A new article on conditionalities in EU Cohesion policy, authored by John Bachtler and Martin Ferry, has been published in the journal Regional Studies online. In the context of debates on the performance of European Union Cohesion policy, the article considers how the European Union has used control mechanisms to influence the use of Structural Funds by EU Member States. Using the principal agent model, the article examines empirically three case studies of conditionalities applied to the absorption of funding (decommitment rule), outcomes of interventions (performance reserve) and targeting of expenditure (earmarking) in European Union programmes over the 2000-2013 period.
The findings reveal different levels of effectiveness of the three conditionalities, attributable to the differential scope for trade-offs during the regulatory negotiations, external pressure and principal self-interest. The article discusses an effectiveness threshold for introducing controls, the tensions between multiple conditionalities and the limitations of top-down control mechanisms in influencing agent behaviour. The reference for the article is: Bachtler, J. and Ferry, M. (2013) Conditionalities and the Performance of European Structural Funds: A Principal“Agent Analysis of Control Mechanisms in European Union Cohesion Policy, Regional Studies, available here.