The book of Serafín Pazos Vidal provides an extensive and thorough analysis of how the principles of multilevel governance (MLG) and subsidiarity have evolved over time, focusing on the conceptual framework, institutional recognition and legal settings that have characterized the consolidation of these principles in the European Union's policy-making. Beyond a comprehensive overview of the theoretical debate on these issues, the volume presents a wealth of original empirical material, covering a large spectrum of aspects related to the institutionalization of EU multilevel architecture and the relevance of the principle of subsidiarity therein.
Drawing on a broad actor-centred perspective, the book illustrates how subnational authorities (or ‘non-privileged actors’ as Pazos Vidal defines them) perform in the process of policy-making, investigating their behaviour as policy entrepreneurs, whose individual and collective strategies vary based on a range of specific interests, agendas, and resources. Unlike most existing studies on MLG, which rely on secondary sources or a limited number of interviews, the research presented in this book benefits from the author's personal experience as an officer at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, thus presenting not only an academic, but also a practitioner's viewpoint on the workings, political opportunities and challenges governance arising from multilevel interactions.
In addition to describing how formal and legal arrangements enabling the involvement of subnational authorities in the EU decision-making process vary across member states, the book collects several inspiring case studies shedding light on the praxis of subnational authorities’ participation in policy-making in a number of fields. Each of these cases reveals very peculiar dynamics in terms of governance settings (hierarchical vs. networked), the type of relations (collaborative vs. competitive), and the underlying operational logic (compliance vs. appropriateness). Pazos Vidal argues that this diversity actually confirms that “the praxis of subsidiarity scrutiny is more heavily reliant on political and practical factors than on the relative merit of the subject matter itself” (p. 99).
Interestingly, along with the most recent governance dynamics in EU cohesion policy that is the context within which the concept of MLG originally developed, the analysis reveals a number of tensions and challenges arising from a wider mobilization of regional and local authorities at the EU level. More specifically, chapters four and five provide the evidence of how subnational interests have often clashed and how the EU Commission has brought through decisions that were not necessarily supported by regional and local authorities regardless of the formal and informal mechanism for the subsidiarity check.
For example, a loose network composed of regional and local authorities has successfully counterbalanced the powerful policy community led by the DG Transport of the EU Commission by using the political opportunity structure based on subsidiarity. As Pazos Vidal convincingly demonstrates, subnational authorities have successfully resisted the Commission's attempt to increase EU legislative powers in the field of urban mobility by proactively ensuring the backing of their respective national ministers in Council, and mobilizing their respective national and the European level networks, including, in particular, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, and Eurocities.
By contrast, there has been a lack of interest and engagement of subnational authorities during the process of approval of the EU Regulation introducing a simplified procedure of acceptance of certain public documents, regardless of the activation of the formal consultation procedure involving the Committee of the Regions (CoR). Not only has the process of public consultation been dominated by specialized agencies and central government ministries but, as Pazos Vidal emphasizes, the CoR opinion failed to articulate feasible and specific alternatives to address the identified concerns. Pazos Vidal suggests that this case has been a clear example of the practical difficulties of identifying potential subsidiarity concerns in an EU proposal within the EU decision-making process.
A third case of EU multilevel negotiations analysed by the book reveals how the participation of subnational authorities can be successful in shaping EU decisions, although it might also bring about conflicts between local and regional authorities. More specifically, the analysis shows that a clash of interest between regional and local authorities has repeatedly emerged when the conditions and modes of substate authorities’ participation in public consultation procedures were to be established within the framework of the so-called ‘EU Lobby Register’. The detailed analysis of the core relevant reports (i.e. Gualtieri, Stubb, Cassini, and Giegold) laying down the conditions of the Register illustrates that it has been extremely difficult to find a compromise between regional and local authorizes because of the strong competition and the lack of solidarity between them. The two levels of subnational authorities have often opposed each other during the negotiations of the aforementioned reports and widely deployed their domestic political channels to influence EU institutions’ decisions either by coordinating with national governments or mobilizing their respective national associations.
Lastly, chapter eight of the book discusses the shortcomings of the so-called Early Warning Procedure (EWP) that is expected to increase the parliamentary control over the EU Commission legislative activity. It also unpacks formal and informal linkages existing between national and regional parliaments with regard to the application of the EWP and expresses well-grounded criticism concerning the insufficient effort by both the EU Commission and the CoR to strengthen the legal and operational foundations of the subsidiary mechanism. In the concluding chapter, Pazos Vidal suggests his own definition of subsidiarity as a ‘due diligence, i.e. a multilevel participatory process by which different levels of government discuss and decide which level of government can better exercise a shared competence – or part of it’.
In summary, this volume is a recommended read to anyone interested in the EU decision-making, as it offers an extremely reach and well-informed overview of practical problems and concerns arising from its multilevel settings, in particular as far as the application of the principle of subsidiarity is concerned. The empirical analysis presented in the volume provides convincing evidence of the ‘power of agency’ in policy-making, showing how actors with few or no formal privileges at the EU level can exert disproportionate influence in the EU decision-making process over theoretically more powerful actors under the existing institutional framework. Yet the analysis remains largely silent about how the collected evidence could be relevant for addressing the normative challenges that the two concepts pose for the policy-making process in the EU.
