Regional Disparities in EU

Abstract

In EU countries the process of decreasing the role of the state in favour of international institutions (this phenomenon occurs despite political difficulties with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty) is accompanied by an increasingly strong trend towards regionalization. In valuing the significance of the growing position of regions in the EU the decision of the Maastricht Treaty was to open a Committee of Regions whose main task is to represent the interests of local and regional communities on the forum of European institutions. The acknowledgement of regional policies as one of the priority levels of activity in the EU was the result of the ever increasing regional variations. As much as in 1950 the ratio between the poorest and the richest regions of countries which later created the EU amounted to 1:5, while in 1988 this ratio reached 1:10.¹ The strong impulse indicating the need to level out the inter-regional disproportions took place following the accession of Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal into the EU. Simultaneously, the stipulations accepted in the Treaty of Rome did not foresee the realization of a regional policy. It was then assumed that the fundamental elements leading to the equalization of the living standards in EU member countries would be the conditions of free competition and a single market.