La marge de manœuvre des régions dans la mise en œuvre de la politique de cohésion, étude de cas du FEDER en Wallonie : une marge de manœuvre au service de la performance de mise en œuvre, élargissement du partenariat et adaptation des conditionnalités

Details

Supervisors

Marique, Yseult

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en administration publique, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enAs part of the ongoing discussions on the performance of the European Union’s cohesion policy, this study analyzes its implementation through a case study of the ERDF ecosystem in the Walloon Region. The research focuses on administrative actors, from the European level down to public operators, in order to understand the link between the discretion of regions and the performance of implementation. The hypotheses examine the relationships between actors through the principle of partnership as well as the conditionalities during the implementation of the co-financed program. Our results highlight the central role of partnership, which must be exercised across the entire ecosystem at every stage of the programming cycle, including during implementation. However, they highlight that the Commission does not fully apply this principle, which creates difficulties and diverts discretion toward a logic of administrative performance. Conversely, to redirect it toward a logic of implementation performance, the analysis proposes expanding the partnership principle during implementation. The findings also reveal that certain conditionalities undermine the original objectives of cohesion policy, particularly under pressure from other European investment policies, and artificially limit the discretion of managing authorities. An innovative approach is therefore proposed to adapt these conditionalities to implementation performance. This approach is based on a principle of expanded partnership during implementation, which allows for new flexibility to enhance program resilience, as well as a broader thematic approach coexisting with a place-based approach that realigns cohesion policy with its original objectives.