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This study follows the analysis of the role played by Local and Regional Authorities (LRA) in the first round of National Reform Programme (NRP) submissions in 2011. The 2012 study is based on the same set of questions and evaluation protocol used in 2011. Three additional assessment questions were added to reflect the dynamic nature of Europe's economic and policy landscape, including the pressing need to promote sustainable job growth and the fiscal consolidation of the public sector.

The 2012 study's objectives mirror those of the first, namely:

• to analyse if and to what extent LRAs were involved in the design of NRPs.
• to examine whether and to what extent the NRPs comply with the request made by the Commission last year for national authorities to explain:
  • how they plan to involve/have involved LRAs and relevant stakeholders in defining and implementing the NRPs;
  • how they communicate/plan to communicate on Europe 2020 and on their NRPs;
  • the results and their experiences in collecting, sharing and implementing good practices.

The assessment is based on a set of pre-specified answers that measure whether the NRP makes any reference to LRAs in terms of the different ways that LRAs can be involved in the NRP process and the implementation of Europe 2020 action and if so to what extent (e.g. fully, partially, not at all). Each answer category is associated with a point value and a cumulative score is calculated that was used to:

• analyse the distribution of scores for each assessment question across the NRPs,
• compare each Member State?? total score against the maximum possible score,
• compare the Member States??NRPs with one another, and
• assess the changes in the involvement of LRAs between the 2011 and 2012 NRP.

As part of the European Semester and the monitoring of the Europe 2020 strategy, the Member States (MS) submit their annual National Reform Programmes (NRP), which specify the progress made and action to be undertaken in areas such as employment, research, innovation, energy or social inclusion in order to meet the goals and targets set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy.