Abstract The aim of this thesis is to examine Interreg as an instrument for regional policy in the European Union. Interreg is an initiative designed to strengthen economic and social cohesion throughout the European Union by fostering balanced development through cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation. But how does it work in practise? Three main questions are asked to answer this: How well does the implementation in the programmes work? How does the programme management look and how well does it work? What degree of efficiency does Interreg show in financial and physical effectiveness? With evaluation and implementation as theories the questions are answered together with a qualitative method. The conclusions that can be drawn is that Interreg strengthen European unions economic and social cohesion in form of integration and regional development that in many ways make it easier to travel and trade over the borders. One other conclusion is that the identification between the member states grows and the borders will more and more erase. Interreg does not lead to a more balanced development in European Union because of the programmes regional structure. Some obstacles do remain and the problem with finding common structures for cooperation between states must develop for further progress.

The Swedish model is perceived as a successful framework for combining rapid labor market adjustment with low inequality. Formulated by Gösta Rehn and Rudolf Meidner and implemented from the 1950s, it has been associated with the peak in economic restructuring and interregional migration during the 1960s. However, there is little empirical evidence for this. This thesis consists of an introduction and four essays. It explores three aspects of the model from a long-run perspective: interregional migration, wage dispersion and labor market policy. Essay I uses new data to track interregional migration rates in the postwar period (1945-1985). The results show that the responsiveness of interregional migration to local labor market conditions remained stable over time; it was neither higher during the 1960s nor lower when migration declined after 1970. Essay II employs a regression-decomposition framework to analyze the evolution of wage dispersion. The results suggest that wage dispersion was stable from centralized bargaining’s introduction in 1956 to the late 1960s. Afterwards, there was a rapid decline, likely because of solidaristic bargaining. Essay III contrasts the implementation of the active labor market policy to regional policy. Following a decisive shift around 1970, the focus on north to south mobility was replaced with policies to stimulate northern employment. Declining rural support for the Social Democrats and electoral competition from the Center Party caused this shift. Finally, Essay IV is a case study about mobility subsidy usage in Västernorrland County using sources on relocation allowances from 1965, 1970 and 1975. The results indicate that in the 1960s there was strong selection into the program by young persons with good labor market prospects. However, the program’s use did not change after the regional policy shift in the early 1970s. The collective results suggest that the policies associated with the Swedish model were minor for economic restructuring patterns. The migrations of the 1960s and the decline in regional disruptions after 1970 should instead be explained by studying the consequences of structural changes, how regions were progressively affected differently and the possible role that government policies played in directing demand for labor across space.

Small and Medium-sized enterprises represent the backbone of the economy and they play a crucial role in the development of regions. Promoting position of SMEs within the economy may be done through their financial support. The aim of this work is to depict the current SME environment in the European Union and to determine different levels where the companies may acquire funding. The European level process is analysed on two different real projects with the EU funding.

Subject of my diploma thesis is evaluation of implementation of aid programme Real Estates. The aid programme implements priority axis Development of Business Infrastructure of Operational Programme Industry and Enterprise in the period 2004--2006. Aim of this paper is to evaluate the use of subsidies and the achievement of goals of the programme Real Estates. The theoretical part deals with regional policy instruments and its basis in theories of regional development and economic theories. Afterwards the programme Real Estates is explicated as well as it's rules and requirements. The programme is put in context with theoretical principles of regional policy instruments, which are applied in the programme. Within the analysis of the programme, there are subsidised projects clearly specified as to what projects and which applicants were subsidised and how much the aid was. The core analysis surveys economic, social and environmental impacts of the projects generally and in part regionally.

This diploma thesis is focused on implementation of regional policy in the Czech Republic and Poland. The theoretical part deals with regional policy in general, its definition, motives and used instruments. It is also described its implementation in the Czech Republic and Poland, namely institutional framework, documents in this sphere. This work also contains a description of basic disparities in both states and unemployment trend and trend of regional domestic produkt per inhabitant in regions NUTS II. It is also briefly described how these two states draw the support from structural funds. The last part compares the implementation of regional policy in the Czech Republic and Poland and contains a SWOT analysis.

This thesis is focused on identification and evaluation of stabilization effects of municipal budgetary policy. Stabilization policy of state and municipalities is outlined in the first part of this thesis. Its second part is concerned with relation between stabilization and regional policy and possibilities of Czech municipalities to raise financial support for their development projects within regional policy of Czech Republic. The third part is focused on instruments used by municipalities to reach their objectives within their stabilization and development policy. Particular attention is paid to budgetary policy of municipalities, their revenues and expenditures. The fourth and fifth part of this thesis deal with concrete municipalities, i.e. small village Sedlec and midsized town Hluboká nad Vltavou, their budgetary policy, their stabilization effects and development projects implemented by them. Finally, in the sixth part, important correspondences and differences between these two municipalities are recorded.

This thesis deals with regional and structural policy. The main objective of regional policy is to lower the differences between regions. The thesis describes priorities, aims and instruments of regional policy. Further it deals with the chance to draw a financial subvention from Structural Funds in contracted program period 2004 - 2006 in the Czech republic. The main aim is to evaluate real impacts of realized projects that were cofinanced from Joint Regional Operational Programme (JROP) in South Bohemia area.

The submitting final thesis deals with the Regional and Structural Policy and focuses on the third objective "European Territorial Cooperation". This is the objective with the lowest financial allocation and very often it stays out of the main interest. According to this, the thesis try to clear up the programmes, it also introduces concrete projects. The largest attention in the thesis is payed to cross-border cooperation, esp. to cross-border programmes in the South-Bohemian Region (Austria and Germany). In this part, there are also evaluated previous achievements and outlined prospective ways of cooperation with german-speaking neighbours.

This diploma thesis focuses on strategic documents concerning the development of Zlín's region and their mutual compatibility. As first the theoretical part is concentrated on a general definition of regional policy and also Czech regional policy. Next, there are described individual strategic documents on the national and regional level and their mutual relations. In the practical part the thesis deals with particular documents of Zlín's region, i.e. Program for development of the Zlín's region territory, Development strategy of Zlín's region, Regional innovation strategy and above all Regional operational program NUTS II Middle Moravia. For each document there is described its vision and targets and there are indicated relations to other documents. The main part is focused on the Regional operational program NUTS II Middle Moravia and its relations to the other discussed strategic documents of Zlín's region based on its priorities and targets that are demonstrated through schemes. Finally, there is an evaluation of ability of ROP NUTS II Middle Moravia to fulfil priorities of Zlín's region.

The interactive environmental centre is the modern museum that would like to familiarize its visitors with ecology and environment subjects in the entertaining and educational form and promote natural and cultural beauties of the region. Its founding organization -- infinity-progress o.s. received the EU grant. The aim of the thesis is to present project, to analyse its surrounding and to suggest appropriate marketing communication. A secondary aim is to create a logo and design of promotional poster. Thesis is divided into four chapters. The first one includes the basic definitions of the project areas. It is the tourism sector, non-governmental organizations and EU regional policy. The second chapter focus on marketing and its specifics in the tourism and services sphere. The practical part consists of project's initial situation description, external and internal marketing analysis and the marketing mix is introduced at the end. Marketing communication as one of the important marketing mix tools is a subject of fourth chapter. Design of the communication is presented in several steps as well as new logo and promotional material.