ABSTRACT
As we described in the previous chapters, the EU pursues an active policy to promote economic, social and territorial cohesion. It checks through constant evaluation its effectiveness. However, cohesion is not only influenced by policies that have cohesion as their specific target. Many EU policies have sideeffects on cohesion. So, in order to maximize the effects of its efforts the EU has to make sure that the effects of these other EU policies are consistent with the objective of cohesion. To that end the EU assesses, during the fifth stage of the policy cycle, whether the impacts of its policies are positive or negative and in the latter case tries to bend them in such a way that the negative effects are minimized and positive effects maximized.1
