The partnership contracts : how to implement multilevel governance and to guarantee the flexibility of Cohesion policy

This briefing note presents an analysis of how the Partnership Contracts for the funding period 2014-2020 can be implemented regarding issues of multilevel governance and how the flexibility in the EU Cohesion Policy can be guaranteed. The note examines the following: an analysis of the Draft Regulation proposed by the European Commission; experiences from the current period regarding multilevel governance and partnership in programming; and experiences from the current period regarding policy coordination. The synthesis of the above analytical steps provides a risk assessment related to possible interpretations of the Partnership Contract.