EU multi-level governance patterns and the Cohesion Fund

Abstract

The new Cohesion Fund (1993–1999) seems to challenge the multi‐level pattern of governance of the Structural Funds, where sub‐national actors and Commission have a prominent role in the decision‐making and implementation procedures. The current article analyses the apparent ‘state‐centred’ nature of this new redistributive instrument of the EU, through three main points. Firstly, by a study of the role of the Commission in the implementation of the Cohesion Fund projects; secondly, by looking at the recent attempts to enforce the conditionality principle; and finally, by a study of the role of sub‐national actors in Spain in implementing the Fund. The article concludes with mixed results, showing how non‐state actors play a larger role in the implementation stage than it seemed at first glance, but also that important state‐centric elements coexist, as one of the states has recently achieved a political compromise with the Commission about the enforcement of the conditionality principle following most of its initial premises.