Every European Union enlargement has deepened economical divergence between member states and their regions. However, the economic aspect of this issue is only a part of a broad scope of reasons of its internal diversity, including also social, cultural or cognitive dimensions. The history of so...

While European integration has substantially contributed to economic convergence between the member states of the EU, the diverging development of highly developed metropolitan regions and lagging rural areas has become a growing challenge especially for the new member states in Central and...