Reappraising governance architectures: The Lisbon Strategy and Next Generation EU compared

One way the European Union (EU) defines its long-term vision is by creating governance architectures. These architectures provide a central narrative about long-term goals, define solutions to policy problems in a holistic manner, refer to substantive output-oriented parameters, and draw on existing and new modes of decision-making and organizational structures. However, little is known about how EU architectures have developed against the backdrop of crises and transitions. By comparing governance architectures across two decades, we trace conceptually and empirically how the EU has changed its own understanding of what kind of Europe is desirable for the long-term, for what kind of goals, and with what mechanisms to ensure policy coherence. We compare the Lisbon strategy for the knowledge society and competitiveness, launched in the year 2000, with the emerging governance architecture of Next Generation EU (NGEU), underpinned by a belief that resilience should be geared towards an ecological and digital transition. We find that Lisbon was more coherent in its goals and structures, whilst NGEU is made up of different long-term plans with diverse modes of governance. Further, whilst Lisbon was a manifestation of the Member States’ desire to control the EU trajectory, NGEU is a vision where the European Commission has a formidable position. Finally, the NGEU witnesses a European Commission with the power of the purse, formidable regulatory assets, and hierarchical modes of governance, whilst Lisbon was relying on the ‘horizontal’ open method of coordination and constrained monetary resources. In the conclusions we reflect on how these changes tell us about the nature of the EU and its finalité and we reason on how realistic the NGEU is in light of the lessons learned from Lisbon.