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Open track 13: Implementing the Recovery and Resilience Agenda: Politicisation, Constraints and Power Shifts
Time:
Monday, 02/Sept/2024:
4:00pm - 5:30pm
Session Chair: Adina Akbik
Location:Sociology: Aula 5
Via Giuseppe Verdi
Capacity: 55
Presentations
Implementing the Recovery and Resilience Agenda: Politicisation, Constraints and Power Shifts
Chair(s): Adina Akbik (Leiden University)
This panel explores the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) seeking to unveil the distinct forms of politicisation of the Economic governance instruments after the pandemic and their effects on the evolving relationship between the Union institutions and the governments of the Member States. The adoption of the RRF in 2020-2021 had been hailed as a ‘Hamiltonian’ moment in EU politics signifying a paradigmatic shift in European fiscal integration. Unprecedented levels of EU borrowing in capital markets enabled the Union to support the recovery of Member States through the allocation of grants and loans. What received less attention at the time was the conditionality attached to the funding and the strong linkage of the new fiscal instrument with the pre-existing Economic governance mechanisms, particularly the European Semester. The implementation phase of the RRF marked the introduction of the European recovery agenda into the realm of domestic politics highlighting the political contestation of European fiscal and macroeconomic policies at the national level and the centralisation of authority by the EU institutions.
The presenting authors examine the issue of the politicisation of the Recovery and Resilience agenda by departing from different theoretical bases allowing them to shed light on different aspects of the process. The discussion is expected to present a strong comparative dimension as the papers base their findings on the analysis of empirical material taken from four Member States: France, Germany, Italy and Belgium. The dialogue will also touch on wider issues of EU policymaking, such as the domestic usages of Europe by national-level politicians, the challenges of fiscal federalism in the EU, the contractualisation of the relations between the Union and the Member States and the impediments set by the EU governance to the renegotiation of social contracts at the national level.
Presentations of the Symposium
Stronger Conditionality for Stronger Compliance? Analyzing NGEU's Effect on the Implementation of European Semester Recommendations
Enrico Borghetto1, Igor Guardiancich2, Lucia Quaglia3, Mattia Guidi4 1University of Florence, 2University of Padua, 3University of Bologna, 4University of Siena
This study examines the EU’s capacity to influence policy change among member states, focusing on the impact of EU conditionality under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) introduced in response to COVID-19. Using data on the evaluations of the implementation of the 2019-20 Country Specific Recommendations before (2021) and after the official start of the program (2022-2024), we provide insights into the extent the RRF conditionality marks a structural break in the effectiveness of the European Semester. The results of our multivariate analysis indicate that the amount of RRF transfers is significant for compliance, along with legal-institutional and sectoral factors. Greater scrutiny under the Excessive Deficit Procedure increases reform efforts, while high problem loads reduce them. The Ukrainian crisis has further slowed progress in climate, energy, and transport policies.
Legitimacy and Political Dissensus in the Implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility: The Case of Italy
Thomas Christiansen, Andrea Capati Luiss University
This article examines the links between legitimacy, politicisation and the rise of political dissensus in the context of the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). In particular, it assesses democratic, technocratic and procedural legitimacy against the vertical, inter-level relations between EU institutions and national authorities in the elaboration of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), with a focus on the Italian case. The article shows that the implementation of the RRF tends to centralise powers in national executives and their technical-administrative structures to the detriment of national legislatures. This gives rise to a “legitimacy disequilibrium” in the implementation of the RRF characterised by a strong technocratic and a weak democratic legitimacy. Taking issue with the coordinative Europeanisation literature, it thus argues that the implementation of the RRF is not shielded from dynamics of politicisation. On the contrary, the legitimacy disequilibrium resulting from the implementation of the RRF is prone to being politicised by national party actors, thus assuming salience in national public debate. Finally, the article illustrates how the politicisation of the NRRPs has the potential to give rise to political dissensus, a form of political contestation involving different types of actors (EU institutions, member state governments and national parties), operating at different levels (EU and national), and with different aims.
Conditionality in the European Semester: Managing Conflict on the Recovery Agenda
Amandine Crespy, Dimitrios Argyroulis Université Libre de Bruxelles
In January 2023, the European Commission delayed the payment of a €847 million from the Recovery and Resilience Facility to Belgium, on the grounds that the envisaged pension reform would deteriorate the already bad budget position of the country, which now has a debt-to-GDP ratio and budget deficit among the highest in the EU. One of the main political leaders in the country accused the European Commission to “blackmail” the federal government. Against this background, this paper asks to what extent the legitimacy of the European Commission and its scrutinizing and steering competences of the recovery agenda were questioned. Based on a qualitative inquiry involving the process tracing of events and semi-structured interviews, this paper investigates the legal and political underpinning of the conflict, and the forms that the politicization of the RRF took. Overall, the paper shows that, while the RRF is presented as the hallmark of a new political era in the EU, there is continuity as far as sensitive policy areas and macro-economic conditionality is concerned. Yet, as far as Belgium is concerned, the role of EU governance (and the European Commission) acts as a constraint to forge necessary compromises.
