When technical sophistication overflows political control: Contractual governance and accountability in the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility

What are the effects of contractual governance on democratic oversight in the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)? This paper focuses on the contractualization at the heart of the conditionality regime of the RRF. It scrutinises the sophisticated design of contractual commitments embedded in National Recovery Plans and addresses the question of their political control. The paper argues that, even when mediated by national ownership, implementation modes which anchor compliance in policy instrument aimed at disciplining Member states performance via technification of objectives and follow-up, have implications in terms of accountability. Whereas oversight at EU level benefits from a multi-faceted system of inter-institutional control, political supervision by domestic arenas encounters greater challenge. The complexity of conditionality agreements may hinder a comprehensive understanding of the scope and content of national commitments, potentially interfering with democratic scrutiny of required reforms and investments.