Inside to regional growth : European policies & perspectives

Part of : Αρχείον οικονομικής ιστορίας ; Vol.XX, No.2, 2008, pages 97-111

Issue:
Pages:
97-111
Author:
Abstract:
European reality of the last decades was severely impacted by the forces of Globalisation and European integration that brought about profound changes and transformations in economic, financial, social and territorial terms. On the one hand, the changing of relations among territorial units manifests itself in processes of “urbanisation” or imbalanced regional development. Urbanisation indicates an increasing concentration of employment, public services and population at selected points of the European territory, the big cities or metropolitan areas. At the same time, rural areas are left on the margin of socio-economic development. On the other hand, European efforts to deepen political, social and economical integration between Member States have set off a process of decentralisation and deconcentration of the activities of national authorities and resulted in a loss of autonomy of decision in fields that have long been subject to the absolute sovereignty of the nation state. In order to face the changing socio-economic conditions and to ease their negative effects, some of the necessary authorities are therefore transferred to regional level, which gives rise to new forms of sovereignty and autonomy of the regions. This transitional changes and the increase in importance of European regions and local areas caused by the processes of Globalisation, also effects people’s sense of themselves ascommunities giving rise to regions as new units of reference and basis for cultural identity. This paper attempts to an analyse the phenomenon of tourism and regional growth in E.U.
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Subject (LC):
Keywords:
European Union, Regional Policies, Growth
Notes:
JEL classification: R11