Federico Fabbrini, full Professor of European Law, Dublin City University, Founding Director at Brexit Institute, and PI Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence REBUILD, will present his paper 'The Recovery & Resilience Facility as the New Legal Technology of European Governance'.
This paper examines the innovative legal technology of European governance introduced by the Recovery & Resilience Facility (RRF) and its growing diffusion to a plurality of internal and external EU programmes. It outlines how the RRF has established a novel governance framework, structured around a 5-step process: definition of EU priorities, design of national plans, EU assessment of national plans, national implementation of the plans, and EU monitoring.
Since 2021, the RRF legal framework has been replicated in several contexts, including RePowerEU, the EU Social Climate Fund, the Macro-Financial Assistance+ Instrument for Ukraine 2023, the Ukraine Facility, and even the new Stability and Growth Pact. The RRF model offers several legitimacy advantages by promoting national ownership while allowing EU institutions considerable influence in shaping national policy-making. Additionally, being performance-oriented, it offers effectiveness benefits. However, this model also presents certain drawbacks warranting further exploration.