METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF REGIONS IN THE EU COHESION POLICY

Abstract

The article provides a systematic reconstruction of the methodology used to assess the economic integration of regions within the framework of EU Cohesion Policy, the Union's principal investment strategy aimed at reducing economic, social and territorial disparities between regions and Member States. The study argues that this methodology should be understood not as a set of isolated indicators but as an integrated multi-level measurement cycle, in which each successive level grows out of the previous one: comparable statistics enable comparable indicators, and indicators in turn underpin the allocation of funds. The first level, the statistical infrastructure of comparability, rests on two legally binding instruments: the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) and the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010), which fix a stable territorial grid and oblige all Member States to calculate macro-indicators according to a single methodology. The article examines in detail three procedures that ensure genuine spatial comparability: the regionalisation of GDP by the actual place of production rather than the place of legal registration, the conversion of value indicators into Purchasing Power Standards (PPS), and statistical adjustments for commuting. The second level systematises the core economic indicators: GDP and gross value added per capita in PPS, labour productivity, gross fixed capital formation, research and development expenditure, and labour-market indicators. The study then reveals the allocation methodology that translates measured indicators into budgetary decisions through the categorisation of NUTS 2 regions, the composite EU Regional Competitiveness Index (RCI 2.0) and the system of common monitoring indicators, as well as the mechanism of synthesising assessments in the Cohesion Reports and the analytical apparatus of σ- and β-convergence. On this basis, the directions for applying this methodology to the regions of Ukraine as an EU candidate country are substantiated, taking into account the introduction of the national NUTS-UA classification and the role of the Ukraine Facility as a pilot platform for mastering the European system of monitoring and reporting.