In the legislative framework for the 2014-2020 ESI Funds the partnership principle has been strengthened - more importance has been given to stakeholder involvement and influence. Article 5 of the Common Provision Regulation (CPR) makes it compulsory for each ESI Fund programme to organise a partnership at all programming stages and at all levels. Thus, a European Code of Conduct on Partnership (CoC) has been set up to support Member States in ensuring that all partners are involved at all stages in the implementation of Partnership Agreements and programmes.
In November 2014, Directorate-General Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO) of the European Commission commissioned an international consortium of researchers (Sweco, Spatial Foresight and Nordregio), in cooperation with national experts from all EU Member States, to conduct a study on the implementation of the partnership principle and multi-level governance in 2014-2020 ESI Funds. BGI Consulting team participated in the latter as national experts.
The aim of this study was to review the establishment of the partnership principle and the application of the CoC in the Partnership Agreements and programmes financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund (CF), including European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) programmes and multi-fund programmes co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). The study is based on the data collected by document analysis, web-survey and interviews.
As a result of the study, analysis of provisions relating to partnership and multi-level governance in Partnership Agreements and programmes of EU Member States has been carried out and insights on the implementation of the partnership principle and multi-level governance in the 2014-2020 ESI Funds have been collected.
In July 2016, the study results were presented in the report, available online.