Macroeconomic conditionality in cohesion policy: added value or unnecessary burden?
Macroeconomic conditionality has become one of the major elements in discussions on the future of EU cohesion policy. Such conditionality would make the cohesion budget dependent on EU economic governance rules. This would have advantages for economic governance and, to a lesser extent, the efficiency of cohesion policy and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework negotiations. Yet, conditionality also risks entailing serious disadvantages for the end beneficiaries and cohesion policy itself. If the EU decides to put macroeconomic conditionality in place, it needs to reconsider the design and agree on an ample cohesion budget.
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