Impact Analysis of Slovak- Hungarian Cross Border Cooperation Projects

Abstract

Cooperation is the key to a better Europe. European Union supports territorial cooperation between border-regions, especially in the border settlements. Border regions, towns and districts promote cooperation as a tool for growth and change through policy development and strategic orientation within territorial cooperation and beyond regional development. Regional disparities in Slovakia are actually the highest among EU countries and the Cohesion policy tries to balance with European standards. The aim of the study is to analyze the impact of projects on disparity and economic growth in border areas mainly in the context of Slovak indicators. The comparative study also hypothesis whether the cross-border region in Hungary and Slovakia behave differently in terms of absorption in the 2007-2013 programming period. Besides, as for methodology, it was used various types such as statistical data, convergence analysis by disparities, comparative studies, absorptions maps of CBC projects, cohesion analysis of the region. Finally, it is focusing on future prognosis and possible trend of the current 2014-2020 period.