Primary aims : Introduce the idea about Europe as governed by MLG

1. Multi-level governance (MLG). The role of non-state actors in EU policy making. Primaryaims: Introduce the ideaaboutEurope as governed by MLG Apply the evolutionary model of institutional change to European integration Illustrate policy making: regions offering public counselling to firms

2. Governance in the European Union? • Intergovernmentalism: Policy-coordination among national governments, but the power remains with the national states • Multi-level governance (MLG): Understanding the distribution of power across the supranational, the national and the subnational levels and across policy processes

3. Multi-level Governance (MLG) • Political order in Europe cannot be understood in view of the separation of domestic and international politics • Decision-making power in the EU is shared across supranational, national and sub-national levels • Does not refer to governmental levels: Goes beyond vertical or hierarchical structure of authority • Multi-centric system: other collectives than states develop and compete for power (regional authorities, occupational groups and business communities) • Politico-economic analyses of European regions: combine the MLG-approach to European governance with theories of public-private co-operative strategies

4. Institutional change in the EU • Neofunctionalism: Functional spillover, whereby a policy in one area creates a pressure to expand into new policy areas Critisism: Choices are not made automatically, even if they are efficient Projects (motivate to break routine and make experimental choices) • Both constrained and enabled by existing institutions • Recruit participants from different organisations and institutions with multiple and often conflicting goals. • Loosely coupled to existing institutional principles and imperative of current organisations • Give a direction of institutional changes.

5. Structures in Multi-Level Governance: • 'Governance without government’: provinces choose strategies aiming at challenging the national governments • ‘Complex interdependency’: no efforts are made by the regions to capture bargaining power from the central state. Loss of control over cross-border transaction suffices for a state to loose sovereignty to the regional level • State-led top-down regionalization : regional policymakers co-ordinate their strategies with the national governments

6. Public counselling to firms: Case-studies • ‘Friendship Towns’ and ‘Friendship Regions’: Twin-city agreement Elsinore-Gdansk (“The Association for Joint-Ventures Elsinore-Gdansk”) • Collaboration in the Øresund Region: Agreement between the county Frederiksborg (Denmark) and Scania (Sweden) (“ScanEast Öresund”) • Collaboration between county councils and municipalities in Southern Sweden (SydSam)

7. Reasons for firm-authority alliances: • Regional authorities • Support the local enterprise, which gives jobs • "..regions offering institutional links for increased communication between public and private interests ........can develop into 'core players' in European integration“ (Kohler-Koch) • Companies • Need of “doorkeepers” when entering foreign markets • Need competent actors that deliver EU policies

8. Policy making process: • ‘Governance without government’ • Sub-national leverage in the EU: • Institutional context stating that national governments shall involve competent regional authorities in some EU decisions • Collaborations of regional authorities = ‘third parties’ in negotiation between the Commission and governments • ‘Third parties’ shape the role and relationships of other actors • ‘Third party’ convince Commission and governments that it is competent (able to improve the efficiency of the EU legislative process) • Commission, which according to ‘institutional context’ is inclined to listen to the regions, influences governments to support increased regional authority involvement.