From EU Cohesion Policy to the Recovery and Resilience Facility: a lesson-drawing perspective

The adoption of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) by the European Union following the Covid-19 economic crisis marked a significant step in how the Union responds to emergencies. The RRF has been the object of several research works regarding its design, implementation and potential impact on the management of EU policies, in particular Cohesion Policy. Regarding the relationship with Cohesion Policy, this thesis contributes to this body of literature in an original way: reversing the perspective on the matter, it intends to analyze the way Cohesion Policy shaped the design of the RRF, adopting the framework of lesson-drawing. The research design is based on a qualitative document analysis of European hard and soft law in order to identify the lessons that the European Commission learned from 2014-2020 Cohesion Policy and then applied to the RRF. The findings show that lesson-drawing occurred, especially at the priority-setting and programming stages: the main results are related to the reform-nexus, thematic concentration and the use of Simplified Cost Options (SCOs). Moreover, the theoretical framework adopted allows us to distinguish between different kinds of learning; in particular, we find evidence of copying, emulation and inspiration. This research provides relevant findings into the mechanisms of the RRF and Cohesion Policy that could inform debates on the development of the two policies and on how to deal with future emergencies.