Study: ‘Implementation of the Partnership Principle of the EU Cohesion Policy in Enlargement Countries’
European Commission – DG REGIO
Start Date: February 2025
Status: Complete
The enlargement process currently involves nine countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye, and Ukraine). The process encourages and supports democratic and economic reforms in these countries that aspire to become EU members.
The overall objective of the service was to support candidate countries in implementing the partnership principle in EU cohesion policy, which is enshrined in the Common Provisions Regulation and is reinforced by the European Code of Conduct on Partnership. For this purpose, the service focused on Interreg programmes covering candidate countries, assuming that they are valuable exercises in preparing the ground for possible future regional/national mainstream cohesion policy programmes.
The service complemented the Commission's knowledge on the state of implementation of the partnership principle in the candidate countries and fed into the Commission's analysis of capacities and needs in the context of the accession negotiation process (under Chapter 22, Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments), as well as inform possible future technical assistance and future legal framework aspects. It also increased the knowledge of the enlargement countries on how to apply this principle in line with the best practices available in the Member States.
In particular, the study focused on how the regulatory provisions relating to the partnership principle and multi-level governance have been implemented in the enlargement countries for the programming and implementation of current Interreg programmes.
The service included the mobilisation of National Experts from the candidate countries. Their expertise was used to research additional relevant documents, enhancing the desk analysis. Furthermore, these experts played a crucial role in conducting interviews and surveys to complement data collection.
The study produced conclusions for each enlargement country based on gap analysis and presented good practice examples from Member States and enlargement countries.
The final report was presented by the experts Pietro Celotti, Dea Hrelja, Giulia Pilia and Arianna Mori at a seminar organised in Brussels on the 4th of February 2026. The event brought together European Commission officers, Interreg programme bodies, and stakeholders from candidate countries and Member States to discuss the study's key findings.
The study is available here. Annex I (“Supporting evidence and methodological documentation”) is available here, while Annex II (“Good practices report”) is available here. All the documentation is available here.
