Carlos Mendez

June 6, 2017

Cohesion Policy Regional Implementation Settings: A Definition and a Measurement

The relationship between Communitarian policies and citizens’ identification in the EU values has been treated in the literature by several studies. They focused, for instance, on the impact of the introduction of the common currency or the Erasmus program, claiming that it is through actions of […]
May 15, 2017

How do citizens across the different regions identify with the EU?

EU Cohesion Policy, supporting a variety of projects that support regional economic development and contribute to betterment of quality of life, can be considered as a tool that is contributing to the development of a ‘sense of community’ among the EU citizens and shaping the perceptions […]
March 21, 2017

Are strategies for communicating Structural Funds effective?

Yes and No is the answer from research by the European Policies Research Centre for IQ-Net. A recent meeting of IQ-Net programme managers and communication experts, and a new IQ-Net paper, identified the successes and drawbacks of communication strategies and the important priorities for the remaining […]
December 20, 2016

Differentiation in the management of Cohesion policy: an idea whose time has come?

On 16 November 2016, the General Affairs Council concluded that the renewal of Cohesion policy needs to consider “the introduction of differentiation into the implementation of the ESI Funds programmes based on objective criteria and positive incentives for programmes”.
October 26, 2016

European Identity and citizen attitudes to Cohesion policy: what do we know ?

“The European Union (EU) requires citizens’ support and identification to enhance its legitimacy. The question of whether and how much European identity is necessary for European integration is highly contested, largely because it is connected to controversial normative debates about the nature of the EU as […]
October 7, 2016

REFORMING COHESION POLICY: THE COMMUNICATION PARADOX

“One problem the policy faces is related to how we communicate about it”. The words of Commissioner Creţu at the Slovak EU Presidency Conference in Bratislava summed up the paradox facing Cohesion policy: there is more evidence than ever before on the added value of the […]
June 21, 2016

BREXIT, EU COHESION POLICY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE UK

In the heated debate on the economic impact of a possible UK withdrawal from the EU, relatively little attention has been given to the implications for the individual nations and regions of the UK. Yet, as a new paper by John Bachtler and Iain Begg reports,[1] […]