Four decades of the european regional & cohesion policy. An overview

Juan Cuadrado-Roura ()

INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, 2026, vol. 65, issue 65, 163-196

Abstract: The paper addresses two research questions: first, what factors explain the continuity of the Cohesion Policy (CP); and second, to what extent such policy has contributed to reducing territorial disparities across the EU and to achieve other objectives. The article advances some hypotheses, and the analysis highlights the core pillars of the CP: its ‘philosophy’, evolving objectives, financial resources, and institutional architecture. It further evaluates outcomes in some key areas: convergence trends, infrastructure investment, human capital formation, and support for SMEs. The findings suggest that while CP has contributed to reducing territorial disparities and other positive achievements linked to the European economic and welfare growth, its effectiveness varies across regions, and some policy domains face persistent challenges such as effectiveness, bureaucratization, and regional/sectoral policy conflicts which give support to important criticisms.

Keywords: Regional Policy; Cohesion Policy; Principles and philosophy; sectoral policies; convergence; problems and criticisms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N94 O18 R11 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://investigacionesregionales.org/en/article/f ... -policy-an-overview/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:invreg:022927

DOI: 10.38191/iirr-jorr.26.010

Access Statistics for this article

INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH is currently edited by Rafael Boix Domènech

More articles in INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH from Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional C/ Viladomat, 321 entresuelo - 08029 Barcelona, Teléfono y Fax: + 34 933101112, E-mail: info@aecr.org, Web: www.aecr.org, Web Investigaciones Regionales: www.investigacionesregionales.org. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by IIRR-JORR ().