ABSTRACT

In recent years, while so many other items of public expenditure in the European countries have been under severe restraint, the European Structural Funds have grown astonishingly fast. They now amount to one-third of the Community’s budget. In some Member States they are now of major financial – and therefore political – importance. Even in the UK and other northern European countries, their grants have become sufficiently large, compared with corresponding national expenditure, to have a significant influence on a range of domestic policies.