REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Mid-term evaluation of the Structural Reform Support Programme
Date: 2020-09-30
Institutions: Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support, European Commission
Subjects: EU Member State, EU aid, EU financing, EU programme, administrative reform, economic convergence, economic reform, institutional reform, structural adjustment, sustainable development

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 30.9.2020  COM(2020) 603 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Mid-term evaluation of the Structural Reform Support Programme  
 
 
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

Mid-term evaluation of the Structural Reform Support Programme 

INTRODUCTION 

Without growth-enhancing reforms, economies stagnate and decline. The implementation 
of well-designed reforms helps to improve productivity, speed up convergence, strengthen the 
resilience of the economy and improve the delivery of public services like justice, health and 
education.  The  Structural  Reform  Support  Programme  (SRSP)  helps  EU  Member  States 
design and implement growth-enhancing reforms by providing the right expertise to national 
authorities. The support can, for example, take the form of strategic and legal advice, studies, 
training  and  expert  visits  on  the  ground.  It  can  be  provided  by  international  organisations, 
public bodies, consultancies, or by the European Commission’s own staff. With a budget of 
EUR 222.8 million for 2017-2020, the programme is managed by the Directorate-General for 
Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM).  

In  line  with  the  SRSP  Regulation1,  the  programme  was  subject  to  a  mid-term  evaluation. 
The  purpose  was  to  examine  how  the  SRSP  had  performed  so  far  against  five  evaluation 
criteria (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value) and draw lessons 
for possible future improvements. In this report, the Commission’s staff presents and reflects 
on the findings.  

METHOD 

The mid-term evaluation covered the programme’s 2017 and 2018 budgetary cycles, the 
2016  Preparatory  Action2  and  projects  funded  through  the  voluntary  transfers  of  additional 
resources3  to  the  SRSP  budget  by  Greece  and  Bulgaria  in  2018.  An  independent  external 
contractor did an evaluation study for this purpose.4 The study was carried out over a period 

1 Article 16 of Regulation (EU) 2017/825 of the European Parliament and of the Council, OJ L 129, 19.5.2017, 

p. 1–16, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2018/1671, OJ L 284, 12.11.2018, p. 3–5. 

2 European Commission (2017), Annex to Commission Decision of 26.1.2017 amending Commission Decision 
C  (2016)  4011  concerning  the  adoption  of  a  financing  decision  towards  the  preparatory  action  ‘Capacity 
development  and  institution  building  to  support  the  implementation  of  economic  reforms’,  C  (2017)  304 
final, Brussels.   

3 Article 11 of the SRSP Regulation refers to the voluntary contributions that a Member State can transfer from 
the European Structural and Investment Funds to the SRSP for the use of that particular Member State. 

4  Ernst  &  Young,  ‘Mid-term  Evaluation  of  the  Structural  Reform  Support  Programme  (SRSP)  2017-2020’ 
(2020),  available  on  https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2887/656262.  Executive  summaries  are  available  on 
https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2887/584399  (English),  https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2887/244815  (French), 
and https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2887/530192 (German). 

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of  12  months,  starting  in  November  2018.  In  total,  the  evaluation  analysed  over  300 
technical support projects in 24 Member States, using a variety of data collection methods. 
These included desk research, analysis of data from the Commission’s internal IT system used 
by DG REFORM to manage the SRSP, targeted interviews with stakeholders, targeted online 
consultation  and  case  studies.  The  Commission  also  carried  out  a  public  consultation  to 
collect input from the general public, businesses, trade associations and interest groups. 

The  Commission  considers  the  quality  of  the  collected  evidence  satisfactory.  The  most 
important limitation to the robustness of the findings was the fact that the SRSP had only very 
recently been established when the evaluation took place and many technical support projects 
were  still  in  progress.  This  report  therefore  provides  only  initial  conclusions  and  lessons 
learned, which might evolve as the programme continues to be implemented. 

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROGRAMME 

SRSP 2017 and SRSP  2018 had a budget of EUR 53 million5. Under the 2017 budgetary 
cycle,  159  requests  from  16  Member  States  were  selected  for  funding  out  of  the  271 
submitted. For the 2018 budgetary cycle, 146 requests from 24 Member States were selected 
for funding out of the 444 requests submitted. Under both budgetary cycles, over half of the 
technical  support  requests  selected  were  related  to  the  implementation  of  challenges 
identified  in  the  context  of  economic  governance  processes,  in  particular  to  the 
implementation of European Semester country-specific recommendations.  

Of all the projects evaluated under the 2017 and 2018 budgetary cycles, more than half were 
being  implemented  in  seven  Member  States  (Romania,  Croatia,  Malta,  Cyprus,  Lithuania, 
Slovenia, and Poland). The approved budget of the 2017 and 2018 projects evaluated covered 
growth  and  business  environment  (EUR  13.5  million),  labour  market,  education,  health  and 
social services (EUR 11.4 million), revenue administration and public financial management 
(EUR 9.1 million), financial sector and access to finance (EUR 7 million) and governance and 
public administration (EUR 6.8 million). The three types of technical support providers most 
involved in delivering these evaluated projects were international organisations (37%), private 
companies  (22%)  and  government  bodies  (8%).  At  the  time  of  the  mid-term  evaluation, 
22% of the projects had been completed. 

MAIN FINDINGS 

Regarding the relevance of the SRSP, the evaluation findings show that the SRSP addresses 
the  needs  of  Member  States  to  a  large  extent.  According  to  the  stakeholders  consulted,  the 
SRSP is a suitable instrument for providing technical support to Member States to design and 
implement  growth-sustaining  reforms.  The  programme  is  perceived  as  a  significant  tool  for 
improving the Member States’ capacity to define more efficient processes and methodologies. 
Furthermore,  Member  States  especially  appreciated  the  high  degree  of  flexibility,  the 
simplicity of the contracting and implementing procedures managed by the Commission and 

5 SRSP 2017: EUR 22.5 million, SRSP 2018: EUR 30.5 million.  

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the  absence  of  co-financing  requirements.  In  addition,  the  findings  suggest  that  technical 
support  for  reforms  continues  to  be  needed.  This  is  also  demonstrated  by  the  increased 
demand from Member State for technical support over the years.  

Regarding the effectiveness of the SRSP, the findings show that the projects funded under the 
SRSP are generally well designed and take into account the needs and particular situation of 
the beneficiary authorities who requested support. Relevant socio-economic impacts are also 
taken  into  account,  and  the  designed  actions  are  often  feasible  and  with  realistic  timelines. 
Furthermore,  the  findings  demonstrate  that  the  SRSP  is  progressing  towards  achieving  its 
objectives. Most of the technical  support projects  are likely to  achieve their results, or have 
already  done  so.  Evidence  shows  that  changes  in  the  political  structure  of  the  beneficiary 
authorities  and  a  lack  of  collaboration  among  stakeholders  are  important  obstacles  to  the 
delivery of project  outputs.  A  comprehensive evaluation  of the programme’s impact  will be 
carried out at a later stage.  

The findings from  the evaluation  indicate that the governance of the SRSP is  efficient. The 
Commission’s current internal IT system is largely adequate as a monitoring tool, although at 
the time of evaluation it still needed further improvements. Additionally, all the Commission 
departments interviewed indicated that their cooperation with DG REFORM was efficient. In 
terms of cost-effectiveness, the findings suggests that the results achieved are proportional to 
the  budget  allocated.  Taking  into  account  the  limitations  of  the  analysis,  the  SRSP-funded 
actions  can  be  considered  cost-effective  so  far.  Finally,  the  evidence  demonstrates  that  the 
programme’s absorption rate is aligned with the two-year duration of the SRSP project cycle. 
Therefore, it can be concluded that the SRSP is time-efficient in terms of budget execution. At 
the same time, the findings indicate that common standards for monitoring technical support 
at national level could be considered. Further attention could be paid to some minor risks of 
delays in the contracting procedures. 

As  for  the  coherence  of  the  programme,  the  analysis  demonstrates  that  the  different 
components  of  the  SRSP’s  intervention  logic  are  logically  linked  to  one  another.  The 
programme is also well integrated in the Commission’s European Semester framework for the 
coordination of economic policy. The evidence shows that DG REFORM has put in place an 
appropriate technical support coordination mechanism. This coordination mechanism enables 
timely  identification  of  potential  synergies  and  helps  to  avoid  double  funding  of  activities 
already being funded by other EU funds and programmes. Interviews with other Commission 
departments confirm that the complementarities between the SRSP and other programmes are 
largely  safeguarded.  However,  some  of  the  Commission’s  Directorates-General  also 
highlighted  that  the  fact  that  the  SRSP  support  is  not  aligned  to  their  programming  period 
imposes  challenges  on  other  EU  programmes  with  related  objectives.  The  findings  also 
suggest  that Member States would need to  increase their capacity to  perform  more in-depth 
checks to identify double funding.  

Lastly,  the  evaluation  highlights  the  programme’s  clear  EU  added  value.  The  technical 
support provided under the SRSP is intended to target those reform challenges that Member 
States cannot address at national level but for which they need to seek support at EU level due 

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to  capacity  or  knowledge  constraints.  In  addition,  the  technical  support  projects  very  often 
provide  a  platform  for  sharing  good  practices  and  lessons  learned  among  Member  States. 
These  are  essential  features  that  the  SRSP  was  expected  to  deliver  in  terms  of  EU  added 
value.  However,  the  exchange  of  information  between  beneficiary  authorities  in  different 
Member  States  could  be  further  improved  to  allow  for  an  optimisation  of  synergies  and 
solution sharing. 

CONCLUSION 

The  Commission  considers  the  findings  from  the  mid-term  evaluation  satisfactory  and 
proportionate to the programme’s level of completion. Based on the outcomes of the mid-term 
evaluation,  the  Commission  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  Structural  Reform  Support 
programme  is  progressing  towards  achieving  its  pre-defined  objectives  and  has  the 
potential to be expanded. The lessons learned that are outlined above will be taken into due 
consideration. At the same time, the Commission acknowledges that final conclusions on the 
programme’s performance cannot be drawn at this point, given that the mid-term evaluation 
took  place  at  an  early  stage  in  the  programme’s  implementation.  In  particular,  the 
Commission will assess the programme’s impact as part of the ex post evaluation. 

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