Europe’s regions

Horváth, Gyula

Keywords: regional policy, European Union, cohesion policy, regional administration

The institution that will enable implementation of the EU’s cohesion policy – namely regions of 1-3 million inhabitants – is the focal point of Europe-wide interest. In countries with differing state preparedness, the constitutional status of so-called NUTS 2 regions varies. Some of the regions merely have developmental and statistical goals, while others have, in addition, extensive administrative licenses. The latter are able to solve their complex development tasks effectively. The institutionalisation of the regions involves numerous pre-requirements. Modernisation of the state’s functions, changes in the factors influencing regional development, the enforcement of regional interests, taking into account ethnic and cultural considerations, and the unifying efforts of European integration have all equally contributed to the development of the new regional middle-tier in many European countries. The countries of East Central Europe have yet to adapt to institutionalised Europe’s decentralising trend. Hungary would gain a competitive advantage if it consciously developed the various factors constituting regionalisation, within its programme of state reform.
A region is a territorial unit with independent sources of finance for sustainable development and structural modernisation, and authorisation by local government licenses to realise autonomous development policies.
Regions are necessary because Europe’s regional development clearly proves that direction at the sub-national level comprising a population of 1-2 million and based on the principles of self-governance is, due to the economic capacity and structural characteristics of regions:
- the optimal spatial framework for the enforcement of economic development-oriented regional development policy;
- the appropriate area for the operation of the powers of post industrialist spatial organisation and the development of their interrelations;
- an important stage for enforcing regional-social interests;
- the most appropriately sized spatial unit for building up the modern infrastructure of regional policy and the institutions of professional organisation, planning and implementation;
- a determining element of the decision-making system of the European Union’s regional and cohesion policies.
Palpable elements of national and European economic, political and social change, instrumental in the re-evaluation of the role of the middle-tier, are those which forced the professional rationalisation reforms of state management’s organisational systems; kept up a continual pressure on the machinery of power’s central structures; prompted the re-regulation of social management and the order of resource distribution; and drove the decentralisation processes. Naturally individual elements had differing influence on the changes, transformed the quality and relationships of the regional system’s various components and appeared at fairly disparate times. Their effects however, left a deep impression on the institutional system. The ever greater number of sub-national actors in regional development, their gradual strengthening and the enrichment of their functions – in parallel with the transformation of the state’s institutional system – created the competitive counterweight to centralised power in many European countries. The wielding of independent regional power became the most popular subject heading in Europe’s political dictionary in the last third of the 20th century.
In our study we consider in turn the reasons that formed the more important junctions on the road to achieving regionalism in Western Europe, and outline the chances of regional transformation in East European countries – including Hungary.

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