[...]... Jacques Vandamme The enunciation of the objective of economic and social cohesion was one of the most important innovatory aspects of the 1986 Single European Act (SEA) Informed public opinion has typically perceived the SEA as a way of facilitating and accelerating progress towards the realisation of the internal market, by changing Article 100 of the Treaty of Rome and by introducing majority voting in. .. apparent The insertion into the Treaties, by way of the SEA, of the principle of economic and social cohesion amounted to an implicit recognition that the original belief in the ‘automatic’ effects of the single market, in bringing about progressive harmonisation of living standards and more balanced economic development, had become outmoded xi Action was needed, but what could that be, and what form... financing system of the Community, Biehl makes his interesting proposal for a progressive Community surcharge to national income and corporation taxes The system should have two main advantages: • endowing the EC with a progressive revenue source and therefore eliminating the regressive bias inescapable in the current revenue system; • improving the decision-making process by linking the revenue and. .. Community Support Frameworks European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund European Community European Steel and Coal Community European Currency Unit European Economic Community European Investment Bank European Monetary System Economic and Monetary Union European Regional Development Fund European Social Fund Federal Republic of Germany General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross Domestic Product... recalling at the beginning of this book the main objectives that were to be pursued: Objective 1: Promoting development of regions which are lagging behind globally in comparison with some Community average; Objective 2: Restructuring industrialised areas in decline; Objective 3: Combating long-term unemployment; Objective 4: Integrating young people in the labour market; Objective 5: (a) Adjusting agricultural... politically rewarding The main example is the internationalisation or Europeanisation of firms which is necessary both for increasing their industrial and innovative capacity and for enlarging the industrial base of the Community economic system This presents no problem for the largest firms which are fully equipped to engage in this trend But for medium-sized firms, transaction costs remain high: finding a partner... difficulties in the programmes, and so on There is therefore much uncertainty and vagueness in the process Second, monitoring implies the control of physical indicators to be monitored in relation to what was provided for Regrettably, as the actions are multiple and complex, and as the rules are cumbersome and the standards ill defined, uncertainty and vagueness are again present But when uncertainty or... traditional in the past THE FUTURE OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COHESION The necessary point of departure in considering the Structural Funds is the choice by the Community, in the Single Act, of economic and social INTRODUCTION 9 cohesion (under the aspect more particularly of some sort of regional equilibrium) as a basic aim for Community policy This is a political fact which reflects the way in which our... member states and the adaptation of Community policies in such a way that the objectives mentioned in Article 130A will be achieved; • the combined use of the Structural Funds, the European Investment Bank and other structural instruments to foster economic and social cohesion in a more specific type of policy The Structural Funds are the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Social Fund... the one hand, remove the obstacles preventing take-off and, on the other hand, create suitable conditions for self-sustained growth’ Two main problems appear in this case: the low level of general infrastructure and the lack of initiative The problem is totally different for the declining industrialised areas whose case is presented in Hannequart’s contribution Infrastructures generally exist Initiatives . h0" alt="" Economic and social cohesion in Europe Discussions of a full internal market within the EC are finally reaching fruition. Regular intergovernmental. and Social Cohesion in Europe will be of significant interest to those involved in European studies, particularly the economics, politics and economic geography