Territorial cohesion facing the crisis: how do indicators address newly the issue?

A lot of words were spent about European cohesion policy, linking it to territorial development and cooperation, balanced growth, polycentrism, urban drives, rural areas, ultra-peripheries (Territorial Agenda 2007). Thus, it could presuppose the cohesion policy influences Energy, Climate Change, Demography, Global Economic Competition, Accessibility, Geographical structure of UE (cities, regions), etc., because, changing the policy paradigm through cohesion, new investments in potential growth areas are needed, but, at the same time, regional and urban influencing areas change promoting cooperation and cohesion to create integrated areas. At the moment, in Europe, researchers and institutions’ points of view are various: 1 traditional indicators (like GDP) are not exhaustive to explain how wealth is distributed onto regions and it helps cohesion 2 the indicators’ polarization is made without territorialisation 3 some territorial indexes, like ETCI, could be manipulated, excluding demographic situations, education, employment and life expectancy, from the cohesion calculation. 4 territorial indicators for cohesion remind to complex visions, so we should design a territorial base and adopt a systemic approach and a method to impact assessment, to identify territorial indicators 5 time dimension is fundamental to measure cohesion status and progress 6 it’s wrong to implement only a few and simplified indicators in cohesion measure 7 some experiences of Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) and new methodologies could help cohesion characteristics to be identified So, a Multilevel Governance and a Multiscalar Approach are needed, as well as the role of territorial indicators to maintain comparable information in particular to territorial diversity. A support for operational tools for territorial impacts, policies’ implementations and orientations should be developed. Instead policy makers suggest 1 the use of traditional cohesion indicators included in past 4 relative reports 2 the development of policy composite indicators able to measure regional competitiveness in terms of attractiveness, labour market, accessibility, too 3 territorial cohesion as aspect of sustainable development which minimises conflicts. It crossrefers to costs of environmental protection, environmental externalities, environmental performance or economy, policies' assessment and solidarity. So, it’s necessary to change the approach and to use indicators for policy processes too.