This is a review of issues concerning the role and effectiveness of the EU Structural and Cohesion Funds in different countries before and after the EU enlargement since 2004. Based on Ireland’s experience this analysis focuses on the impact of the cohesion policy on the small open economies...

In Irish manufacturing, the foreign sector accounts for about one half of employment and some 60 percent of gross output. The Irish experience therefore provides the authors with a textbook case study of the effects on an EU host economy of export-oriented foreign direct investment (FDI). They...

Bradley J. (2006) Evaluating the impact of European Union Cohesion policy in less-developed countries and regions, Regional Studies 40, 189-199. The expansion of Structural Funds since the late 1980s presented European Commission and domestic policy-makers with design and impact evaluation...

The structural fund interventions play a crucial role in improving the social and economic cohesion of the EU. A particular focus of the structural funds is on those regions that lag behind to the extent that their GDP per capita is below 75 per cent of the EU average ? Objective 1 regions. In...