유럽연합 지역정책의 추진체계와 효과: 잉글랜드 목적 1지역 사례

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate how the EU regional policy has actually contributed to the economic development of a specific peripheral region by studying a case of Objective 1 policy in Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, England. Moreover, this research tries to demonstrate statistically how EU structural funds, such as ERDF and ESF, have been spent to promote the socio-economic growth of this underdeveloped region. The paper answers these questions through the various primary documents analysis including official evaluation reports from the regional government. Also face-to-face interviews with regional government officials have been conducted in order to supplement limitations of documents- centered analysis. The main contribution of this study is that it attempts to empirically demonstrate the procedure and effectiveness of the EU objective 1 policy, which is taking the largest proportions of budget among all existing regional development policies of the EU. Especially, this study provides a detailed analysis of how the socio- economic growth indicators (e.g., populations, employments, businesses, and unemployment rates) have been changed in the region after certain amounts of regional development subsidies were given from the EU. In conclusion, it emphasizes the importance of ‘flexibility of policy’ that enables policymakers to fully incorporate particular characteristics/needs of each individual underdeveloped region in the policy making/execution processes. The findings of this study are also expected to give some meaningful implications for the South Korean regional policymakers.