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This conceptual paper discusses key instruments for territorial cohesion in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from a comparative historical analytical perspective amidst the neoliberalisation of EU Regional Policy, which has implications for the production and reinforcement of spatial inequalities in regional development. The neoliberalisation processes unfolding in the diff erent political-institutional contexts of CEE have implications for the movement, transformation and eff ectiveness of policies such as Regional Policy, complicating the holistic understanding of policy eff ects. Increasingly neoliberal regional policies across Europe, and in the diff erent path dependent political-institutional contexts of CEE in particular, raise questions about the eff ectiveness of Regional Policy to achieve territorial cohesion. Comparative historical analysis provides a method of inquiry into path dependent processes shaping institutions and aff ecting policy outcomes, and is therefore a useful approach for conceptualising regional political-institutional contexts and their implications for Regional Policy. Operational Programmes encompassed in national strategic documents from the Czech Republic, Estonia and Hungary over three programming periods are examined as the key instruments for the implementation of Regional Policy, the comparison of which reveals a diff erence in perspectives towards the common EU goals of competitiveness and growth as a means of achieving territorial cohesion. The research thus points to the need for deeper comparative understanding of the political-institutional contexts in the three countries in order to identify factors of eff ective policies and to tailor eff ective policy solutions to specific regional contexts, a task to be advanced in future studies of Regional Policy and political-institutional contexts of CEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protection against floods along the Tisza, Danube and their major tributaries have become an issue of state security significance since nearly 2.5 million lives are affected. The floods of 1999 and 2000 on the Tisza and the 2013 flood on the Danube demonstrated that the 150-year-old system was corrected at the expense of outstanding financial investment and human effort although it is clear that the flood-protection structures built observing contemporary prescriptions are not able to provide the necessary protection. With the rising flood levels and other reasons (including climate change, tectonic movements, changes in river mechanism and others), their protection potential will be further reduced in the future. The warning signs are getting more and more frequent. Since 1864 there have been almost 30 disastrous floods on the Tisza alone. Over the past quarter of a century there happened ten high floods, during which the flood-control system could not ensure the safe conveyance of flood waves. The changes on the Danube were also very remarkable in spite of the major water engineering interventions along the Hungarian section of the river. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]