AbstractHow can we explain the system of governance underlying the conditionality regime of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)? Two contrasting instruments were adopted by the European Union to deal with the economic impact of the COVID‐19 crisis. The initial adaptation of the intergovernmental European stability mechanism was followed by the RRF, an instrument adopted as an add‐on to the EU budget and combining both supranational delegation and intergovernmental filters. Using the lenses of historical institutionalism, and a coalition‐based explanatory framework, this article examines the impact of past institutionalization patterns on the shift towards the RRF combined model. It argues that space for supranational delegation occurred as the result of the incremental innovation of the standard Community regime at work in EU budget‐related policies.