The impact of EU Cohesion Policy on the Greek Regions, 2014-2020

• In this working paper we attempt to identify and assess the impact of EU cohesion policy on the Greek regions during the 2014-2020 programming period, using the conceptual tools of added value, multi-level governance and Europeanisation.
• Our aim is to identify and assess the impact of the 2014-2020 Partnership (PA ) and the Regional Operational Programmes (ROPs) that it’s composed of on: a) the economic performance of the regions under review, b) the content of the development policy pursued and c) the overall performance of regional and local institutions in terms of governance.
• A first conclusion drawn from the study of the available data is that, methodologically, it is extremely difficult to isolate the economic and political performance and impacts of cohesion policy at the regional level from the corresponding performance and impacts at the national level. This is because, on the one hand, ROP actions are an integral part of the national development strategy as organised and implemented within the respective PADF and, on the other hand, they are designed and implemented within a centralised and hierarchical governance framework guided by the different embodiments of the Ministry of Development. In other words, due to the close economic and political interdependence between the national and regional strands of the PA, it is practically impossible to separate the study of the ROPs and their governance system from the study of the whole of the PADF and its governance system.
• For this reason, the paper first focuses on the ‘mapping’ of the general economic and political features of cohesion policy and then turns to the study of the implementation of cohesion policy in Greece, exploring those economic and political parameters that concern primarily – but not exclusively – the ROPs and the regions.
• The analysis starts with an introductory discussion of the criteria and methods for evaluating cohesion policy. This is followed by a presentation of the concepts of the added value of cohesion policy, multi-level governance and Europeanisation. It then outlines the institutional and policy framework within which EU cohesion policy in the least developed regions was designed and implemented in the period 2014-2020. The next section is devoted to the analysis of the five dimensions of the added value of cohesion policy in Greek regions. In the last section we recap and summarise our findings.

Read here in pdf the Policy Paper by George Andreou, Research Fellow, ELIAMEP; Assistant Professor at the School of Political Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (in Greek).