Country-specific recommendations database

The following concepts help understand how the CSRs are divided in subparts, allocated to specific policy areas, identified as relevant within the context of the macroeconomic imbalances procedure (MIP) or related to concrete euro area recommendations (EAR), as well as assessed by the Commission.

• Division of CSRs into subparts: To capture each policy element that a CSR is addressing, each CSR is subdivided into subparts covering one (or several) policy area(s).
• Policy area allocation: For practical purposes, the assessment of CSR implementation (first for each individual subpart and ultimately also for the full CSRs), each CSR subpart is allocated to one of the identified policy areas listed in the Table The allocation key does not affect the assessment or design of CSRs. As with any taxonomy, there are borderline cases and in some cases, the allocation of a CSR (or a subpart) to multiple policy areas is warranted. Since the 2022 European Semester cycle a new list of CSR policy areas is being used. The Table attached shows the new and the previous policy areas, although the correspondence between new and previous areas is not 1:1.
• EAR tagging: The tagging indicates to which euro area recommendation is the full CSR or subpart related to, if any. 2016 CSRs are linked to EAR proposed by the Commission in November 2015, 2017 CSRs with November 2016 EAR, etc. The tagging only applies to euro area Member States.
• MIP tagging: The tagging indicates whether a full CSR or subpart is related to a macroeconomic imbalance.
• Annual/multiannual assessment (AA/MAA): Annual assessment refers to the first assessment of CSRs since their adoption (e.g. assessment of 2019 CSRs in the 2020 Country Report). Multiannual assessment refers to the assessment of older CSRs (e.g. assessment of 2011-2018 CSRs in the 2020 Country Report), capturing the progress achieved for each CSR during a longer timeframe than a single European Semester cycle. As a result of the integration of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) into the European Semester, in line with the scope of the RRF, multiannual assessment of 2011-2018 CSRs has been discontinued as of the 2022 Semester cycle. Past assesments of such CSRs remain available in the database and multiannual assessment will continue going frorward with regard to CSRs adopted since 2019.
• Definitions of assessment categories:

  Assessment category	Definition
  No progress	The Member State has not credibly announced nor adopted any measures to address the CSR. Below a number of non-exhaustive typical situations that could be covered under this, to be interpreted on a case by case basis, taking into account country-specific conditions: No legal, administrative or budgetary measures have been announced in the National Reform Programme or in the other official communication to the national Parliament/relevant parliamentary committees, the European Commission, or announced in public (e.g. in a press statement, information on government´s website); no non-legislative acts have been presented by the governing or legislative body; the Member State has taken initial steps in addressing the CSR, such as commissioning a study or setting up a study group to analyse possible measures that would need to be taken (unless the CSR explicitly asks for orientations or exploratory actions), while clearly specified measures to address the CSR have not been proposed.
  Limited progress	The Member State has: announced certain measures, but these only address the CSR to a limited extent; presented legislative acts in the governing or legislative body, but these have not been adopted yet and substantial further work is needed before the CSR will be implemented; presented non-legislative acts, yet with no further follow-up in terms of implementation, which is needed to address the CSR.
  Some progress	The Member State has adopted measures that partly address the CSR and/or the Member State has adopted measures that address the CSR, but a fair amount of work is still needed to fully address the CSR as only a few of the adopted measures have been implemented. For instance, adopted by national parliament; by ministerial decision, but no implementing decisions are in place.
  Substantial progress	The Member State has adopted measures that go a long way in addressing the CSR and most of which have been implemented.
  Full addressed	The Member State has implemented all measures needed to address the CSR appropriately.
  Notes: All announced/adopted/implemented measures referred to in the assessment definitions are accounted for in the assessment if they are credible, clearly specified, publicly available, and sufficiently detailed in effectively addressing the CSR. With the Recovery and Resilience Facility in place, the CSR assessment takes into account the degree of implementation of the measures included in the Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) and of those done outside of the RRPs at the time of assessment. Measures foreseen in the annex of the adopted Council Implementing Decision on the approval of the assessment of the RRPs, which are not yet adopted nor implemented but considered as credibly announced, in line with the CSR assessment methodology, warrant “limited progress”. Once implemented, these measures can lead to “some/substantial progress” or “full implementation”, depending on their relevance. The list of typical situations is not exhaustive and is to be interpreted against country-specific cases.

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