Needs of Objective 1 regions in the accession countries and in existing EU15 Member States in areas eligible for Structural Funds

The objective of the study is to assess development needs of present and future Objective 1 regions in the various areas (or sectors) which are eligible for Structural Fund support and to try to determine a list of priority actions. It is concerned with identifying the nature and scale of the regional problems both in the accession countries and in the existing EU15 Member States though the focus has been primarily on the former since much less is known about them. Given the nature of the problems, which take the form not only of quantitative shortfalls in, for example, the amounts of particular kinds of infrastructure which are available, but also of qualitative deficiencies, statistical indicators in themselves tend to give only a partial insight into the scale of structural difficulties in the regions concerned. Nevertheless, they are an essential basis for the analysis.

European Commission: DG Regional Policy: Studies: Preparatory studies for the third cohesion report (2004) http://ec.europa.eu/comm/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/study_en.htm

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