Development

The EU’s cohesion policy has supported the development of its peripheral member states and regions through multi-annual national Community Support Frameworks (CSFs) co-financed by the EU and national governments. The Integrated Mediterranean Programmes (IMPs), the Single European Act (SEA) and subsequent reforms of cohesion policy regulations were the basis for collaboration on economic and development social policies for Europe’s regions with EU, national and sub-national government and examine partner organizations. In this multi-level governance framework, the mobilization of business actors and the development of sub-national governance were identified as key priorities. Co-operation between government and private entrepreneurship has been understood as essential in promoting national and regional economic growth. At the time of the recent economic crisis in Greece, twenty-five years after the IMPs and the SEA, the earlier dominant role of the state in economic development appears transformed as central and sub-national government and wider public sector organizations emerge as the principal recipients of funding, programme and project management experience, having a leading role in the development process stimulated by cohesion policy. By contrast, private firms have had a fragmented participation in the process, mainly as contractors in the implementation of specific projects.