Difficulties of the EU – the Cohesion Policy Implementation System in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The article deals with the application of theories of European integration on a case study. In the first part of the article the current state of the Czech-EU structural policy is described. The second part deals with the theoretical definition of the topic and leads to a definition of the hypothesis and the research method. The main theoretical approach for the case study is the multi-level governance theory, which describes the multi-level sharing of authority among various types of actors. None of those actors has the power to define the final version of a given policy. The case study, which in detail examines the development and the efficiency of the implementation system of structural policy in Czech Republic, proves that this environment can cause an overuse of free-riding tactics and consequently the so-called system rigidity.