Rationale and design of EU cohesion policies in a period of crisis

Abstract

The paper reflects on justifications for, and the proper design of, cohesion policies in a period of deep economic recession. In particular, the paper tackles two important topics. The first concerns the justification for EU regional policies in a period of economic downturn, since they may seem less urgent and appropriate than short term demand policies. Instead, as the paper argues, the crisis exerts considerable pressure on several EU countries, and may even, in the worst case, jeopardize two decades of efforts towards EU enlargement and cohesion. In this circumstance, regional policies are required to rebalance the spatial effects that the ongoing crisis is determining on interregional convergence trends, in strict relationship with some new monetary and fiscal policy tools agreed at the EU level lifting the pressure that present austerity measures are exerting on many, mainly Southern, European countries. The second topic relates to the most appropriate design that cohesion policies should follow, building in a critical way on the results of the robust policy debate of the last decade. The message that the paper conveys from a conceptual point of view is that the winning strategy is neither to focus on champion places and regions, in search of the highest efficiency, nor on lagging areas only, in search of equity, but on the development potential of all places, represented by its territorial capital – material, human, cognitive, social and relational. Policies should be tailored on each region's specificities, competitive advantage and needs, engaging all possible assets and enlarging existing excellences. This pathway simultaneously avoids the social and economic costs of a concentrated development and is able to guarantee the highest returns in terms of both competitiveness and cohesion. The paper concludes by proposing suggestions on how to respond to the specific and particular challenges that the New Member countries of the EU are now facing, on the basis of the previous conceptual and empirical evidence.

Measuring the impact of legal and administrative international barriers on regional growth

“…Limited trust is associated to 0.6% of European GDP loss and 1.65% loss of all land border regions' GDP. Legal and administrative barriers also substantially decrease the positive impact of collaborative attitudes (i.e., trust‐oriented relations; Camagni & Capello, ). Of comparable magnitude is also the loss due to the inefficient exploitation of productive capacity: regions specialized in manufacturing do not fully reap specialization benefits because firms incur in additional costs, in exporting and reaching scale economies.…”

Regional needs, regional targeting and regional growth: an assessment of EU Cohesion Policy in UK regions

“…Following political as well as academic criticism to this approach, the focus gradually shifted from redistribution to allocation and from large infrastructure investment to softer infrastructures (R&D, education) and a more diversified investment mix; while more recent reformsstimulated further by a number of influential contributions (Barca, 2009;Farole et al, 2011;Barca et al, 2012;Camagni & Capello, 2015) shifted the strategic orientation of Cohesion Policy towards more comprehensive and integrated interventions .…”

Understanding citizen perception of European Union Cohesion Policy: the role of the local context

“…A second stream of literature behind the main idea of the paper is the one that suggests that local context conditions strongly influence the impact of EU regional policy on local development in areas where the policy actions are undertaken. Many studies on regional development have recognized the importance of policies tailored to the specific needs of different regions, to exploit the growth potential of each place (e.g., Barca, McCann, & Rodríguez-Pose, 2012;Camagni & Capello, 2015;Mairate, 2006). In other words, in order to be effective, EU actions have to match the objective needs and unexploited potentials of regions.…”