Evaluation of the European Social Fund 2007-2013 in the context of European cohesion policy and the global crisis

Abstract

Social cohesion policy is defined as a supranational political framework of social solidarity and competitive cooperation which translates into hundreds of thousands projects financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund. A main purpose of these financial instruments is to build physical capital and human capital for European regions and populations affected by the economic and social exclusion, to build and deploy the capabilities and competencies aimed at achieving decent and coherent socio-economic level through their incorporations as active players in the productive system and the labor market. What sets the policy of European social cohesion of other policies, is that legal and financial configuration does not subsidizes poverty, its purpose is to act on the structural causes of social and economic exclusion.

Economic and social cohesion described by Member States in the Single European Act of 1986 aims to reduce the structural gaps between states and regions of the European Union, including the respective populations. Our aim is a comprehensive evaluation of the ESF instrument designed to implement programs, projects and social and economic interventions, to enable socially vulnerable groups of population at risk of social exclusion or poverty, out of the ghetto offer marginalization. The work is contextualized in the period of the financial, economic and social crisis that erupted in 2008 until 2013. This is a matching time segment with the duration of the Financial Perspectives 2007-2014 of the European Union.