EU cohesion policy, horizontal partnership and the patterns of sub-national governance: Insights from Central and Eastern Europe

TLDR

EU cohesion policy promotes regional cooperation through a partnership principle, yet weak decentralization and limited sub‑national capacity can lead to uneven implementation across Central and Eastern European countries. The study examines whether the partnership approach of EU cohesion policy can foster inclusive regional governance in Central and Eastern European countries with weak sub‑national institutions. The authors compare horizontal partnership arrangements in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary to evaluate their impact on sub‑national governance patterns.

Abstract

This article draws on the concept of Europeanization to assess the EU cohesion policy’s capacity to promote inclusive regional governance and cooperation in regional development initiatives in Central and Eastern European countries. EU cohesion policy is often credited with improving cooperation and coordination in the delivery of the regional development policy through the application of multi-level governance enshrined in the partnership principle. By imposing a close partnership among a variety of actors, cohesion policy has the capacity to alter domestic relations between the centre and the periphery, and to create a broader scope for regional and bottom-up involvement in economic development policy. However, a lack of tradition of decentralization and collaborative policy-making, as well as a limited capacity of sub-national actors, can result in uneven outcomes of the application of the partnership principle across countries and regions. This raises questions about the transferability of the partnership approach to new Member States characterized by weak sub-national institutions, a legacy of centralized policy-making and limited civic involvement. This paper addresses this issue by comparing horizontal partnership arrangements put in place for the purpose of cohesion policy implementation and examining their impacts on the patterns of sub-national governance. The horizontal partnership arrangements are compared across three regions in countries with differentiated systems of territorial administration: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.