¿Cómo las regiones influyen en el proceso decisional comunitario? Mecanismos de activación ascendente de las entidades sub-estales europeas

Abstract

Nowadays, it is obvious that the European Union is a supra-national organisation leaded by its states. However, it is also true that many of the regions which compound those states have been looking (during the last twenty five years) to influence Brussels decisions, and since the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), they have been recognised some sort of participation within the European decision-making process. During the last years, Regions realised that it external action or paradiplomacy at European scale is not a dream, but a reality. Regions also realised they can not wait Europe arriving to them, but they must activate themselves towards Brussels, if they wish to participate and benefit from European decisions. This reason leaded them to improve its (more or less formal) mechanisms to interact with the Brussels institutions. The participation (direct or trough it national states) in the Council of Ministries of the UE, in the European Commission, in the Committee of the Regions, in the interregional associations, or the establishment of delegations in Brussels, are (as it will be checked), the most crucial mechanisms, which defines at present the very different regional activation strategies at European scale.