The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) adopted in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic marks an important departure in European Union (EU) governance, as it introduces an innovative “demand‐driven, performance‐based” model aimed at overcoming the limitations of past policies seeking to promote national reforms. In this study, we set out the theoretical assumptions underlying the RRF governance model, and assess its practical effectiveness and legitimacy by analyzing the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of National Recovery and Resilience Plans in eight member states. The study concludes by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the RRF's governance model, relating them to theoretical expectations derived from previous international experience with similar approaches elsewhere, and considers the implications for future EU policy. Our core argument is that while the RRF's governance design has reinforced national ownership and commitment to reform and investment objectives, its performance‐based financing system leads to a mechanical focus on formal verification of predetermined milestones and targets, with negative consequences for both effectiveness and legitimacy. Addressing these problems would require a redesign of the RRF's complete contracting approach, giving member states greater flexibility on the means for achieving agreed commitments, as well as for revising them, not only in response to unanticipated changes in objective circumstances, but also to lessons learned during the implementation process.

中文翻译：

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管理欧盟的复苏和复原力机制：理论和实践中的国家所有权和基于绩效的融资


为应对 COVID-19 大流行而采取的恢复和复原力基金 (RRF) 标志着欧盟 (EU) 治理的重要出发点，因为它引入了一种创新的“需求驱动、基于绩效”模式，旨在克服过去寻求促进国家改革的政策。在本研究中，我们提出了 RRF 治理模型的理论假设，并通过分析八个成员国国家复苏和复原力计划的起草、实施和监测来评估其实际有效性和合法性。该研究的结论是评估了 RRF 治理模式的优势和劣势，将其与从其他地方类似方法的先前国际经验中得出的理论预期联系起来，并考虑了对未来欧盟政策的影响。我们的核。解决这些问题需要重新设计 RRF 的完整承包方法，让成员国在实现商定承诺的方式以及修改承诺方面拥有更大的灵活性，不仅是为了应对客观情况的意外变化，也是为了吸取经验教训在实施过程中。