PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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the poorer member states to agree to the development of the single European market.
The two measures which have received primacy in EU cohesion policies are GDP per
capita and unemployment. Consequently, national and regional cohesion has frequently
been defined in terms of the degree of parity in GDP per capita (also see DIW 2001:9).
So the origins of cohesion policy lie in the realization that the Community should
pay some sort of “integration subsidy” to lower-income regions. EU cohesion policy has
also been characterized as the “flagship of European regulated capitalism” (Hooghe
1998:457). Economic and social cohesion is now one of the fundamental objectives of the
European Union, at least in rhetoric. In Article 2 of the TEU, the Union sets itself the
objective
to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment and to
achieve balanced and sustainable development, in particular through the creation of an
area without internal frontiers, through the strengthening of economic and social
cohesion and through the establishment of economic and monetary union.
[Emphasis added.]
Cohesion is therefore seen as subservient to achieving progress and sustainability.
In the Treaty on the European Community (TEC), the cohesion objective was been
defined more explicitly as having a very clear spatial dimension (Article 158 TEC, ex
Article 130a):
In order to promote its overall harmonious development, the Community shall develop
and pursue its actions leading to the strengthening of its economic and social cohesion.
In particular, the Community shall aim at reducing disparities between the levels of
development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions
or islands, including rural areas. 11
11 Note that this is the very formulation (except for of the mention of the islands) that had been introduced
by the Single European Act in 1985. Back then, however, cohesion was to be achieved through EIB loans,
common Community policies and the coordination of member states policies, i.e. not primarily through the
structural funds, but free market, member state-directed activities supplemented by structural policies
(Allen 2000:249)