Transformations of European Financial Instruments in the Context of European Enlargement Process

The necessity of a regional development policy at the nowadays’ European Union level has become vital since the beginning of the enlargement process in 1973 when to those six founding states (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherlands) subjoined Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark. In 1957 when European Economic Community was founded, the EU-6 recorded a similar development level, the regional problems being isolated only in Southern part of Italy. Although on Italy request, the Treaty ascertained the existence of some inequities between prosperity levels of different regions, article 130 was one of the fundamental motives of creating the European Investment Bank, which may be considered one of the regional policy instruments. The enlargement process increased regional problems, major disparities regarding the economic development level being recorded between EU-6 regions and regions of the new member states (North part of England and North part of Ireland). Rural areas from Denmark and Ireland recorded a precarious development compared with similar areas from member states, and mining regions of Great Britain were confronted with industrial re-conversion problems. These kinds of problems existed even inside member states so that carboniferous regions Lorena (France), Ruhr (Germany), South part of Belgium were strongly affected by the deindustrialisation process. These situations led to the creation of the European Regional Development Fund in 1975 and its main objective at that moment was promoting innovation and infrastructure development in order to adjust the existing discrepancies at the Community level.