COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE EVALUATION Mid-term evaluation of the Structural Reform Support Programme
Date: 2020-10-01
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, 1.10.2020  SWD(2020) 220 final  COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE EVALUATION  Mid-term evaluation of the Structural Reform Support Programme {SWD(2020) 219  final}  
 
 
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE EVALUATION 

Mid-term evaluation of the Structural Reform Support Programme 

Without growth-enhancing reforms, economies stagnate and decline. The implementation 
of well-designed reforms helps to improve productivity, speed up convergence, strengthen the 
economy’s  resilience  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 is 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  staff  working  document,  the  Commission’s  staff 
presents and reflects on the findings.  

The mid-term evaluation assessed the programme’s 2017 and 2018 budgetary cycles, the 2016 
Preparatory Action and projects funded through the voluntary transfers of additional resources 
to the SRSP budget by Greece  and Bulgaria in 2018. To support the evaluation exercise, an 
external  contractor  performed  an  evaluation  study.2  In  total,  the  study  analysed  over  300 
technical support projects in 24 Member States.  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.  The  staff 
working  document  therefore  provides  only  initial  conclusions  and  lessons  learned,  which 
might evolve as the programme continues to be implemented. 

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  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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Regarding  the  relevance  of  the  SRSP,  the  findings  of  the  evaluation  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,  the  high  degree  of  flexibility,  the  simplicity  of  the 
contracting and implementing procedures managed by the Commission and the absence of co-
financing requirements are especially appreciated by Member States. 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  interviewed 
Commission departments 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  intervention  logic  of  the  SRSP  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 
funded by other EU funds and programmes. Interviews with other Commission  departments 
confirm  that  the  complementarities  between  the  SRSP  and  other  programmes  are  largely 

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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 
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. 

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