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...

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...

Stage 1. Assessing the problems and defining the main policy orientations -- Stage 2. Designing a solution-oriented intervention system -- Stage 3. Specifying objectives and matching these with instruments -- Stage 4. Implementing actions and delivering results -- Stage 5. Checking effectiveness...