The reform of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund

Summary:

The programmes of assistance available under the European Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund are presently being renegotiated between the Commission and the Member States. This renegotiation is part of a much wider reassessment of the financing of the EU as a whole necessitated, not only by the likely enlargement of the EU, but also because the present framework of expenditure (the Financial Perspective) expires in 1999.

This Paper provides an overview of the operation of the European Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. The Commission's proposals for the new Objectives and the reforms of the Cohesion Fund are then considered. There is also a discussion of the review of the NUTS regions that the UK Government has recently undertaken.

This Paper has been revised to take account of the new data for GDP per capita that were published by the Office for National Statistics on 22 October 1998.

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