Coordination of EU Member States’ Economic Policies and the Industrial Development Environment

Abstract

In the absence of a clearly defined industrial policy in the EU, the coordination of economic policies provided for in the TFEU can be treated as a substitute for a policy addressing industry. The close relationship between the coordination of economic policies and industrial growth has been confirmed by the Europe 2020 Strategy, which is the basis for EU development priorities in the period 2010–2020. In this paper we verify to what extent this assumed interrelationship is true. In particular, the objectives of the paper are as follows: (a) to identify the legal framework and instruments for the coordination of economic policies at the EU level; (b) to assess the effectiveness of this coordination.