Regional Policy in the European Community: Its Impact on Regional Policies and Public Administration in the Mediterranean Member States

Abstract

When the European Community (EC) created the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRD) in 1975, regional policy was established at an international level for the first time ever. Because of the chosen instruments and the ‘additive’ mechanism of implementation—via the administrative bodies of the member states—this policy seemed at first to mean little more than a reinforcement of regional policies at a national level. Since then, the EC has considerably intensified its regional policy and diversified its instruments. However, the recent reforms of the Community's regional policy serve not only to achieve (certain) development effects with respect to the economic structure of less-developed areas, but also as a means of reorganizing governmental (planning) bodies and regional development policies in the member states, that is, as a means of inducing modernization and differentiation of state intervention in the countries concerned. Thus, the EC intervenes’ in the affairs of the member states: Not in the shape of more or less authoritarian intervention by a superior body—EC powers do not permit this—but via the indirect effect of market mechanism. Subsidies are the economic incentive to collaborate.