Agricultural and food industries constitute a significant part in the economy of European Union (EU), thus providing 15 million jobs and creating 4.4% of the gross domestic product. EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is adopted in all 27 member states and a significant part of budget is allocated to implement it - in 2008 it was 58.8 billion EUR or 44.5% of the total budget. This research performed the analysis of the theoretical, historical and economic aspects of the CAP. Eight main stages of the reform can be distinguished in the CAP development. They have their own characteristics, goals and main support tools. The process of the CAP reform has not been finished yet.

The purpose of this article is to establish the social and/or economic impact of the implemented Cohesion Fund (CF) projects on development of regions of Latvia. Three tasks are addressed to achieve this goal - to study CF projects by regions; analyse distribution of funding by sectors of economy and their compliance with CF objectives; to draft recommendations for improving the absorption of funds and achieving the goals of the European Union (EU) regional policy. The article consists of three chapters, an introduction and conclusions. New scientifically grounded recommendations are developed for improving socio-economic impact of the CF in Latvia. The key recommendation relates to the EU involvement in dealing with problems of increase in costs, namely - by proving that the increase in costs affects several of the new EU member states or Community regions, the EC will have to take part in addressing the problem. Further assessment of the socio-economic impact of the CF on development of regions of Latvia requires additional research.

In the EU funds planning period 2004 - 2006 in total 1141.44 million Euros have been allocated to Latvian national economy. The most part of financing was assigned to the development of infrastructure, development of entrepreneurship and innovation and human resources. Analysing division of the Structural Funds allocation between the regions, most part of the Structural Funds financing of 2004 - 2006 - 49.52% from all the financing has been allocated to the Riga region. That points to unequal division because Riga region has three times bigger Gross Domestic Product then Latgale region. Direct link to the social economic indexes indicating the development of the region and attracted EU funds financing can be surveyed - most developed regions have received most important part of the financing and underdeveloped regions the smallest part. EU funds regional support has to be planned and there should be regional development policy in EU funds distribution. Possible means to endorse the development of the undeveloped regions of the country by support programmes include creating specific support programmes, giving larger aid intensity for projects from regions, consultation work in project development and implementation and other ways.

Zemgale planning region divides into two intra-regions (Zemgale 1 and Zemgale 2) by natural, soil and other agricultural resources. Each intra-region has different size of farms. The aim of the research was to find the structure of rural economy in different size farms or rural enterprises of Zemgale 1 and Zemgale 2 intra-regions. The research showed that very small farms dominate grow-plant sectors production. Medium size farms and enterprises have solid high proportion of grow-plant sector production in total production value. This proportion is even higher in biggest agricultural enterprises and companies (100 is less than or equal 250 ESU). In general author has stated that in Zemgale 1, which is the biggest agricultural production territory in Latvia, grow-plant production sectors dominate.

The paper includes economic research results on the second stage of land reform over the 10-year period (1996–2006) in the districts of Latgale region. The results explicitly stress the region's variability, therefore, the results are different, but common trends can be also observed. The number of land users has decreased, whereas that of land owners and the area of privatised land have increased. The total area of used and owned land has increased by 33.4% and exceeded a million hectares.

Regional development should not be a unified process even for a small country such as Latvia. There is a stereotype that people living in big cities and rural areas differ in their values and behaviour. This study compares the human values of Riga, the Riga district urban area and different rural regions in Latvia. During the last three years - 2007, 2008 and 2009 the survey of 1450 inhabitants showed no substantial difference in peoples' social values; comparing rural and urban locations. Rather, a noticeable difference in human values between people living in different regions of Latvia was observed. It was also observed that the set of values expands in different directions over time, forcing a future increase in fragmentation and segmentation of the population in the country.

Despite Latvia being a small country, it bears marked territorial or regional differences both between smaller administrative territorial units (local municipalities, republican cities and districts) and between larger territories – regions. From 2004 till 2008 Riga received 50% of all European Union (EU) funding. Latgale received the smallest part of financing (10%); the rest of the funding was split almost equally among Zemgale (12%), Vidzeme (12%) and Kurzeme (13%). As specific tasks for the development of specific territories or a balanced distribution of financing were not put forward for the strategy of acquiring funds, the fund investment has been attracted only to those territories where the yield could be the biggest or where the absorption capacity was the highest.

Health care has an important role in regional economic and politic development because human life and health is the only criterion and prerequisite for any other value. If for any reason human loses more than 20% of his blood, he is not able to join in economic actions and is under a risk of dying. That is why economic development loses human resources. In case of losing blood, human life can be saved only by donor blood, since synthetic blood replacements have not been discovered yet. In this paper, historical development of blood donor movement as an aspect of economic development has been researched. Experiments, failures and scientific discoveries in blood transmission history have also influenced world economic history. Based on historical literature in Latvia and eye witness stories, historical development of blood donor movement in Latvia as well as its role in health care as a part of economics is studied in this paper.

People in their lives are divided into different social groups that cooperate with each other; all people are involved in many social groups at one time that may depend and mutually cooperate. The article shows how regional development centres Talsi and Cesis cooperate with other society groups in their territory to develop a smart public administration. The cooperation level was determined by a survey that was provided to the municipality workers, NGO members, and employees in higher education institutions, companies and mass media. The results show that the cooperation is above average, though a lot of work should be done to provide smart public administration in territories. Both municipalities are similar in their size, municipality structure and used cooperation approaches, therefore it is essential to learn from each other to receive greater loyalty from residents and improve cooperation that is significant for smart administration.

Challenges for modern society encourage the interest of how the regions could increase opportunities to accelerate social and economic development and reach the level of developed regions. Especially it is important for rural areas. There is a search for new answers (ideas and innovations) on creating a competitive advantage of regions. Seeking for a better systematic (not chaotic) result of innovative activities various organizations (even working in different sectors) are tied up with other organisations by tight links in their regional innovation system. The collaboration among different organizations is argued to be the main axis for the stimulation of innovativeness. Besides, all innovative activities must be reinforced by organizations’ absorptive capacity (i.e. abilities to access external knowledge, anchor and diffuse it) that leads to innovativeness. This article argues the theoretical and empirical approach of how the regional development could be accelerated by empowered innovativeness as a capacity of participants of a regional innovation system. Lithuania as a modern country and the EU member declares the importance of the reduction of internal regional disparities. Consequently, the analysis of a particular regional innovation system, i.e. Šiauliai region, allows disclosing the regional peculiarities and weaknesses of its innovative activities limiting the development process. The goal of this article is to reveal the current situation of innovativeness in Šiauliai region and draw the directions of its empowerment for further regional development. The article consists of two parts: theoretical insights and explanation of methodological approach; and the presentation and discussion of quantitative research results.