This paper analyses the design and negotiations of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs) which the EU member states were required to formulate so as to access the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). By focusing on three Eurozone members (Austria, Greece, and Slovakia) which represent distinct voices and experiences within the EU integration project, we argue that a new form of conditionality, coordinative conditionality, can be identified. While this conditionality has many features of previous EU conditionality forms, it is also unique and is the result of early coordination between the EU and the member states; informal channels of communication alongside formal negotiations; and a heightened salience of ownership by national governments. What has been described as coordinative Europeanization. We argue that although evidence of coordinative Europeanization can be found during the design and negotiation of the NRRPs in all three countries, the intensity of conditionality’s different aspects is mediated by the credibility of a given member state’s government.
