Final Activity Report Summary - REGIO-NMGS (The Legal and Institutional Factors Shaping New Modes of Governance (NMGs) in Regional Economic Policy Contexts: The Cases of Spain and Romania)
The project explores the legal and institutional factors that influence upon the emergence and functioning of EU-style public-private partnerships as 'new modes of governance' in territorial development contexts. In particular, the research focuses on the 'mixed' public-private governance structures that emerged in the context of two types of EU-driven territorial development programs: the territorial employment pacts (TEPs) inspired from the experimental model introduced in the context of EU cohesion policy, and the rural development programs (RDPs) developed under the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The project involves a comparative analysis of experiences with these two types of territorial development programs in the Spanish regions of Andalucía and Galicia.
The project is structured in three main parts:
- Chapter I traces the origins and evolution of the public-private governance structures characteristic to TEPs and RDPs in the context of EU cohesion policy, the CAP and the European Employment Strategy (EES).
- Chapters II and III explore how the territorial governance structures characteristic to TEPs and RDPs were accommodated within the legal and institutional frameworks of Spain's 'quasi-federal' system. In Chapter II we seek to determine the impact of the infra-regional models of governance introduced by TEPs and RDPs on domestic legal and institutional arrangements, while in Chapter III we explore the opposite question, namely how the legal and institutional characteristics of a quasi-federal national system influence upon the functioning of infra-regional modes of governance.
Based on the part of the research that was completed, we preliminarily conclude that EU-driven models of public-private governance have a limited impact, if any, on the 'hierarchical' distribution of power between different levels of government and on the domestic legal system. At the same time, the models of governance introduced by TEPS and RDPs generate notable effects in terms of organisation of the relevant domestic groups of interests, as well as of generating a relatively strong demand for public funding of similar types of territorial development programs.
The project is structured in three main parts:
- Chapter I traces the origins and evolution of the public-private governance structures characteristic to TEPs and RDPs in the context of EU cohesion policy, the CAP and the European Employment Strategy (EES).
- Chapters II and III explore how the territorial governance structures characteristic to TEPs and RDPs were accommodated within the legal and institutional frameworks of Spain's 'quasi-federal' system. In Chapter II we seek to determine the impact of the infra-regional models of governance introduced by TEPs and RDPs on domestic legal and institutional arrangements, while in Chapter III we explore the opposite question, namely how the legal and institutional characteristics of a quasi-federal national system influence upon the functioning of infra-regional modes of governance.
Based on the part of the research that was completed, we preliminarily conclude that EU-driven models of public-private governance have a limited impact, if any, on the 'hierarchical' distribution of power between different levels of government and on the domestic legal system. At the same time, the models of governance introduced by TEPS and RDPs generate notable effects in terms of organisation of the relevant domestic groups of interests, as well as of generating a relatively strong demand for public funding of similar types of territorial development programs.