EU Regional Policy: Inception, Development and Results

The article focuses on the evolution of the Common Regional Policy of the European Community. It analyzes the key reforms of the EC/EU Regional Policy, major factors that made such reforms necessary, and their implications for the institutional structure of the Community, and the Member States.The author addresses the transformation of the regional policy from a purely economic means of ensuring cohesion between Member States towards a powerful tool of reshaping the Europe’s political and economic space. He also describes the process of the delegation of powers from central governments to subnational entities, as well as of building-up of the institutional mechanisms for the representation of regional interests inside the EU decision-making system. The article assesses the impact of the policy upon the progress of regionalization in Europe and decentralization of the nation state. The author argues that the common regional policy and, specifically, the introduction of the subsidiarity have contributed to the establishment of a new governance level in the EU and putting in place a multilevel governance system, thus reshaping the Community governance paradigm.