Opportunities to Further Development of the Indicators for EU Regional Development Areas Beyond 2020

Content

Creating equal living conditions in all regions is one of the major goals of german regional policies. To this end, support programs like the ‘common task of improvement of regional economic structure’ (GRW) are of the utmost importance. Such programs provide assistance to regions that are economically lagging behind national averages. However, when identifying those regions, special guidelines imposed by the European Union (EU) must be observed. For instance, these guidelines result in a ceiling for regions being object of regional funding (currently: 25.85 % of the entire german population) that is determined by a comparison of different indicators of regional performance between all european regions.

As Germany is currently experiencing a positive economic development compared to most other EU member states, the population ceiling for Germany is expected to decrease in the next structural fund period (2021-2028). Additionally, the Brexit will lower the population ceiling for Germany. This study first estimates the level of the population ceilings for all EU member states after 2021 in case the current approach remains unaltered, and then examines the effects of modifying the method and the set of indicators used to determine the population ceilings. Modifications of the method for determining the population ceiling and alternative (or additional) indicators were analysed.

Publication (in German)

Ragnitz, Joachim, Gerhard Untiedt and Michael Weber, Optionen einer Weiterentwicklung der Indikatorik für die von der EU abgegrenzten Regionalfördergebiete nach 2020, ifo Dresden Studien 79, ifo Institut, 2017 | PDF Download

Ragnitz, Joachim and Gerhard Untiedt, "Optionen einer Weiterentwicklung der Indikatorik für die von der EU abgegrenzten Regionalfördergebiete nach 2020", ifo Dresden berichtet 24 (6), 2017, 14–19 | PDF Download