Fourth Cohesion Report published – prosperity is spread more evenly over Europe 31-05-2007 The European Commission has published its fourth report on economic and
social cohesion in the EU on 30 May. The report comes out every three years. The
European cohesion policy has proved to be successful over the last years. The
EU's economic prosperity is becoming less geographically concentrated. However,
cohesion policy has to adapt to new challenges, such as globalisation and
climate change. The need to address these challenges is an argument to support a
cohesion policy that is aimed at all EU Member States, instead of being focused
on the most lagging European regions.
The fourth cohesion report is published just before the opening of the debate
on the future of the European cohesion policy. While cohesion policy exists to
create growth and jobs, it has to adapt to new challenges. These challenges are:
The most encouraging development that is observed by the Commission in the
2000-2006 period is the high growth in the new Member States. For most of the
new EU countries, growth figures are more than twice the EU average. In spite of
this progress, there are still huge differences, due also in part to the fact
that growth tends to be concentrated in the most dynamic areas of countries.
The figures also show that the EU's economic prosperity is becoming less
geographically concentrated. The traditional economic core (London, Paris,
Milan, Munich and Hamburg) accounted in 2004 for a considerably smaller share of
the Union's GDP than in 1995. This trend is due to the emergence of new centres
of growth like Dublin, Madrid, Helsinki, Stockholm, as well as Warsaw, Prague,
Bratislava and Budapest.
Source: European Information Service LinksVisit the DG Regio website Files back |
