Dąbrowski, 2019). Coherently with this evidence, in the context of this paper Cohesion Policy is expected to decrease the identity gap in favour of national over European identity.…”

Cohesion Policy and the citizens’ perceptions of the EU: the role of communication and implementation

“…Last but not least, we confirmed that the scale of funding also matters. Even though previous research suggested that the relationship between magnitude of funding and support for the EU is not straightforward (see Aiello, Reverberi, and Brasili 2019;Capello and Perucca 2019;Dąbrowski, Stead, and Mashhoodi 2019;Smętkowski and Dąbrowski 2019), the evidence from from stakeholder interviews and focus groups conducted, does suggest that the relatively small allocation of funding to the Dutch regions is hardly noticeable and can only have a limited impact on for positive EU identification. One of its anticipated effects of Cohesion Policy is to foster greater citizen attachment to the EU.…”