At present, EU member states have rather embarked on a 'National preference' scenario which, in principle. agrees with a national cohesion policy (see for this and alternative scenarios Drewe, 2006). Nevertheless, being 'European' is attractive, 'because, that's where the money is (paraphrasing the so-called Sutton principle: regional policy is the EU's second largest budget with 348 billion euros (2006 prices). If it does not achieve so much national cohesion, it can achieve a different kind of chosesion as shown, for example, by the benefits drawn by EU-15 countries from cohesion policy implementation in Poland. But note also that Delors (2010) has suggested to deprive member states, partially and temporarily, from Structural Fund support as a sanction for violating the stability pact.


The single most popular yardstick of regional disparities at EU level is per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product) measured in terms of purchasing power parity. GDP is defined as 'the total market value of all final goods and services produced in country in a given year, equal to consumer, investment and government spending , plus the value of exports, minus the value of imports' ( ). The disparity yardstick, strictly speaking, is the index EU-27=100 plus the eligibility threshold of 75%. There is the danger of committing several fallacies here: a fallacy of disaggregation, jumping from the EU to the regional level; a fallacy of average, assuming that an average EU-27=100 somewhere exists; and fallacy of misplaced concreteness, fixing the magic number of 75.
A national cohesion policy is faced for example with the fact that GDP per capita in the capital city of Warsaw is four times higher than per capita GDP in Eastern Poland (in 2007), Warsaw is the reference region for Eastern Poland, not some poorer regions im Romania or Bulgaria.
GDP measures income where it is produced, not where it is spent. It is therefore more suited for measuring primarily economic cohesion or as a proxy of competitivity.