Evaluating EU Cohesion Policy: What Do We Really Know?

Supporting regional convergence is one of the long-standing, treaty-based priorities in the EU budget. With the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the flow of EU resources into Member States and regions has reached record levels. To justify this massive expenditure, an impartial and unbiased evaluation of policy outcomes is indispensable. This is all the more true as there is no common conclusion on the impact of Cohesion Policy.

Based on the latest ZEW research of the research unit “Corporate Taxation and Public Finance” (Head: Prof. Dr. Friedrich Heinemann), this ZEW Lunch Debate will focus on the evaluation of Cohesion Policy, seeking answers to key questions. How impartial is the evaluation system and how developed are the methodological standards? Is there a discrepancy between scientific findings and evaluations conducted by beneficiary authorities and EU institutions? And how can the evaluation system be improved for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to foster a greater focus on performance?

Our discussion will thus contribute to the ongoing reflections regarding the implementation of the current MFF and feed into considerations about the next generation of funding programmes.

Registration upon personal invitation only. If you are interested in joining the Lunch Debate, please contact our event team under lunchdebates@zew.de.

You can find more information on the series on our website.