UTILIZING THE MULTICRITERIA APPROACH FOR ALTERNATIVE REGIONAL CLASSIFICATION IN THE EU COHESION POLICY CONTEXT

The level of gross domestic product per capita (GDP per capita in PPS of the EU-27 average) is considered as the main criteria for the classification of NUTS 2 regions and its level of development in the programming period 2014-2020 of the EU Cohesion policy. The categorization of the NUTS 2 regions is also one of the aspects determining the level of support from European Structural and Investment Funds. However, evaluation of the level of regional development according to only one indicator GDP per capita does not always have to reflect the real level of regional development. The aim of the paper is to propose an alternative classification of the NUTS 2 regions in the context of the EU Cohesion policy with using the multicriteria approach. The alternative classification is carried out on case study of the NUTS 2 regions in the Visegrad Four countries (V4). Based on TOPSIS method and cluster analysis, three categories of regions according their level of development are determined. The membership of regions in these categories differs in comparison with classification of the European Commission (EC). One of the results shows that region with capital city Mazowieckie achieves the lower level of development and is classified as transition region compared to the EC categorization as more developed region. Applied alternative multicriteria approach to the regional classification can indicate that the explanatory ability of the GDP per capita as only indicator of the level of regional development is limited.