Economy
(Brussels) Today the European Commission has published a Report on the EU regions that are “lagging behind in terms of growth or wealth”, identifying “paths to support regional growth strategies” with EU cohesion funds. As explained in a statement, the Report “assesses what supports or hinders the competitiveness of these regions and why they have not yet reached the expected levels of growth and income for the EU”. The full list of the regions and their level of competitiveness was released by the Commission in February. The areas in which the Commission believes more investment is required include human capital, innovation, quality of institutions, infrastructure, and support for SMEs. 47 regions (with 83 million inhabitants) in 8 Member States have been carefully studied and classified as “low-growth regions” with a GDP per capita of up to 90% of the EU average. They are concentrated in Eastern Europe (especially in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Poland) and in Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal). The most competitive and developed regions, by contrast, are found in Germany, the UK, the Scandinavian countries, and France. The full Report in English is available online at http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studies/pdf/lagging_regions%20report_en.pdf
