ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a political history of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) prior to the landmark reform of 1988. The Treaty of Rome establishing the EEC in 1958 demonstrated a strong awareness of the existence of regional disparities across the Community as well as a commitment to reduce them. The Germans expressed opposition to the British underlying intention of utilising the ERDF as a financing mechanism for extracting a just retour from the Community budget and argued that France should be a net contributor to the Fund. The compromise agreement weakened the Community-level coherence of the ERDF due to the different national area designation approaches. Project applications for ERDF assistance would be submitted by national governments to the Commission for approval assisted by a Fund Committee. The Parliament argued that the Council of Ministers was acting in a discriminatory fashion, because there were no provisions in the Treaty for setting up a regional policy fund.
