Tensions between intergovernmentalism and integration have always characterised the governance of EU finances. This panel hosts complementary perspectives on how these tensions unfold across the policy cycle of the EU budget. First, a look into the negotiations of the Multiannual Financial Framework, whose results provided the agenda and the necessary funding to further EU public development policies in the 2021-2027 period. Second, we look at how the financial implementation and accountability unfolds in a largely overlooked spending area (transport policy). The third paper examines the accountability of the flagship spending programme in the cohesion policy during the current Multiannual Financial Framework. All papers rely on novel and original data. The interplay between the three papers will allow discussion on the respective involvement of domestic and supranational actors in the management and accountability of EU finances.

The trans-European transport network (TEN-T) policy seeks to build an effective and multimodal network of railways, roads, inland waterways and short sea shipping routes linked to urban nodes, maritime and inland ports, airports and terminals across the EU territory. The policy goes back to the late 1990s but is currently based on the 2013 Union guidelines that established the technical requirements for the infrastructure and defined the network layout. While the early TEN-T policy mainly supported the implementation of separate transport 'priority axes' in the EU Member States, the 2013 review introduced a systematic EU-wide network approach with a common set of rules for the network's construction and financing. Over time the EU has complemented national funding of TEN-T projects, supporting TEN-T implementation through the European structural and investment funds (EFSI), a dedicated funding programme – the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) 3 – instruments such as InvestEU and interventions from the European Investment Bank (EIB). In 2021, several Member States also decided to use part of their EU Recovery and Resilience (RRF) funding to advance some TEN-T rail projects. This article examines the emergence and operation of the various financial tools used to finance TENs – both budgetary and non-budgetary – and looks at recent Commission evaluations and audits by the European Court of Auditors to ascertain the mechanisms in place to ensure accountability and to degree to which the financing of TENs is ultimately accountable to the EU taxpayer.

Through an intergovernmental lens, this paper analyses the negotiations that concluded the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the years 2021 to 2027, and continuity in its financing.

The context was a wider package that included the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and the Union’s rule of law mechanism. Drawing on elite interviews with senior officials from the 27 permanent representations, national ministries and EU institutions, the paper identifies the divisions that were present within the Council, and the resolutions that led to a reduced MFF. Our findings show that the outcome of a lower MFF was the product of bargaining between coalitions in the Council, which secured objectives in other parts of the 2020 package or – for the MFF itself – side-payments in the

form of rebates or lower financing costs.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility is the flagship spending programme in Next Generation EU. The RRF features a novel budget implementation governance framework which combines cohesion traits with economic governance ones. The implementation challenges of the RRF have been widely addressed in literature, notably the capacity of national public and private subjects to sensibly absorb such high sums of EU funding in such short timeframe. Less attention has been devoted to questions of oversight and accountability, equally important to ensure the legality and regularity of spending, as well as the long-term sustainability of the benefits of the RRF.

After situating the financial oversight of the RRF against the backdrop of EU (financial) accountability theory, this paper focuses on the formal and informal accountability arrangements governing budget management in this programme.

Financial accountability of the RRF rests, first and foremost, on the RRF regulation, which reserved the European Parliament a limited involvement due to legal and political reasons. However, the budgetisation of NextGenerationEU -despite its specificities- unexpectedly yielded a situation in which the financial management of the RRF would be accounted for and overseen in accordance with the general rules governing the EU budget, notably the Financial Regulation and the Common Provisions Regulation. As a result, EU and national bodies must fulfil broader accountability thresholds than the ones enshrined in the RRF regulation. Have financial accountability watchdogs exploited this window of opportunity? What are the constraints they have faced in holding the RRF implementation to account? These are some of the research questions addressed in this paper.

Through desk research and interviews with key actors, this paper analyses the role three main EU financial watchdogs (the European Parliament, the European Court of Auditors and the European Public Prosecutor's Office) have played as regards the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The research compares their respective mandates and resources, followed by their institutional adaptation to the challenges posed by the governance model applied in the Recovery and Resilience Facility; finally, the lessons learned from their respective oversight activities, before synthesising the main lessons learned in the accountability of the RRF.