THE EUROPEAN FUTURES AND COHESIVE EUROPE EU2020 STRATEGY AND COHESION POLICY WITH FLEXIBLE INTEGRATION

The EU is at a crossroad in 2011, since this year can become an important turning point in the EU history. The EU may turn to a wider comprehensive profile with a Cohesive Europe along the lines of the Europe 2020 Strategy (EU2020) and the Lisbon Treaty (LT), or it may turn to a more narrow competitiveness profile with a "Eurofortress" that can produce a widening gap between the Centre and Periphery in the EU27. This crossroads as a historical turning point in 2011 necessitates a new mission statement about the future the EU is heading for. It has to formulate also the EU's role in the global world in order to redesign the EU's future in this "risky", quickly globalizing world. This paper analyses the emerging organic link between the EU2020 Strategy and cohesion policy on one side, and the increasing tension between the Core and the Periphery in the efforts to achieve stronger economic governance on the other.