Regional Policy is one of the EU’s main investment policies. It targets all regions and cities in the European Union in order to support job creation, business competitiveness, economic growth, sustainable development, and improve citizens’ quality of life. It is implemented through several specific Funds in financial cycles of seven years (programming periods), reflecting the EU’s multiannual financial framework.
This evaluation will address the investments made through cooperation programmes subscribed to the European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) goal, co-financed by the ERDF in the 2014-20 period. It will assess their rationale and the evidence of their effectiveness, efficiency and impact, their coherence with other policies, their relevance and the EU added value. It will seek to identify factors contributing to the success or failure of these investments under different socio-economic conditions, good practice and their contribution to growth, sustainable development and job creation.
It will specifically analyse the effects of investments on the integrated regional development between neighbouring border regions (land and maritime) and transnational, the identified challenges and barriers for cooperation and how these were addressed. This will be done through an identification of the theories of change (ToC) relevant within clusters of ETC programmes.