ABSTRACT
Evaluation has attracted so much attention from European Union (EU) policy-makers, who call for methods and standards of evaluation across the whole policy cycle, from inception to implementation. This chapter focuses on ex post evaluation of expenditure and programs, mostly in the field of cohesion policy. In 1995 the Commission mobilized epistemic learning with a comprehensive evaluation of its guidelines and the production of state-of-the-art methodological standards – this was called the means program. The progress on ex post regulatory evaluation has been slower, with acceleration during the last part of the Barroso II Commission, and continuing in the Juncker Commission. Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT) is much more political than the evaluation of projects within the structural funds. REFIT has allowed the Commission to experiment with novel tools like the fitness checks which cover the whole of a policy field. REFIT consultation goes beyond the simple provision of information by the stakeholders.
