This paper analyses the question of whether the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the associated structures set up in the European Union (EU) Member States in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis bring about new forms of intra-EU conditionality. Based upon a case study of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) in Slovakia – a Member State with one of the highest per capita shares of RRF funds allotted – the paper analyses the mechanisms leading to the compliance and implementation of the pre-defined reforms. As the findings indicate, while various types of innovative practices combined with time constraints have been introduced in order to ensure compliance, some of the practices associated with the RRP can also lead to dominance – i.e., to a situation in which those governed have little or no influence on the rules by which they are governed. This opens up a series of questions regarding democratic accountability and long-term legitimacy of the reform processes associated with the NextGenerationEU fund and the RRF. Moreover, at macro-level, it raises the question of the impacts and implications on Member State governance of a shift from “unconstrained intergovernmentalism” to “constrained supranationalism” in the management of financial crises in the EU between 2010s and 2020s.
