State of the Art paper WP II/III: Theories, Team 3 (D15b)
April 2007
George Andreou

Abstract
EU cohesion policy has entered a new phase. On the one hand, the accession of a large number of economically lagging member stares has upset the pre-existing financial allocation and has led to the re-definition of objectives and priorities. On the other hand, following the 2005 reform of the Lisbon process, cohesion policy has been accorded an important role in delivering Lisbon-related EU goals - and this has a significant impact on programming and implementation. The aim of this paper is to expose the main elements of this reform and to discuss their conceptual and substantive implications.