Structural Funds (Cohesion Policy) 2007-2013. A comparative analysis of the EU Member States in the Central and Eastern Europe

The aim of the Cohesion Policy and its implementing financial instruments, the Structural Funds, was to reduce the development gap between different EU regions and strengthen the economic and social cohesion (Structural Funds Regulations 2007-2013, 2007). With the accession to the EU of new Member States (10 countries in 2004; 2 countries in 2007 and 1 country in 2013), the objective of the Cohesion Policy is even more actual and necessary, especially because these new Member States were all from the Central and Eastern Europe, having had a different political and economical regime and status. The aim of the present study was to understand how the new EU Member States managed the implementation of the Cohesion Policy 2007-2013 (how the EU funding was distributed nationally, what the money was spent on and what were the main results and lessons learnt), particularly because of their lack of experience of administering programmes.