Chapter 3: European Regional Disparity: Borders Strike Back

The original premise of the Single Market was that the promotion of economic integration brings prosperity to the European Union, reduces income disparities across member states, and by reducing differences between member states and within regions, it enhances social and political cohesion within Europe. The instruments to promote “economic and social cohesion” are primarily left to the member states and lower levels of government. Only a small set of supranational policy instruments exists in the form of EU cohesion policies directly motivated by the effects on regional and national income inequality of the European economic integration process.