Publication

This paper examines the impact of the ongoing process of European integration on interregional competition and interregional division of labor. The author argues that as a result of trade and factor mobility, specialization and polarization of European regions may rise entailing a growing core-periphery-divide of regional income. She finds that a case for accompanying compensatory regional policy cannot be denied but that the EU largely overstates the need for such a policy at EU level. She holds that the EU should abstain from direct structural interventions into regional economies.