Hardening and softening of country-specific recommendations in the European Semester

Abstract

This article conceptualises and illustrates hardening and softening trends in country-specific recommendations (CSRs) that are part of the European Semester. It proposes an analytical framework that meets the specific characteristics of CSRs: its adaptable and non-uniform norms, which are co-determined by actors operating across governance levels. It proposes three elements to analyse hardening and softening of CSRs, adding the degree of 'centralisation' to the often used elements of 'obligation' and 'enforcement'. Then it illustrates the framework with trends in CSRs given to Belgium and the Netherlands on pensions and wages. Both countries and topics show hardening as well as softening trends regarding the degree of obligation, enforcement and centralisation. The article suggests that a complete analysis of hardening and softening of CSRs requires assessing the degree of centralisation as well. Looking at obligation and enforcement alone could misinterpret the hardness or softness of CSRs.

The EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility: A Next Phase in EU Socioeconomic Governance?

“…Accordingly, the Semester hosts several coordination mechanisms, each consisting of different methods to drive or force member state reform, including semi-binding and nonbinding rules, political discussions, the exchange of ideas, scoreboards with quantitative indicators, and qualitative analyses. The result is that the degree of direct impact of the Semester on member states depends on the policy topic at hand, the country concerned, the assumed urgency for reform, and the input of national and EU-level stakeholders (Bekker, 2021). One of the outcomes of the Semester is a list of country-specific recommendations (CSRs) which gives reform suggestions to member states.…”

“…Indeed, the setup of the Semester purposely includes that effects are mediated by the national decision-making procedures (Crum, 2020). This allows national actors to suggest alternative policy solutions to the Commission (Bekker, 2021). The question thus is, what the impact is of tying the Semester to the RRF, particularly on the role of national actors.…”

“…This is especially useful when exploring the Semester, which never becomes totally supranational or totally national (Verdun & Zeitlin, 2018). At the same time, depending on the topic, the country, and the year of scrutiny, the Semester may shift to becoming 'harder' or 'softer' in its coordination (Bekker, 2021).…”

“…Two criteria, obligation and enforcement, further establish the degree of softness of a norm. These criteria may be complemented by the degree of centralisation, particularly when exploring the Semester (Bekker, 2021;De la Porte & Heins, 2015; see Table 1). The degree of obligation arises from the nature of the act (on a scale from hard obligation to no obligation) and the content of the norm (the degree of clarity and/or density of a norm).…”

“…Conditional financial support could be part of the assessment of the degree of enforcement, which was in the case of the programme countries in the financial and economic crisis judged as very high (De la Porte & Heins, 2015). The degree of centralisation depends on whether proposed policy changes are uncontroversial (e.g., minor vs. major policy changes), and the degree of involvement or influence of national actors in drafting or implementing CSRs (Bekker, 2021). De la Porte and Heins (2015, p. 7) address this when assessing the type of objective of EU policy suggestions, letting these range from a low to a very high degree of EU involvement.…”