On Wednesday 31 May, the European Commission announced that it wanted to repeat what had been deemed a fruitful exercise carried out in eastern Poland to support low-income and low growth regions.
It should be pointed out that according to official European definitions, a low growth region is one that has per capita GDP of up to 90% of the European average but which has failed to converge towards this average between 2000 and 2013. This mainly involves regions in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Low income regions are those that had per capita GDP that was 50% below the European average in 2013. This group involves several regions in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Poland.
For the past year, the Commission in contact with the World Bank, has been working in the two Polish low-income regions (Podkarpackie and Świętokrzyskie) to help them start growing again. On the basis of this pilot project, the Commission intends to develop similar projects based on three main focal points: strengthening the transfer of knowledge between universities and local businesses; creating an entrepreneurship friendly environment (by facilitating business start-ups, their financing and support) and improving the training of local labour forces and adapting them to the needs of the local economy.
Action to support regions lagging behind appears to be at the centre of the European Commission’s concerns. In April 2017, the Commission presented a report for supporting regions that have failed to move forward economically (see EUROPE 11766). It has also recently published a reflection paper for mitigating the negative effects of globalisation. Regional funds also play a significant part in this reflection document (see EUROPE 11785). (Pascal Hansens)