The European Union places considerable emphasis on cohesion policy, with the objective of bringing Europe’s regions and cities closer together in economic, social and environmental spheres.
The Eurostat regional yearbook provides an overview of official, regional statistics that are available within Europe. It is thus a helpful tool to understand the regional diversity that exists and also shows that considering national figures alone does not reveal the full picture of what is happening in the European Union; indeed, there are often significant differences between regions of the same country when one looks at smaller geographical areas. This online publication may therefore be seen as a valuable supplement to the online version of Europe in figures — Eurostat’s yearbook, which concentrates on national statistics for the European Union and its Member States.
