Regional Disparities in Europe

In the 1990s the socio-economic disparities existing among the European regions, were significantly greater than those among countries, show persistent differences, and also a dynamic whereby periods of slow convergence alternate with others in which the tendency is towards divergence. We deal with two issues. The first is why economic theories are unable to completely explain the European case in recent decades. The second issue concerns policy: which regional, national or European strategy is best able to accelerate the process of convergence among regions? We apply a multivariate factorial analysis method (the STATIS method) that enables the European regions to be ‘read’ on the basis of factors that sum up their main socioeconomic characteristics, to group them into homogeneous clusters, and to examine their temporal dynamics. Our results suggest that the European economy is a diversified reality influenced by structural phenomena concerning labour market characteristics, sectoral composition, and localization factors, making it unlikely that integration processes – although accelerated by the enlargement of markets and their greater efficiency – will give rise to the hoped-for levelling of economic development in the near future.