National recovery and resilience plans

Beyond its remarkable financial size, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) introduces an innovative ‘demand-driven and performance-based’ governance design centred on National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) agreed between Member States, the Commission, and the Council. This chapter analyzes the practical functioning of this new governance design, drawing on an in-depth study of the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of NRRPs in 11 Member States. It assesses how far governments took ownership of the plans, their inclusiveness, and the Commission’s role in their negotiation. It then examines how the NRRPs have affected domestic policy making, what obstacles have arisen in their implementation, and how monitoring and assessment by the Commission works in practice, with particular attention to its interpretive flexibility, administrative load, and responsiveness to unanticipated changes in circumstances. The chapter concludes by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the RRF governance model, together with the implications for future EU policy.