Rethinking Lagging Regions : Using Cohesion Policy to Deliver on the Potential of Europe's Regions
As the World Bank’s 2012 Golden Growth report emphasized, the European Union, since its founding, has been a ‘convergence machine,’ generating wealth and a higher quality of life for the poorest in the 28 EU member states. More recently, the Growin...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/457071525400247519/Full-report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29823 |
| Summary: | As the World Bank’s 2012 Golden Growth
report emphasized, the European Union, since its founding,
has been a ‘convergence machine,’ generating wealth and a
higher quality of life for the poorest in the 28 EU member
states. More recently, the Growing United report highlighted
that while the convergence machine still works, it is not
working for everyone. And among the fault lines emerging in
the convergence machine, regional inequality represents a
potent threat to Europe’s economic well-being, and to its
social and political cohesion. In this context, Rethinking
Lagging Regions highlights the nature and implications of
regional inequalities in Europe and recommends how cohesion
policy can be leveraged to maximize its impact on lagging
regions, and on the businesses and people in these regions.
The report has several key messages: regional inequalities
are high and likely to rise; Europe’s lagging regions are
going in opposite directions, but face common challenges;
cohesion policy can maximize its impact on lagging regions
by explicitly targeting regional potential and equality of
opportunity rather than convergence; cohesion policy
priorities can be rebalanced to help deliver on regional
potential; and delivery of regional policy needs to engage
ever more deeply at the ground level. This report aims to
contribute to the debate on the future of cohesion policy,
with a specific focus on lagging regions. It calls for a
further shift in the objectives of cohesion policy towards
an increasingly ‘region-centered’ approach that aims to
maximize potential in all regions, while seeking convergence
of opportunities for individuals, no matter where they live. |
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