Centre for Cross Border Studies 39 Abbey Street, Armagh BT61 7EB The Border (Funding), Europe and Social Cohesion

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 ‘the economic crisis has increased the gap in GDP per capita between leading and lagging regions in half of […] OECD countries’.  the ‘overall impact of the crisis on GDP and employment has been highest in the three Baltic States, Ireland, Greece and Spain’.  the ‘highest increase in the gap between the best 10% performing regions and the bottom 10% regions, more than 8 percentage points, occurred in Ireland, Slovak Republic and Denmark’.  in the Irish case ‘the increase of regional inequalities was due to a faster worsening of the poorest regions compared to richest ones’. 3

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 Northern Ireland shares the lowest productivity rates with Wales (16% and 15.4% below the UK average respectively).  Northern Ireland ranks among the lowest in relation to Gross Disposable Household Income.  Northern Ireland has the lowest gross median weekly pay for males (£479, compared to £651 in London). 5

 The creation of new businesses exceeded the closure of existing businesses in all regions of the UK, except for Northern Ireland and Wales.  In 2011 Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of its population with no qualifications (21.7%). 6

 László Andor: ‘the fact is that employment and social conditions will not improve without sufficiently strong public policies, further integration in the euro zone and greater solidarity within and between states’. 7

 Mr Noel Dorr: “There is the significant issue of what the UK will do regarding its membership of the EU. Even the lead- up to the proposed referendum could cause difficulties because of the need to negotiate and the question of how far we should go to accommodate the UK’s remaining in the EU and worries that we might diminish the fabric we have created in the Union”. 8

 INTERREG programme considered to have ‘had a significant impact across the eligible region’, and to have ‘created high skilled, well paid jobs in the local economy’, as well as having ‘facilitated excellent levels of cross-border cooperation’. 9

 ‘without [PEACE III] funding it is questionable that there would be any public funding to support the wide range of local authority and civil society initiatives that have made a real difference to social cohesion on the island of Ireland’. 10

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 ‘Promoting cross-border regional innovation policy is difficult given a number of barriers, including those created by policies themselves’.  InterTradeIreland plays ‘key role in implementing cross- border innovation efforts’, and helps to ensure that ‘Cross-border economic cooperation has acquired a high level of legitimacy’. 12

 ‘Cross-border flows are below their potential at present in terms of trade, commuting, business networks, access to public procurement, sales of design services, students and tourists, collaboration between research, technology and development (RTD) centres and between these centres and industry’. 13

 How is cross-border cooperation activity to be sustained? 14