Strengthening the EU’s economic governance via ‘reform support’? – Integrated policy enforcement within the European Semester framework

Since the Euro-crisis-driven reforms, the European Semester has been the core of the EU’s economic governance framework. Besides synchronising and integrating several governance tools into a single framework, another central innovation of the Semester has been the bundling and strengthening of the country-specific recommendations (CSRs). As an important governance instrument, the EU uses CSRs to draw the Member States’ attention to reform needs and the political actions to be taken in line with the EU’s overall economic policy goals. However, previous research indicates fragmentary CSR compliance by member states over the past years. This is one reason why the Commission launched its ‘Structural Reform Support Programme’ (SRSP) in 2017 to provide technical support to requesting Member States. According to the regulations of the SRSP (2017-20) and the current ‘Technical Support Instrument’ (since 2021), one option under which a Member State’s reform project can be supported by the Commission is the implementation of CSRs. Against this background, this paper raises the question of whether and to what extent the innovative governance tool of reform support impacts on the enforcement and compliance with CSRs as an essential steering tool of the EU’s economic governance. The relevance of this question is especially illustrated by more than 1,700 supported reform projects since 2017. In this respect, the paper brings together two interrelated research foci: Considering the implementation and enforcement of CSRs from a (non-)compliance perspective, the paper firstly studies the scope and extent of the reform support as to evaluate its potential impact on strengthening economic governance. Secondly, the paper discusses the innovative reform support tool as part of an emerging, more sophisticated integrated policy enforcement infrastructure within the European Semester from a structural and strategic perspective. The research follows a qualitative design and draws on accessible data and written material, which will be complemented by interviews with members of the Commission’s administration.