Abstract
The Treaty of Rome signed in March 1957, which gave birth to the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community created in January 1958, hardly made mention of regional problems or economic disparities at regional level. These were considered then to be an internal problem of each country, so that possible policies for correction lay in the hands of the respective governments, but always respecting the advance towards free competition. In spite of the fact that the preface of the Treaty of Rome makes explicit reference to the reinforcement of the unity of the economies of the signatory countries, “harmonious development must also be assured, reducing the differences between diverse regions and the backwardness of the least favoured”, this idea was not adopted as an objective by the EEC, nor was any instrument or mechanism established to make its achievement possible.
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Cuadrado-Roura, J.R., Parellada, M. (2002). Regional Disparities and Regional Convergence Problems in the EMU: Introduction. In: Cuadrado-Roura, J.R., Parellada, M. (eds) Regional Convergence in the European Union. Advances in Spatial Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04788-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04788-0_1
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