Conditionality and the Making of the EU Spending Power: Origins, Evolution, Challenges

The thesis analyses the origins, evolution and challenges of conditionality as an EU internal governance tool in the management of EU public expenditure (so-called "spending conditionality"). While the academic debate has mainly focused on the use of conditionality in EU external relations or in the emergency scenario of the sovereign debt crisis, the topic of spending conditionality has received little attention so far. The “normalisation” of the discourse of conditionality in EU internal affairs yet poses crucial “constitutional” challenges to some of the basic foundations of the European integration process, such as the principles governing the “vertical” and “horizontal” distribution of powers in the EU internal architecture and the principle of solidarity. The work first approaches the broader phenomenon of conditionality and analyses how it emerged and developed in the EU external and internal policy framework. In a second stage, it traces the evolution of spending conditionality in the normative framework governing EU internal public expenditure and investigates reasons and features of the increasing use of conditionality in this field. Finally, it explores the “constitutional” challenges arising from the use of spending conditionality as an alternative regulatory or enforcement tool in EU internal affairs, analysing its implications for the principle of conferral and the system of competences, the principle of institutional balance, and the principle of solidarity.