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The increasing dominance of neoliberalism as the key steering mechanism of the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s has implied the competitiveness-oriented reshaping of cohesion policy. The aim of this paper is to initiate a debate from a critical political economic perspective on the implications of this shift for Central Eastern European (CEE) member states. To this end, the paper discusses the formation of EU centre-periphery relations from a CEE point of view and formulates some preliminary suggestions as to how cohesion policy would need to be rethought in order to ensure the better integration of lagging CEE regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the effectiveness of European Cohesion Policy has been evaluated in terms of GDP growth rate. In this paper, we consider the effect of the regional policy in terms of its impacts on two specific fields of intervention, namely 'research, technological development and innovation', and 'transport infrastructure'. Our econometric approach involves the use of a non-parametric regression discontinuity design technique to a uniquely-disaggregated Cohesion Policy dataset broken down according to the specific objectives of each stream of funding. The analysis considers different time intervals and sub-samples. Our results demonstrate a positive impact of Cohesion Policy interventions in these two specific fields of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]