DE RYNCK S. - Regional Policy in the Single Market and the Euro Area (8h)

The workshop will analyse the design, implementation and impact of EU cohesion policy. It will start by examining disparities between regions as part of the geography of the single market. Moving into policy design, the workshop will explain the rationale behind the growth of cohesion money over time, as well as how the budget is allocated to various regions and policy priorities.

The workshop will pay attention to the original package deal of the 1980s, whereby cohesion policy was created as a redistributive tool to support less developed regions and areas affected by industrial decline within the wider context of the making of the single market. This compromise still shapes today's policy. Furthermore, the workshop will study recent reforms which try and tie cohesion into an economic policy agenda of strengthening the EU's overall competitiveness. In particular, the workshop will study the two latest manifestations of this: a stronger link with the EU investment strategy, and making financial support conditional on respecting the Euro Area crisis management tools.

A case study of an Operational Programme of the 2014-2020 financing period will help understand how the governance principles of cohesion policy work out in practice. The case study will also demonstrate the various instruments for policy delivery. Finally, the workshop will examine how to measure the impact of the policy both in terms of socio-economic results and application of the partnership principle ("multi-level governance").

Professor Stefaan DE RYNCK