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The gap between Europe and its citizens has been growing as the process of European integration has become more complex and more distant from the regional and local levels. In 2001, the European Commission’s "White Paper on European Governance" identified a number of reform initiatives that could be undertaken at European level to address this problem. One of the proposed reforms is the object of this book: target-based contractual tools agreed by the European Community, a Member State and regional and local authorities in order to more flexibly manage the implementation of Community law and policies with a strong territorial impact.
Although the Commission’s initiative initially seemed to be a promising, if not revolutionary approach to tackling these issues, it is facing a stagnation of sorts. The concerns about the meaning of the term "flexible implementation" of European law, the presumed potential legal consequences of a tripartite contract in which the sub-state level of government is involved, and diverse political concerns resulting from this have all thwarted progress.
The idea is still to give territories more room to manoeuvre in implementing EC legislation. But the lesson to be learned from recent years is that with its White Paper the Commission has not been able to bring the different actors on board. And as the Commission itself recognised some time ago, "the Commission alone cannot improve European governance. Change requires concerted action by all the European institutions, present and future Member States, regional and local authorities, and civil society". The question four years after this statement may be: is there the political will to improve European governance? The response to this question is of major importance. If the answer is yes, tripartite arrangements still have a future. Without political will, no further efforts to re-launch these instruments will succeed.
Employing a varied research methodology, combining analysis of published institutional texts with interviews and forums of debate, and exploring new areas of development, this book is the first to present an overall analysis of the situation of tripartite contracts and agreements, the difficulties and the potential way forward.
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