S5 Ep50: Deep Focus: Making a success of EU cohesion policy

Cohesion policy remains a contentious topic in the EU, central as
it is to the matter of convergence between regions. The need to
share economic growth throughout the bloc is particularly acute
in the wake of notable electoral advances from several more
populist political parties in Europe in recent years.

Bruegel senior fellow Zsolt Darvas explains how his recent study,
co-written with Jan Mazza and Catarina Midões, adopts a new
methodology with the aim of avoiding the complicating factors
that have underpinned the greatly varied results of many previous
assessments of cohesion-policy effectiveness. He explains further
how the EU might refine its implementation of cohesion policy,
and looks ahead to what might be the biggest obstacles to
improvement.

For further reading, we recommend the Bruegel Policy Contribution
at the centre of this Deep Focus episode, ‘How to improve
European Union cohesion policy for the next decade’.