Assessment of regional development in the selected EU
countries in the context of Europe 2020 Strategy
EVA MINARČÍKOVÁ
Faculty of Economics, Department of European Integration
VŠB-TU Ostrava, Czech Republic
XVIII. MEZINÁRODNÍ KOLOKVIUM O REGIONÁLNÍCH VĚDÁCH
17.–19. června 2015
CONTENT
• MOTIVATION AND AIM OF PAPER
• METHODOLOGY OF PAPER
• EMPIRICAL RESULTS
• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCES
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
MOTIVATION AND AIM OF PAPER
• The economic, social and territorial disparities in the level of regional performance
are a major obstacle to the balanced and harmonious development of the regions,
but also of each country as well as a whole EU.
• Through the Cohesion Policy, the EU aims to reduce the regional inequalities and
support lagging states and their regions to catch up with the rest of the EU
members.
• The crisis has had a major impact on regions and cities across the EU. The
positive tendencies in the narrowing of regional disparities have stopped.
• In June 2010, the EU has adopted Europe 2020 Strategy.
• In period 2014-2020, the ESIF within EU Cohesion Policy are an increasingly
important means of achieving the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
MOTIVATION AND AIM OF PAPER
• The approach to evaluation of regional disparities is not uniformed.
• Most existing approaches use several disparities indicators that are processed
by different less or more sophisticated mathematical and statistical methods.
• Alternative and not broadly extended approach represents multicriteria
decision-making methods (e.g. AHP, TOPSIS, VIKOR).
• The aim of the paper is to evaluate and compare the level of regional
development in the EU selected countries (Czech Republic, Poland,
Slovakia) in the period 2010-2013 according to Europe 2020 Strategy
indicators by utilizing the VIKOR method.
• This paper is supported by the Student Grant Competition of the Faculty of Economics, VŠB-Technical
University of Ostrava, project registration number SP2015/93 and by the Education for Competitiveness
Operational Programme, project registration number CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0296.
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
METHODOLOGY OF PAPER
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
Stage1
Define the
model
•Select the appropriate MCDM methods to evaluate the level of regional
development.
•Define the model of research problem – criteria and alternatives.
Stage 2
VIKOR
• Start VIKOR procedure using the equal weights.
• Determine Sj, Rj and Qj.
•Rank the regions according to distances to ideal solution
Stage 3
Interpretation
• Comparison of regions̕ ranking in the years 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013.
•Comparison of regions̕ average ranking 2010-2013.
METHODOLOGY OF PAPER – Database
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
Table 1 Data availability for the Europe 2020 Strategy headline indicators (EU-27)
Source: European Commission, 2007, European Commission, 2010, Eurostat, 2014; author’s processing, 2015
Headline indicator Data coverage at NUTS 1 level Data coverage at NUTS 2 level
Employment rate, group aged 20-64
(%)
2000-2013 2000-2013
Total intramural R&D expenditure
(GERD) (%)
2000-2011 2000-2011
Greenhouse gas emissions (index) 1991-2012 Indicator is not currently available
Share of renewable energy in gross
final energy consumption (%)
2004-2013 Indicator is not currently available
Primary energy consumption
(1000 toe)
1990-2013 Indicator is not currently available
Persons aged 30-34 with tertiary
education attainment (%)
2000-2014 2000-2014
Early leavers aged 18-24 from
education and training (%)
2002-2014
2000-2013
Indicator is available with limitation
People at risk of poverty or social
exclusion (%)
2005-2013
2005-2013
Indicator is available with limitation
METHODOLOGY OF PAPER – VIKOR method
• VIKOR method determines the compromise ranking-list, the compromise solution
and the weight stability intervals for preference stability of the compromise solution
obtained with the given weights. It introduces the multicriteria ranking index based
on the particular measure of closeness to the ideal solution.
• The first step is to determine the best fi
* and the worst fi
- values of all criterion functions.
• Second step is to compute the values Sj and Rj:
• Third step is to calculate the values Qj:
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
.min,max*
ij
j
iij
j
i ffff  
)/()( **
1


  iiiji
n
i
ij ffffwS  )/()(max ** 
 iiijii
i
j ffffwR
)/())(1()/()( ****
RRRRvSSSSvQ jjj  
(In case of this paper, weight of criteria are equal ; wj=1)
j
j
j
j
SSSS max,min*
 
j
j
j
j
RRRR max,min*
 
• Last step is to rank the alternatives, sorting by the values S, R and Q, in decreasing order.
The best alternative Q(a') is the best solution with the minimum of Qj.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015,
Hustopeče
CONCLUSION
• After four years of the Europe 2020 implementation, 14 regions had better position in the
year 2013 in the comparison with the year 2010 when the biggest improvement in regional
development in the context of Europe 2020 was recorded in Poland. Contrary, 9 regions
achieved the worse positions when the insufficient level of regional development could be
observed in Slovakia. Five regions showed the same level of development in the year 2013 as
in the year 2010.
• The regional disparities in the level of development have still persisted between Czech
regions on the one hand and Polish and Slovak regions on the other hand.
• The results of VIKOR analysis confirmed that since the year 2010 NUTS 2 regions with capital
city (Praha, Bratislavský kraj, Mazowieckie) together with Czech region Jihovýchod have had
significant and different socio-economic positions from the other regions (especially Czech
region Severozápad, Polish regions Lubuskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie
and Slovak region Východné Slovensko) .
• Implementation of the EU Cohesion Policy programmes and the effective use of ESIF will play
key roles in regions’ development in the context of Europe 2020 priorities in the next years
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
MAIN REFERENCES
• EUROPEAN COMMISSION. Fifth Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion. Investing in Europe’s future. Luxembourg:
Publications Office of the European Union, 2010. ISBN 978-92-79-16978.
• EUROPEAN COMMISSION, (2010a). EUROPE 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth [online]. Brussel, 2010
[cit. 2015-03-13]. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eu2020/pdf/COMPLET%20EN%20BARROSO%20%20%20007%20-
%20Europe%202020%20-%20EN%20version.pdf
• EUROSTAT. Regional Statistics [online]. 2014 [cit. 21. 8. 2014]. Available from:
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/region_cities/regional_statistics/data/database
• CAMPO, C., C.M.F. MONTEIRO and O.J. SOARES. The European regional policy and the socio-economic diversity of European
regions: A multivariate analysis. European Journal of Operational Research. 2008, vol. 187(2), pp. 600–612.
• ISHIZAKA, A., NEMERY, P.. Multi-criteria Decision Analysis: Methods and Software. United Kingdom: Wiley and Sons, Ltd., 2013.
ISBN 978-1-119-97407-9.
• GINEVIČIUS, R., V. PODVEZKO and D. MIKELIS. Quantitative evaluation of economic and social development of Lithuanian regions.
EKONOMIKA. 2004, vol. 65, pp. 1-15.
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FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS: 9TH INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS. Culik, M. Ostrava: VSB TU, 2013. pp. 325-
331. ISBN 978-80-248-3172-5.
• KUTSCHERAUER, Alois et al. Regional disparities. Disparities in the Regional Development, their Concept, Identification and
Assessment. Ostrava: VŠB-TU Ostrava, 2010. ISBN 978- 80-248-2335-5.
• POLEDNÍKOVÁ, Eva. Usage of AHP and TOPSIS Method for regional disparities Evaluation in Visegrad Countries. In Proceedings of
the 11th International Conference Liberec Economic Forum, 16.-17.9.2013. Czech Republic: Technical University of Liberec. pp. 456-
466. ISBN 978-80-7372-953-0.
• SVATOŠOVÁ, Libuše and Ivana BOHÁČKOVÁ. Metodologické přístupy k hodnocení regionálních disparit. In Sborník příspěvků, XV.
Mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, Valtice, 20.-22. června 2012. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2012. pp. 11-18. ISBN
978-80-210-5875-0.
• TZENG, Gwo-Hshiung and Jih-Jeng HUANG. Multiple attribute decision making: methods and applications. Boca Raton: CRC Press,
2011. ISBN 978-1-4398-6158-5.
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče
Question/suggestion…
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
eva.minarcikova@vsb.cz
XVIII. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách, 17.-19.6.2015, Hustopeče