@article{ab7cbf51fe2d4f98a5162d23acb0d916,
title = "Talkin{\textquoteright} bout a revolution? Institutional change in the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility: the case of climate policy",
abstract = "The European Union (EU) post-COVID-19 investment and reform programme, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), has been hailed as novel and ambitious, both as a fiscal instrument and as a lever for accelerating progress towards EU climate commitments. Yet, its design also exhibits strong path dependency, drawing on existing processes and commitments. Adapting theories of institutional change and models of hard/soft governance, we argue that the RRF is an example of significant yet gradual change – of evolution rather than revolution – taking place via layering and conversion of existing frameworks, and alteration of their logics of action. We show how the RRF repurposes the European Semester and track continuity and change in climate policy, a key priority area. Our findings suggest that the literature on institutional change should give greater consideration to the interplay between layering and conversion as a mechanism of gradual yet transformative evolution.",
author = "Tomas Maltby and Pierre Bocquillon and Eleanor Brooks",
note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to Sebastian Baciu (King's College London) for excellent research assistance, our interviewees for sharing their expertise and time, two anonymous reviewers for valuable feedback and extensive suggestions, and discussants and participants at panels at the European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on European Union conference in Rome (June 2022) and the University Association for Contemporary European Studies conference in Lille (September 2022). EB is supported by UK Research and Innovation (Medical Research Council grant reference MR/T023244/1). For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. Funding Information: The conversion of policies and instruments under the RRF was not unqualified. The Commission reviewed the NRRPs critically, forcing changes to provisions not deemed compatible with the climate objectives (Interview 14) – such as the repurposing of coal and gas power plants in Bulgaria (Interview 15), and projects on waste incineration and gas infrastructure promotion (Interview 18) – on the basis of the {\textquoteleft}do no significant harm{\textquoteright} (DNSH) principle (see below). Whilst funding of previously planned projects was expected, under the additionality principle, which prohibits the use of RRF funds to cover costs that are addressed under other national or Union programmes, the Commission also rejected the inclusion of projects already funded by, for example, the Cohesion Funds (Interview 12). However, driven by the speed required and the desire to maintain coherence between policy frameworks, the dominant trend has been one of conversion and repurposing. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Authors. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies published by University Association for Contemporary European Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.",
year = "2023",
month = aug,
day = "15",
doi = "10.1111/jcms.13536",
language = "English",
journal = "JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES",
issn = "0021-9886",
publisher = "John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (10.1111)",
}