Disaggregating the impact of the European Union Cohesion Policy: Differentiated responses in the internalisation of the policy’s ‘added value’ in Greece and Ireland

This paper explores the divergent ‘added value’ that the implementation of the European Union’s (EU) Cohesion Policy (CP) had in two of the original cohesion countries, Greece and Ireland. The implementation of the CP entails the transposition of the added value that arrives at the domestic level of the recipient countries and intends to promote changes in the administrative and institutional structures. The paper identifi es fi ve areas in which the added value has infl uenced Greece and Ireland, cohesion, political, policy, operational and policy learning. We argue that Greece has faced signifi cant diffi culties in internalising certain components of the CP added value because of a series of domestic administrative and institutional arrangements that mediated this relationship. In the case of Ireland there have been better patterns of adjustment to the components of the CP added value because the previously established institutional and administrative arrangements were reformed by the domestic Irish governments.