14 years constructing the European Union

	In 1957 with the Treaty of Rome, the European Community undertook the objective of promoting, through the creation of a common market, harmonious development of the economic activities of the whole community. In spite of that, the existing imbalances and inequalities gave rise to the need to create intervention mechanisms of a structural nature. Thus, with the Treaty itself, the European Social Fund (ESF) was created with the function of fomenting employment and workers' geographical and functional mobility. This is the first instrument of Community Structural Policy.	Years later (1962), the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (FEOGA) is created with the basic aim of achieving the objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) defined in the EEC Treaty. This fund was structured in two sections: Guarantee and Guidance. The first was to be devoted to the general objective of market unity with guaranteed supply and price stability, while the FEOGA-Guidance would have the mission of promoting structural reforms that would permit the primary sector to develop. This became the second instrument of Community Structural Policy.

	In 1975 the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was created. This is when the community regional imbalances start to no longer be considered problems exclusively for each country. Thus the embryo of the Community Regional Policy (CRP) comes to be and is equipped at that precise moment with a specific instrument. So the birth of the ERDF ushered in the CRP, the general objective of which consisted in reducing the existing differences among the regions of the EEC.	To this aim, the best known contribution would be the Community's financial intervention through the structural fund besides coordinating the regional effects on the rest of the European policies. Spain's entry into the EEC in 1986 made it possible for different autonomous communities to obtain financing for a whole series of projects through structural funds and the cohesion fund.

	The Union's structural measures have aimed to reduce the existing differences in development among her different zones, focusing the interventions of the different instruments mainly on constructing infrastructures as well as supporting educational and training systems and productive investment.

Table 1.1. UE Structural measures (1994-1999)*

GENERAL OBJECTIVE	Reduce the differences in development: - European Union stability. - Achieve a high level of employment.
QUANTIFICATION	Period 1994-1999: 170,000 million Ecus. 0.46% of the EU GDP (at the end of the period).
STRUCTURAL FUNDS	Geographically defined: - Develop the more backward regions (70% of the SFs). - Reconvert industrially declining regions (11%). - Develop and structurally adjust rural zones (4%). - Adjust scarcely populated areas (0.5%). Not geographically defined (15% of the SFs): - Attention to long-term and youth unem-ployment. - Adapt workers to industrial change. - Adjust agriculture and fishing.
AREAS OF INTERVENTION	- Infrastructures (30%). - Educational and training systems and sup-port for employment measures (30%). - Productive investment (40%).
FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS	- ERDF. - ESF. - FEOGA-Guidance. - FIFG. - Cohesion funds. - EIB loans.

(*) Reference that permits comparisons up until 1994 and prior to Agenda 2000.