THE EU COHESION POLICYS IMPACT ON THE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA

Veselin Boiadjiev, Vasil Zarkov

Abstract: Bulgaria is entering its third programming period of implementation of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy. During the new programming period 2021 - 2027, our country will receive cohesion policy’s investment funds amounting to 9 billion euros, which is an increase compared to 8.6 billion received during the previous period. Great opportunities often hide the problems they bring though - it is not by accident that the Chinese hieroglyph for opportunity also means risk. The significant amount of these funds instigates a lot of questions, among which: How effectively has cohesion policy been used as a tool to overcome socio-economic disparities and do Bulgarian regions really manage to converge? Two programming periods have already passed (2007 - 2013 and 2014 - 2020) since Bulgaria became a full member of the EU. This is a time long enough to make relatively objective assessments of the results and impact of the cohesion policy on the regional development of the country - one of the least developed countries in the Union, both at national and regional level.
JEL: R580

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Date published: 2021-11-08