Economic, social and territorial cohesion are overall aims and values of the EU. Besides Cohesion Policy also other EU policies and initiatives (must) contribute to the cohesion objective. In an earlier study, we have assessed 15 EU policies according to their ‘Cohesion Spirit’. Following up on this, the new study looked at how the European Committee of the Regions pro-actively can strengthen cohesion as overall value in policy debates. The aim of this study is to strengthen the place based approach, multi-level governance and a strong partnership principle in delivering these EU key policies with an impact on the convergence of regions and Member States.

The full report is available here.

There are also two blog posts based on the study, one presenting the proposed Cohesion Spirit Compass and one on the meaning of cohesion.