The development of the European Regional Policy

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 8, The Hague University, course: European Regional Policy, language: English, abstract: he Regional Policy is the second spending of the European Union (347 Billion ? for 2007-2013) after the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Since the Rome Treaty of 1957, one of the main role of the community is 'to promote harmonious development of economic activities'. That is one of the main reason of the creation and the elaboration of a common regional policy. The importance of this policy is also reminded at the time of each enlargement of the European Union, to permit the new member states to make up their development and to fill the different European requirements. In the first part of this essay, I will try to critically analyse the history of the development of European Regional Policy as made by Jennifer R. Wozniak Boyle in her book : 'Conditional Leadership - the European Commission and European Regional Policy'. I will assess the development to regional policy using evidence relating to three countries studied in class : Belgium, because it was one of the founding member states of Europe, then Greece because this country became member state in 1981 and was, before 2004 and still is one of the main beneficiary of the funds for regional development and then Slovenia because this state was one of the 10 new member states of the 2004 enlargement which moved deeply the European Regional Policy.