Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 11, No 1 (2015)

Abstract

The global crisis accentuated the competition between the greatest world economic actors. One of them, the EU28, tried to find, as solution to support its economic growth, the Cohesion Policy. The paper is focused on the analysis of the results of the Cohesion Policy and the perspectives of the new strategy Europe 2020. In order to do these, the paper uses the latest official statistic data and divides the analysis into three periods: until 2012, during 2012-2014 and during 2015-2020. The analysis is based on three elements (a comparative trend analysis, followed by a cluster analysis and a forecast using SPSS19 software) and takes into considerations four important macroeconomic indicators. The main conclusion of the paper is that the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy will be not achieved and the socio-economic disparities will increase across the EU in 2020.All conclusions of the analysis are supported by pertinent diagrams and statistic tables.