By Barnier, M., 2003
The cohesion policies of the European Union financed under the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, with a total allocation of €213 billion for the period 2000-06, have grown to become the second largest expenditure in the Community budget after the Common Agriculture Policy (with 33% and 47% of the total, respectively). Their existence refl ects the political agreement on the part of all of the Member States of the European Union on the principle that the process of increasing economic integration in Europe must be accompanied by efforts to ensure the widest distribution of the resulting rewards in both geographical and social terms. Through three generations of regional development programmes over nearly fi fteen years, the Union has already contributed signifi cantly to reducing the gaps between the regions against a background of the completion of the internal market and the introduction of a single currency. This work is by no means complete. Cohesion policy will need to be renewed and reformed if it is to respond to the widening gaps that will follow the next enlargement of the Union in 2004 and to the ongoing challenges to all of Europe’s regions arising from globalisation.
 EU Cohesion Policy: Challenges and Responses | [ ] |
