One of the main objectives of the EU is cohesion, namely a decrease in the disparity of wealth between its constituent parts. A considerable part of the EU budget is earmarked for this policy. The policy should also support the EU 2020 strategy, which focuses on smart, inclusive and sustainable...

The EU is confronted with a series of important problems. The two that interest us most in the present paper are the lack of competitiveness on international markets and the considerable internal (regional) imbalances. Since quite some time the EU has put policies in practice to address both...

In the past he EU has taken up an ever more important role in matters of cohesion policy. The objectives and principles of EU cohesion policy have been given a strong constitutional basis. We describe the development of this EU constitutional frame in the first section. We then turn our...

Globalization has been accused of being the source of many problems. Some claim that this would justify a fundamental change of the EU regime that takes international competitiveness of the economy as its point of departure. This would have consequences for the present set-up of the EU cohesion...