Unwritten Factors Affecting Structural Funds: The Influence of Regional Political Behaviours on the Implementation of EU Cohesion Policy

Abstract

While EU regional policy has the ambitious objective of supporting lagging regions and promoting inter-regional convergence, its impact is dependent on the ability of regional policymakers to secure and use EU funding to meet the region's needs. This paper aims to show under which conditions politics has a defining influence on the distribution, allocation and utilization of structural funds (SF), specifically in Objective 1 regions. The empirical analysis focuses on the 2000–2006 programming cycle in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. The results show that regions politically aligned with national governing coalitions tend to perform better in terms of received SF support and enjoy more flexibility in implementing SF. However, the influence of regional political behaviours on economic performances is very limited. The findings confirm the importance of politics in influencing SF implementation, but its limited influence on economic outcomes.

Keywords:

• structural funds
• territorial collective action
• politics
• regions

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to Harvey Armstrong, Roberto Camagni, Riccardo Crescenzi, Marcin Dąbrowski, Ugo Fratesi, Nikola Stalevski, Bas van Heur, the Editor, and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.