Abstract
The UK has been a recipient of European Union (EU) Cohesion Policy funding since its inception, and it has played a key role ever since in local and regional economic development across the UK. However, in the run up to the Brexit referendum in 2016, discussions about the significance of EU Cohesion Policy funding to the UK’s cities and regions, which have benefitted from this support for decades, was not a major topic of discussion. Paradoxically, the demise of EU Cohesion Policy in the UK, post-Brexit, comes precisely at a time when spatial inequalities are rising. Moreover, real questions remain about the UK government’s commitment to tackling regional economic development in the coming years. Having said that, as this Commentary discusses, several decades of EU Cohesion Policy implementation in the UK do provide a number of significant policy lessons, which should inform the contours of future UK regional economic development policy.
Highlights
The European Union’s (EU’s) Cohesion Policy, initially developed in the late 1970s and enhanced in the 1980s, aimed to mitigate the impact of the completion of the Single Market on less developed regions and Member States (McCann, 2015; Official Journal of the European Communities, 1987)
From 2007 onwards several areas of the UK were still eligible for support as “Convergence regions”, which had a gross domestic product (GDP) below 75% of the EU 27 average, which received the maximum levels of support
It is important that any new domestic regional policy should build on this solid foundation and continue to engage and involve key local stakeholders in the conception, implementation and evaluation of economic development. The aim of this Commentary is not to argue that EU Cohesion Policy is problem-free nor that it is a panacea for regional economic development in the UK or the rest of Europe
Summary
Tackling regional and spatial disparities across the UK has risen to the very top of the public policy priority list. There is clear evidence, for example in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, that ERDF governance structures endured, especially in terms of strategic partnership working, even after the levels of funding reduced between the 2000–06 and 2007–2013 programming periods (Armstrong et al, 2015) This is significant because it raises the question as to whether, post-Brexit, ERDF governance structures, partnership working, etc., will continue to be integral in any future domestic regional policy interventions. There is considerable evidence that EU Cohesion Policy in general, and the ERDF in particular, has given sub-national authorities greater involvement in, and influence upon, regional economic policy development at national and European tiers, within a multi-level governance framework (Adshead, 2014; Hooghe, 1996; Jeffrey, 2000) This framework has encouraged a range of non-state actors to be directly involved in tackling economic development issues in a partnership of vertical and horizontal institutional relationships (Danson et al, 1999). It is important that any new domestic regional policy should build on this solid foundation and continue to engage and involve key local stakeholders in the conception, implementation and evaluation of economic development
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