National Subversion of Supranational Goals: ‘Pork-Barrel’ Politics and EU Regional Aid

Abstract

The structural funds were designed to give the European Commission supranational control over where regional aid was spent. In this article, we argue that domestic ‘pork-barrel’ politics determine which regions are awarded regional aid in the new member states of Eastern Europe. Support for our argument comes from a dataset that includes 1,688 European Regional Development Fund grants to Latvia's 118 regions and 1,533 pre-accession Phare awards to Bulgaria's 264 municipalities. In both Bulgaria and Latvia, we find that regional aid projects went to wealthier not poorer localities, and to those that supported coalition parties in the previous election.

Notes

¹ Bachtler and Méndez (2007) have criticised the renationalisation argument as an exaggeration of intergovernmentalism.

² ‘Main Information for Local Governance’, National Association of Municipalities, 2002, available at: http://www.namrb.org/doc/NSORB/mestno2.pdf, accessed 3 August 2011.

³ The European Commission website has maps showing the eligibility of countries and planning regions for the structural funds: see http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas2007/index_en.htm, accessed 11 August 2011.

⁴ There are also some programmes within ERDF that tackle Objective 5. These programmes are meant to build administrative effectiveness. For example, money for the various agencies that manage EU regional aid was provided by the ERDF.

⁵ The European Union Anti-Fraud Agency (OLAF) became involved after cases of fraud were reported.

⁶ ‘Financial Database’, National Association of Municipalities, 2004, available at: http://www.namrb.org/web/WEB_page.htm, accessed 7 November 2010.

⁷ The second Kalvītis government fell under the weight of corruption allegations, although these were not related to the distribution of EU regional aid.

⁸ Yearly OLAF ‘European Anti-Fraud Office Activity Report’ from 2006 to 2010, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/olaf, accessed 20 December 2010.

⁹ ‘Brussels Freezes Bulgaria Phare Payments’, Sofia News Agency, 29 February 2008, available at: http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id = 90869, accessed 26 November 2010.

¹⁰ ‘VAS zasedava po deloto sreshtu Dogan’, BNT News, 23 September 2010.