Regionálna integrácia Slovenskej republiky: stratégia využitia podpory Európskej únie
REGIONAL INTEGRATION OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC: A STRATEGY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION SUPPORT UTILIZATION

Summary/Abstract: The socio-economic dimensions of disparities, the long duration of regional equalisation processes and its political sensitivity require regional policy to become one of the core policies of the government. The second pillar of its successfulness is active participation of regional and local self-governments. In this article, we recommend to realise a growth-equalising strategy for the Slovak conditions after the SR accession. The growth-equalising strategy of regional policy should in our conditions: • Support and keep in growth the regional centres (developed agglomerations) that are decisive carriers of national-economy growth and create not only development resources in the Slovak economy but also a pro-growth environment for the equalisation of regions lagging behind; this part of the overall strategy is called growth-equalising strategy focu-sing on regional centres of national-economy growth (developed regions). These urban agglomerations are concerned: Bratislava – Trnava, Trenčín, Žilina – Martin, Poprad, Košice – Prešov and Banská Bystrica – Zvolen and the region of the city of Nitra. • Remove negative consequences of production decrement and adaptation to the new market conditions in the regions lagging behind, together with the support of localisa-tion, revitalisation of the regions with deformed demographic and professional structure (the threat of social and economic degradation and marginalisation). This part of the overall strategy is called growth-equalising strategy focusing on regional centres in regions lagging behind. Urban centres must be the carriers of development also in such regions. In NUTS II. Western Slovakia the development of agglomeration Nové Zámky – Komárno is concerned, in the region of Central Slovakia – the development of the towns of Lučenec – Rimavská Sobota and in the East Slovakia region the development of the agglo-meration Humenné – Vranov. • Both parts of the overall strategy should be implemented with a non-scattered con-centrating model. The practice of regional development proved sufficiently that disper-sing of funds, „strewing“ an area with investments is a short term solution failing to provide long term changes of regional structures. In order to pursue effective use of national resources and, in particular, resources from the EU structural funds, the assumption that in the first after-accession stage (approximately 10 – 12 years) these funds will be absorbed by those cities and ag-glo-meration that dispose of decisive localisation advantages even today, is realistic. Preferring the growth-equalising strategy in its proposed concentrating form in the first stage after EU accession does not mean that the smaller regions out of the reach of the agglomeration development effects shall be excluded from the support.

• Details
• Contents