ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to untangle the varied threads of Cohesion policy scholarship with a classificatory framework comprising three analytical strands the origins, operation and sustainability of Cohesion policy. Accounting for a major share of the EU budget, Cohesion policy has a complex budgetary and regulatory framework requiring the achievement of political compromises between EU institutional actors in multiple decision-making arenas. Cohesion policy may be interpreted or practised as micro-economic initiatives or serve a macro-economic function. It is a discrete policy with a set of specific instruments or Funds, yet is also a boundary-spanning policy that cuts across different sectors and, at the same time, an overarching Treaty value and principle to be internalised across all EU policies. Cohesion policy is sometimes understood as being an expression of spatial planning policy at the EU level, particularly with respect to its European territorial cooperation strand. Cohesion policy is more than a side-payment' to buy support for other EU programmes and agendas.
