European investment funds as an instrument of harmonized economic development in Europe: enabling candidate countries with IPA

The EU regional policy is based on financial solidarity of its members through their share of the
common budget. This budget is allocated for the development of less developed regions, and it
contributes to a balanced and harmonized development of this community, especially when there are
challenges caused by the common market and the integration process in general. Namely, the smaller
regional disparities, all the effects of integration will be more strongly distributed among regions and
member states. By using deductive, inductive method of synthesis, comparison, analysis and
historical method, the study of this paper is the Instrument for Pre- accession assistance - IPA and its
impact on European integration of the Republic of Macedonia as a candidate country for
membership.
Key words: financial solidarity, harmonized development, integration