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"If the European Union’s regional policy and its effects at the international and interregional levels have been the object of numerous studies in the social sciences, and in geography in particular, its implementation at the lower levels remains less known. This article shows how this policy became integrated into the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (France) regional process of constructing a partnership strategy of development. This led to a specialization rather than a concentration of the European Community structural funds. This specialization was a result of the conjunction of three elements: an intraregional zoning, which associated the zones most in trouble and strategic zones at the level of the region; a multi-annual program of financing, adjusted periodically to integrate as much as possible EU leitmotivs (innovation, competitiveness, environment); finally, different measures of mobilization by territories, which reflects not only the nature of their problems, but also their degree of mastery of EU intervention procedures"