19. Stresses the importance, in the interests of eliminating disparities, of continuing to provide support primarily for projects aimed at regions that are lagging behind, so that the impact expected in this programming period can be maintained and will be in line with initial estimates; notes that improving accessibility and infrastructural facilities will help to make those regions which lag behind in the internal market more competitive, and will thus contribute to the external competitiveness of the EU as a whole; takes the view that withdrawing this support would reduce the impact of the p ...[+++]ositive initial results;

Pursuant to Article 160 of the Treaty and Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006, the ERDF shall contribute to the financing of assistance which aims to reinforce economic and social cohesion by redressing the main regional imbalances through support for the development and structural adjustment of regional economies, including the conversion of declining industrial regions and regions lagging behind, and support for cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation.

The ERDF therefore contributes to reducing the gap between the levels of development of the various regions and the extent to which the least favoured regions, including rural and urban areas, declining industrial regions, areas with a geographical or natural handicap, such as islands, mountainous areas, sparsely populated areas and border regions, are lagging behind.

The Union has new regions lagging behind in development, and some of the less prosperous old regions still need support. Financial solidarity is therefore all the more necessary given that regions lagging behind in development have the greatest scope for growth in competitiveness and job creation.

The question is therefore how to define regions whose development is lagging behind and lay down the limits of and rules for Community support". The report reviews the four possible options for determining the eligibility of regions whose development is lagging behind: 1) application of the present threshold of 75 % irrespective of the number of countries joining the Union. This option would eliminate a large number of regions in EU 15; 2) the same approach, but all regions above this threshold currently eligible under Objective 1 would receive temporary transitional support; 3) setting a threshold of per capita GDP higher than 75 % of the average, at a level which would eliminate the automatic effect of excluding those regions in the EU ...[+++]15 simply because of the reduction in the average per capita GDP in an enlarged Union; 4) setting two eligibility thresholds, one for the regions in EU 15 and one for the applicant countries, and leading de facto to the creation of two categories of lagging region.

"The Union needs a cohesion policy which addresses three types of region and structural problems": (1) regions whose development is lagging very far behind, 60 % of which are in the applicant countries; (2) regions of the Fifteen which have not completed the process of real convergence (particularly in the three cohesion countries); (3) regions facing serious structural problems, such as some urban areas, areas affected by industrial conversion, rural areas dependent on agriculture and/or fishing, and areas suffering from natural or ...[+++] demographic handicaps (islands, mountain areas, outermost regions, etc.).To avoid funding being spread too thinly, cohesion policy should concentrate on those measures where the Community can add real value, resulting in stronger links between financial allocations, the value added by the measures and the anticipated results.