The European Regional Policy in Hungary. An Evaluation of the Objectives and Instruments for the Cohesion

The paper underlines the progresses Hungary undertook during the pre-accession process and after the European Union membership in regional economic development. Using official documents of the European Institutions, statistical data provided by Inforegio, Eurostat, the Hungarian National Institute of Statistics, FADN-DG Agriculture and AKI Ive evaluated the impact of the European objectives and instruments for the cohesion (Structural funds and the Cohesion fund) on the convergence of the Country with the European parameters. The results obtained show a slow evidence of economic convergence but also the emergence and increase of internal divergence between winning and loosing counties, these last being prevalently agricultural, with problems of re-conversion increased by the effects of the post- 1989 legislative provisions. This outcome derives party from the lack of projecting abilities (and opportunism) of the Hungarian governments but its also linked to the often unsuitable guidelines and weak monitoring of the European Institutions.