Political and Administrative Barriers of Cohesion Policy Implementation in Slovakia

We can observe a considerable increase in the assessment of cohesion policy. It is linked both with the growing amount of support spent on this policy and the need for greater efficiency in the use of these resources due to the crisis in government spending . Evaluations are dedicated to a large number of areas which include the assessment of the impact of aid, its effectiveness at reducing regional disparities or the procedural aspects of implementation of the support. Only a limited number of studies are devoted to political and administrative burdens and their influence on cohesion policy. Their impact remains difficult to measure, although it greatly affects the ability of cohesion policy to achieve its objectives. The most significant problems include the evaluation of the procurement, the methods of setting the criteria for project evaluation or poor feedback for the applicants. This article analyzes those factors which influence the speed of the entire evaluation process of project proposals, where the most significant factors refer to political influence and the number of applications for each call.