308 Billion Euros into the Sand? The Debacle of the EU's Regional Policy

Abstract:     
With a budget of 308 billion euros, the EU structural funds are alongside agriculture (418 billion euros) the largest item of the EU budget. 12 percent of the funds, according to the Court of Accountability of the European Parliament end up in wrong channels, and in the international press critical voices abound. There is also increasing doubt about the social efficiency of the EU's regional program among professional economists, like Dall'Erba and Heidenreich. Our politometric analysis on the basis of the Info Regio data provided by the Commission shows that in each enlargement wave, the rich regions benefitted more than the poor ones, and that important predictors of regional convergence - like balancing work and family life - are not at all being properly taken into account by the Commission - in both analytical as well as practical political terms.

Keywords: Economic integration, International Relations and International Political Economy, Social Security and Public Pensions, Regional Economic Activity Growth, Development, and Changes, Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity

JEL Classifications: F15, F5, H55, R11, R12

Working Paper Series