Regional and Cohesion Policy in EU: Twenty years of improving and a new future

This paper shows the main lines of European cohesion and regional policy (CRP) from its configuration in The Single European Act to the actual period of programming 2007-2013, taking as starting point the analysis of main change vectors of its development. The paper analyzes basically the last two periods of programming and it presents the basic trends of the actual period implementing the three new objectives: convergence, regional competitiveness and European regional cooperation; a more concentrate emphasis in programming and budgeting tasks; a reorientation of proportionality principle and, finally, an special emphasis in simplification and decentralisation. These new proposals introduce some doubts on the performances related to the possibility of paying less attention to regional realities and serious difficulties for matching with the Lisbon strategy.