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Challenges and Perspectives of Territorial Cohesion

Territorial cohesion has become one of the key objectives of European Union cohesion policy, complementary with economic and social cohesion. The evolution of cohesion policy (unique due to its multi-level approaches and principles) has been accompanied with new opportunities to use different instruments in order to achieve these goals in more efficient way. Even though there are determined (visible) socio-economic positive impacts of cohesion policy, reducing regional inequalities, as its main aim, has been faced with numerous challenges. Internal territorial endowment and regional characteristics cause significant disparities, inequalities are increasing between some areas, while the process of regional convergence is sensitive to different global and (dis)integration shocks. In territorial cohesion analysis it is also important to observe specific conditions of territories such as: urban – rural areas, metropolitan areas, coastal areas, outermost regions, regions with low population density, mountain regions etc. The aim of this paper is to explain the concept of territorial cohesion in the European Union, discuss about its validity, perspectives and possibilities to apply similar approach in other regional integrations. More detailed analysis will be performed on the sample of the European regions in order to determine if there can be seen significant impact of chosen cohesion policy instruments on territorial cohesion. The results imply that it can be useful to include territorial context in cohesion policy implementation.

cohesion policy, territorial cohesion, regional inequalities

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