Regional inequalities in the European Neighborhood Policy countries: The effects of growth and integration

The paper explores the spatial dynamics in the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) countries, in a period of significant transformations in their internal and external economic environment. Regional disparities are reported to be the net outcome of two opposite dynamics: a pro-cyclical pattern, on the one hand, with dynamic and developed regions growing faster in periods of expansion and slower in periods of recession, and a long-term spread effect, on the other, partly offsetting the cumulative impact of growth on space after some critical level of development. In this framework, expanding trade relations with the European Union advanced countries may be an additional source of spatially unbalanced growth and polarization for the ENP countries, as the costs and benefits of integration prove to be unevenly allocated in space. To the extent that growth and integration dynamics tend to polarize the ENP economic space, a set of critical policy questions arise.