ABSTRACT
The EU cohesion policy, as framed by constitutional provisions during the second stage of the policy cycle, has to be worked out in more concrete terms. One does this in the third stage of the policy cycle. At this stage (that we address in this and the following chapter) the elaboration is done at the level of broad outlines and basic principles. They have an important status as they form together with the constitution (previous stage and previous chapter) and the delivery system (next stage discussed in Chapter 9), the framework for the more day-to-day implementation.1
