The handling of European Union policies increasingly involves the regional tier and offers challenges to both regional and national actors. This workshop aims to explore how these challenges are being met. It will bring together academics and practitioners from several EU countries to discuss and compare the arrangements for involving regions in EU policy making within member states and at the EU level. It will focus in particular on the processes for shaping and implementing policy.

A key aim will be to ascertain what lessons can be learned for the UK from the experience of other EU regions where multi-tiered government has operated for some time. In addition, consideration will be given to how the different parts of the UK can best transfer ‘good practice' on these matters. The type of policy areas from which examples may be drawn can be expected to include, environment, structural funds and economic regeneration, and agriculture and fisheries. Common themes that we expect to explore, include:-

·        And problems of implementation in multi-level systems.

The Workshop will be divided into 4 sessions.  The first session will take a broad overview of the role of regions in EU policy making in member states.

The second session will focus on the UK, where devolution has brought with it territorial fragmentation of the UK’s European policy arrangements. This session will examine the handling of European policies in Scotland and Wales.

In session three, academic experts will give presentations on the regional level and EU policy-making in France, Germany and Spain.  Among the main themes of this session will be the processes for shaping and implementing European policy and the potential lessons to be learned by the English regions. 

The final session will draw together the key findings of the Workshop.

This Workshop stems from (and is part financed by) an ESRC-funded research project on ‘“Asymmetric”
Devolution and European Policy Making in the UK’ being undertaken by academics in the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester. The project is part of the broader ESRC Devolution and Constitutional Change programme.  The Workshop is also part financed by the European Policy Research Unit (EPRU) based in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester.  

EUROPEAN POLICY MAKING AND THE REGIONAL LEVEL IN EU MEMBER STATES