1. The European Union expansion of the last four years, has stimulated tendencies already existed before: towards regionalization, towards strengthening the principle of subsidiary, and towards activating the special policy of neighborhood. Strengthening of these tendencies should be viewed as the reaction to formation of increasingly more bulky and less transparent association.
2. There are two financial instruments the European Union uses to develop the member-states regions. Both are being used within the frameworks of implementing the Lisbon Strategy approved at the Summit of European heads of states and governments in March 2000, in Portugal’s capital. The strategy points out to transforming the European Union into the most competitive and dynamically developing on the basis of economy of knowledge region in the world, in ten-year-period of time, i.e. up by 2010. Based on this strategy, the EU is planning "within the frameworks of solving the global problem of maintaining the steady development, to become the etalon of economic, social, and ecological progress for the whole world."
3. The European Union is the association unprecedented in history, with the population of 500 million, founded according to the principle of "unity in variety". Despite of all the complexity and length of the coordinating positions procedures, the 27 states, among which there are no commanding ones due to their sizes or influence, nevertheless, have been able to come to common solutions, quite often based on consensus. Various interests of the certain countries are being taken into consideration. Still, they know, that no state can be in opposition to all the rest for a long time, thus damaging the Union’s legal capacity. Various forms of regional cooperation show, that the European Union is not a unitary community.