Reviews the process leading to the adoption of the first regional policy regulations of 18 March 1975. Identifies, from archive documentation: - The historical emergence and the nature of a substantial regional camera for the Community (Chapter I). - The Commission's determinant role in the emergence of a regional policy dossier (Chapter II). - The terms of proposed regional intervention by the Community and its most disputed aspects (Chapter III). - The fuelling of the regional dossier by the EMU Programme (Chapter IV). Argues. 1. The emergence of a fundamental regional concern, particularly beyond a sectoral continuation of agricultural reform and the control of regional aid schemes, occurred back in 1968. A search for economic and policy convergence justified regional action. Such an objective remained valid in the upgrading from an economic union on an EMU. 2. Within the context of the exercise of medium-term economic policy co-ordination, the Commission formulated and launched at her own initiative the regional dossier. Such formulation of a regional objective took a rather technocratic character and involved fundamental policy choices. 3. The Commission considered regional financial solidarity as marginal and dependent on an action of co-ordination of regional policies. 4. It was not enlargement into the Nine that settled the acceptance by all delegations of a regional competence, but its linkage to the Programme of EMU.