EU:s sammanhållningspolitik och regionala skillnader 2006–2016

The effects of the EU Cohesion Policy are debated, and while some studies find positive effects, others point to negative effects. Many of the methodological approaches that have so far been used to measure the EU Cohesion Policy are simple benchmarking exercises, focusing on a few indicators covering a short time period. Other evaluations are fragmented, qualitative in nature, and narrow in scope. This paper aims at analysing the EU Cohesion Policy and its impact for the period 2006–2016. We construct a Territorial Cohesion Development Index with target posts in order to analyse the impact at a NUTS2 level. The findings indicate that bigger cities and highly urbanised regions in Central Europe benefited the most from the policy, while non-core and peripheral regions fell further behind.