"Spain: The Needs, The Support Received, Instruments Used And Results"
Submitted by kvrettos on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
- Category: Business
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"Spain: The Needs, The Support Received, Instruments Used And Results"
The needs of Spain
Spain was characterised by a wide regional diversity and there were considerably varying conditions not only among different regions but also even within the same region. For this reason, Spain has benefited greatly from the EU Structural Funds, which were directed towards industrial and agricultural regions that were in need of economic development. The funds have also helped raise the standards of living and modernize the infrastructure of the country. Between 1989-1993, Spain received ECU 12 billion or almost a quarter of the Community's structural aid expenditures.
There were, nevertheless, certain weaknesses that were common to at least the Objective 1 regions, which covered 77,2% of the country' territory and 59,4% of total population. These included deficiencies in basic infrastructures, especially in communications, energy and water distribution; productive environment, especially in R&D and new technologies; human resources, with a low adaptation between university education and the needs of the productive system; provision for the environment and for certain social services relating to the quality of life.
Objective 2 regions in Spain suffered from lack of modernization and a low degree of technical innovation, weaknesses in infrastructure and environmental problems at the industrial and urban level.
But possibly the most important and urgent problem facing the Spanish economy was that of unemployment, which amounted to 24,3% of the active population in 1994. This was a national average and it was evident that there were Objective 1 and Objective 2 regions in which unemployment exceeded this figure.
Spain played an important part in initiating the Cohesion Funds and strengthening the existing Structural Funds for the poorer members of the Community. In early 1991 as the Community was discussing the Treaty on European Union, Spain...
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