Cities and EU governance: policy-takers or policy-makers?

Article abstract:

This article looks at the ongoing changes in EU governance and their impact on the role of cities in the EU. It suggests that the cities' role in EU governance goes beyond what could be expected taking the 'non-definition' of their role in the treaties: As stakeholders cities participate in agenda-setting and policy-formulation and they have key responsibilities in the downstream part of the policy cycle. Whether through informal interactions in policy networks or through formal consultation processes local actors may have significant influence over policy outcomes, particularly when they manage to introduce their interests and ideas into the early, 'upstream', phases of policy-making. Therefore, while the role assigned to them by the treaties is largely that of policy-takers, a closer look at the 'constitutional reality', that is, at the norms, institutions and communication patterns of political practice, suggests a careful re-labelling of cities as 'policy makers' within an increasingly polyarchic and participative EU system. To empirically test this claim the article looks at the involvement of cities and their networks in shaping the EU's structural policies, in particular with regard to the evolution of urban development related measures in the Structural Funds.