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The Border (Funding), Europe and Social
Cohesion
Centre for Cross Border Studies
39 Abbey Street,
Armagh BT61 7EB
[email protected]
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‘the economic crisis has increased the gap in GDP per capita between leading and
lagging regions in half of […] OECD countries’.
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the ‘overall impact of the crisis on GDP and employment has been highest in the
three Baltic States, Ireland, Greece and Spain’ .
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the ‘highest increase in the gap between the best 10% performing regions and the
bottom 10% regions, more than 8 percentage points, occurred in Ireland, Slovak
Republic and Denmark’.
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in the Irish case ‘the increase of regional inequalities was due to a faster
worsening of the poorest regions compared to richest ones’.
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Northern Ireland shares the lowest productivity rates
with Wales (16% and 15.4% below the UK average
respectively).
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Northern Ireland ranks among the lowest in relation to
Gross Disposable Household Income.
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Northern Ireland has the lowest gross median weekly
pay for males (£479, compared to £651 in London).
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The creation of new businesses exceeded the closure
of existing businesses in all regions of the UK, except
for Northern Ireland and Wales.
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In 2011 Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of
its population with no qualifications (21.7%).
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László Andor: ‘the fact is that employment and social
conditions will not improve without sufficiently strong
public policies, further integration in the euro zone and
greater solidarity within and between states’.
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Mr Noel Dorr: “There is the significant issue of what the UK
will do regarding its membership of the EU. Even the leadup to the proposed referendum could cause difficulties
because of the need to negotiate and the question of how
far we should go to accommodate the UK’s remaining in
the EU and worries that we might diminish the fabric we
have created in the Union”.
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INTERREG programme considered to have ‘had a
significant impact across the eligible region’, and to
have ‘created high skilled, well paid jobs in the local
economy’, as well as having ‘facilitated excellent levels
of cross-border cooperation’.
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‘without [PEACE III] funding it is questionable that
there would be any public funding to support the wide
range of local authority and civil society initiatives that
have made a real difference to social cohesion on the
island of Ireland’ .
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‘Promoting cross-border regional innovation policy is
difficult given a number of barriers, including those
created by policies themselves’.
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InterTradeIreland plays ‘key role in implementing crossborder innovation efforts’, and helps to ensure that
‘Cross-border economic cooperation has acquired a
high level of legitimacy’.
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‘Cross-border flows are below their potential at
present in terms of trade, commuting, business
networks, access to public procurement, sales of
design services, students and tourists, collaboration
between research, technology and development (RTD)
centres and between these centres and industry’ .
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How
is cross-border cooperation
activity to be sustained?
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