Transformations of european financial instruments in the context of european enlargement process
Transformations of european financial instruments in the context of european enlargement process

Summary/Abstract: The necessity of a regional development policy at the nowadays’European Union level has become vital since the beginning of the enlargementprocess in 1973 when to those six founding states (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,Luxembourg and Netherlands) subjoined Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark. In1957 when European Economic Community was founded, the EU-6 recorded asimilar development level, the regional problems being isolated only in Southernpart of Italy. Although on Italy request, the Treaty ascertained the existence of someinequities between prosperity levels of different regions, article 130 was one of thefundamental motives of creating the European Investment Bank, which may beconsidered one of the regional policy instruments.The enlargement process increased regional problems, major disparitiesregarding the economic development level being recorded between EU-6 regionsand regions of the new member states (North part of England and North part ofIreland). Rural areas from Denmark and Ireland recorded a precariousdevelopment compared with similar areas from member states, and mining regionsof Great Britain were confronted with industrial re-conversion problems. Thesekinds of problems existed even inside member states so that carboniferous regionsLorena (France), Ruhr (Germany), South part of Belgium were strongly affected bythe deindustrialisation process. These situations led to the creation of the EuropeanRegional Development Fund in 1975 and its main objective at that moment waspromoting innovation and infrastructure development in order to adjust the existingdiscrepancies at the Community level.

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