European Cohesion Policy * Willem Molle

Willem Molle's most recent book, European Cohesion Policy, is a superb volume. The book is the only available manuscript that goes so deeply into the principles, practices and current challenges of European cohesion policies. I see his book as one of the (too) few pieces of work that try to bring together academic scholars and policy-makers despite the lack of consideration of real-world technicalities from the first group and the negligence in data collection of the second group. Before going any further into the contributions of the book, a parenthesis on the relevance of the topic is necessary. Cohesion is a dear issue for Europeans because significant inequalities of income and social capital exist across EU countries and across regions within the same country. In addition, the recent enlargements to the East have worsened the disparities. Cohesion policies absorb one-third of the EU budget, but the recipients (the poorer countries or regions) have not necessarily shown signs of greater performance over the years, which makes the main contributors (the richer countries) question the effectiveness of all these efforts. Because most of the countries that joined the EU agreed to loose control over their monetary policy and, to some extent, over their budget policy, cohesion policies are often seen as the only stabilization mechanism to cushion asymmetric shocks and structural problems

Cohesion (chemistry · Development economics · Economics · Inequality · Political economy · Political science · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Polish socio-economic development · Regional Development and Policy