ABSTRACT
One of the most significant challenges facing the EU today is how to address the apparently increasing disparities between regions within many Member States. It is likely that the pursuance of socio-economic and territorial cohesion across the EU territory will have serious implications at numerous territorial levels. In light of this, the European Commission and the Member States clearly anticipated the territorial impacts that accompanied the accession of significantly less prosperous regions to the EU in the successive enlargements in 2004 and 2007 (CEC 1996, 2004). However, it would appear that whilst such impacts at the EU level provide a difficult challenge for EU cohesion, the problems facing national and sub-national levels are going to be equally challenging, if not more so. The increased focus on the Lisbon Agenda promoting economic competitiveness appears to be driving centralization tendencies and an increased concentration of population, activities and resources within a limited number of larger urban areas in many Member States, and in particular in the CEE countries. These phenomena appear to be taking place at an ever increasing pace since the start of the transition process and this has significant implications for territorial development. There seems therefore to be a paradox whereby current policies, whilst reducing disparities at the EU level between Member States, are in many cases fuelling increasing disparities within them (Ezcurra et al. 2007).
