Economic and social cohesion and principles, of regional policy of the European Union

In the context of European Union, economic and social disparities act a brake to the integration process. Therefor economic and social cohesion leading to economic unity of countries and their regions has become one of the goals of the European Union. For such purpose special regional policy has been developed by the Community. The cohesion. should be contributed to by the Member States through their regional policies as well. Regional policy of the Union is one of those policies which are coordinated by the Community, that means that its role is just to coordinate and harmonize regional policies of Member States. Role of economic and social cohesion is to overcome negative consequences caused by free market and enforce change(s) using appropriate tools, if such changes could not be achieved by market itself or could be achieved after considerable long time; it also results from the premise that the stronger the regions are and the smaller the differences among them are, the stronger the European Union, as one entity, is. To enable a successful integration to take place, to increase overall harmonic development of the region. and to prevent from deeper regional disparities to, occur, Member States have identified, along with achieving uniform internal market and economic and monetary union, a proactive support of economic and social cohesion of the Community to be one of their major goals. One of the crucial forms used by the Union to support economic and social cohesion is a financial assistance granted to the region through own structural tools. Another instrument through which the Community tries to contribute to the economic and social cohesion is a space planning which is to create a continual vision of the European space structure, coordinate planning of particular countries to assist development of the regions in such a way. In the course of over forty years a large variety of tools have been established by the European Community to achieve a balanced economic trend in all areas. For instance, space planning contributes to a better understanding of the area and creates developmental scenarios for them while financial assistance is provided through structural policy. Co-involvernent of all Member States in crucial for the latter one as they have to provide incentives and funding. Since establishment of the European Communities regional policy has undergone five major stages of its development. There was not much significance attributed to it at the beginning, however under the changing circumstances it has become one of the most important areas of interest of the Union. Several factors have indicated that importance of the regional policy will increase in the next coming years. It is due to European monetary union as well as economic impact of accession of the Central and Eastern Europe countries which would substantially reduce the average gross domestic product per capita and worsen other macroeconomic indicators. The principles of the EU regional policy-was formulated during,regional policy and structural funds reform in 1988. Efficiency of Activities conducted jointly by the States in the field of economic and social cohesion is based on execution of the above principles. The four utmost crucial principles of regional policy of Community have been identified in the course of reform of structural funds in 1993 as follows: programming, partnership, concentration and additionality.