Regional reform in the czech republic and regional disparities in the extending european union

In this paper we try to describe a state of affairs related to regional reform and Government decentralization in the Czech Republic, taking into account a future European dimension of regional policies. Regional disparities in the European Union and in the Central and East European candidate states on NUTS-2 level of European statistics are studied in context of different extension scenarios. Implications of significantly different level of regional development in the recent member states of the EU and CEE candidate states for the European Union redistribution policies after extension are discussed.