ABSTRACT
This chapter deals only with the ten countries applying for European Union membership, even though there are interesting developments in some of the other Central and Eastern European countries. Although the applicant countries are by no means all in the same situation, their common past as much as their Community future does set them on comparable paths. The prospect of receiving Community structural funding is also a strong incentive for them to get down to designing and organising the management of regional policy structures. In view of the very limited resources available in the applicant countries, it is in the first instance up to European structural policy and more specifically regional policy to take up the challenge. There are budget appropriations for that purpose, and instruments were modernised as part of the recent revision of the regulations through Agenda 2000.
