The Regional Policy of the European Union (EU) is financed by the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF). Regional disparities of opportunities, wealth and income are reduced with this mechanism. Job creation, but also a sustainable and healthy European economy and environment, are the purpose of these funds, jointly managed by the European Commission and the EU member states. The Regional Policy framework is always programmed for a period of seven years. The ESIF are managed differently across the EU, in a more centralized or decentralized way, depending on the member states.

Research Question:
The main objective will be to find which factors foster the decentralized or centralized management of the ESIF and how to improve implemented allocation systems.
Structure of the thesis and methodology employed:
To answer this question, the ESIF from the perspective of centralization and decentralization will be introduced in chapter one. Then, pros and cons of centralization and decentralization with study cases from the EU will be explained in the second chapter. The other methods to identify the factors which foster the decentralization/centralization will be treated in chapter three. Once all the factors have been defined, the pros and cons of all these factors will be discussed in chapter four. Finally, some recommendations for the next programming period 2021-2027 will be presented in chapter five.

Outcomes/Benefits of the thesis findings:
Thesis will be helping us to understand why the ESIF are managed the way they currently are, with economic explanations, and in a context of decentralization of public policies in Europe. Also, another objective of this work will be to criticize and discuss the current management, and to bring some ideas to improve it. The management of the ESIF will be linked with the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), in order to see if the allocation fund system based on geographical areas can be improved. The NUTS 2 level and its regional configuration are appropriated for this study, as the funds are managed most of the time at the administrative regional level of the EU member states. These recommendations or ideas will also be discussed with the next period 2021-2027.