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THE EU COHESION POLICY AS PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN SLOVENIA

The European Union cohesion policy helps to shape and improve the economic performance of member countries from its earliest beginnings. The initial concept and orientation of the cohesion policy were formulated already in the Treaty of Rome (signed 1957) introducing the European Economic Community (EEC) and later the EU by the Maastricht Treaty (signed February 2, 1992). Similar to formal and functional changes of the entire integration, the objectives, methods, terminology, and resources of the cohesion policy were evolving and changing. The past changes of the EU structure and functioning, together with the cohesion policy changes, have evolved from the ongoing EU enlargement and deepening processes. Discussing cohesion policy requires understanding and analyzing of the EU achievements, together with the analyzing and understanding of the cohesion policy specific implementation and impacts on the level of the individual EU member states. On the EU level, analyzing of the cohesion policy and searching for the new concepts, objectives, resources, and arguments supporting its active use is the most heated before accepting each financial perspective. On member states level, the intensity of debates and arguments about the cohesion policy coincide with that on the EU level. Additionally on member states level, discussions are more continuous because of the linking of cohesion financial resources with the national economic development plans and achievements. The debates on national levels are generally related to the assessments of potentials and realized levels of absorption for the allocated EU cohesion funds. Assessments and analysis investigate the national adequacy of the cohesion funds. The issue is linked to evaluating of the ability and conditions on the side of the member state to actually use the EU cohesion funds successfully for the regional and national economic growth improvements. The paper discusses a selection of aspects of the EU cohesion policy economic rationale. Some formal and conceptual changes of the cohesion policy from the past are described with the idea to assess potential difficulties in the use of the cohesion policy instruments on the level of eligible subjects. Major focus of the paper is on describing and critical evaluating of the two membership periods of the EU cohesion policy implementation in Slovenia. The analyzing of the specifics in using the cohesion policy instruments in Slovenia is based on the concept of the national absorption capacity and practical obstacles in achieving better economic cohesion development results.

The EU cohesion policy, cohesion, absorption capacity, economic growth, cohesion policy financial instruments, Slovenia, National Strategic Reference Framework

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