Katsuhiro Sakurai (p), Hiroyuki Shibusawa, Ilka Jokinen, Matti Lehtonen

Daniela Antonescu

The purpose of this study is to build the simulation model of the water environmental policy evaluation in Finland. Firstly we quantitatively try to clarify the relationship of economic activity and water pollutant emission in Finland. The economic activity means that the production of some kinds of industry sectors and consumption of household in Finland, and which are the sources of the water pollutant emission. Finland, the target area in this study, has a land area of about 338,000 km2, and more than 70% is occupied by forests and semi-natural areas. Nearly 90% of the land, including wetlands and water bodies, has a natural environment. Helsinki, the capital and largest city, is located at the southernmost tip of the city and faces the Gulf of Finland with a population of 653,835 (2019). The economic activity of these cities discharges some kinds of water pollutant such as Total Nitrogen, Total Phosphorus, etc. Part of Finland also faces the Baltic Sea, and water pollutants from activities of land area flow into the sea area through rivers. The surrounding sea areas of Finland such as the Baltic Sea are still evaluated as being in a eutrophic sea. To improve the water quality of inland water area and surrounding sea areas of Finland, it is also necessary to clarify the emission structure of water pollutants from the socio-economic activities and the natural environment, and analyse for evaluation of the water environmental policy using model simulation.

Foteini-Antonia Papadioti (p), Vassilis Tselios

Katsuhiro Sakurai

To what extent has well-being in European regions been influenced by the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF)? Using regional European funding data for five programming periods, from 1989 to 2020 (1st: 1989-1993, 2nd: 1994-1999, 3rd: 2000-2006, 4th: 2007-2013 and 5th: 2014-2020), combined with a sub-national Human Development Index (HDI), an empirical model is proposed that captures the impact of public policies on the human development of the European regions. This study uses descriptive statistics, to offer quantitative insights across the large database and information about the distribution of the data, mapping and geovisualisation in order to depict the spatial relationships of the data and, finally, panel data econometric analysis in order to investigate the impact of the ESIF on regional well-being.
The results of the analysis aim to shed light on whether and to what extent the quest of regional and national policymakers for European funding, through ESIF, is fundamental to well-being. This subject meets the needs of contemporary European societies for higher standards of living of the European citizens. However, some European regions have higher well-being levels than others. This gap could be reduced through ESIFs. We hope that this study will shed lights on how the European Union could face the problems of socioeconomic division and inequality and how a balanced human development among territories could be achieved. Well-being measures can raise broader awareness of policy objectives by highlighting how policy might improve social and economic outcomes and improve policy coherence by emphasising complementarities of different forms of public action.

Ioannis Gkodosidis (p)

Foteini-Antonia Papadioti

The COVID-19 crisis affected the whole European Union in an unprecedented way and has socioeconomic impacts on each and every European region. In the same time, it is calling into question the role of European Union institutions as proper vehicles to accommodate short and medium term negative national and regional COVID-19 repercussions.
The uprising problem of the pandemics, reinforced the need for integrated economic programs for the alleviation of the economies. Many support programs were held from the European Union such Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII) and the Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU), pioneering in the history of the Union.
The paper studies the efficiency of EU regional policies to encounter the effects of the Covid-19 pandemics on the economies of European regions at NUTS-2 level. The paper follows a policy oriented approach, assessing comparatively the criteria of regional recovery programs, so as to uncover the benefits and shortcomings of applied policies in the last two years. The case study selected, was the country of Greece which has already faced economic difficulties in the past years of its economic crisis. The adaptation of the European support programs in the particularities of Greece as requested from the Greek Government were examined.
The paper is structured as follows: After the introduction, section 2 sets the principles and criteria of European regional policies to address COVID-19 negative regional effects. Section 3 focuses on critical European regional indicators, Section 4 describes the adaptation of the selected European support programs focused on Greek regions , while Section 5 concludes and underlines the fundamental results.

Key words: regional development, European regional policy, covid-19 regional effects