Governing the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility: National Plans and Performance-Based Financing in Theory and Practice

Beyond its remarkable financial envelope, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic marks an important qualitative step forward in EU governance, as it introduces a new "demand-driven and performance-based" governance design. In this paper, we assess the effectiveness and legitimacy of the RRF’s design, by analyzing its practical functioning during the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) in eight member states: Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain. More specifically, the presentation examines the extent to which governments took ownership of the Plans; the inclusivity of their drafting; and the role of the Commission in steering the process. On implementation and monitoring, it traces how RRF governance has affected domestic policy making; what obstacles have arisen in the implementation process; and how monitoring by the Commission works in practice, with particular attention to its interpretive flexibility and administrative load. The conclusion assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the RRF’s governance model, and proposes revisions to be incorporated into the design of any successor to the RRF itself, as well as to that of any similar EU funding instrument.