Decentralized Government and Subsidiarity

Abstract

In several ways, the integration process in the European Union is a matter of interest to local and regional public authorities in Europe. From a constitutional point of view, the emergence of an entity whose existence questions the paradigm of a centralizing nation-state may provide additional fuel to sub-statal claims for more autonomy. In this context, national governments may be in an uncomfortable situation, having to argue for subsidiarity at Community level but rejecting it within the national sphere. There is therefore a common interest for supra- and sub-statal entities to push for an understanding of public power as consisting of a series of layers of authority at different territorial levels, where no single level can claim absolute superiority in relation to the others. Secondly, the globalization of exchanges, of which European integration is one particularly significant aspect, forces decentralized government to look beyond the national borders and involve itself in what is happening beyond the national sphere. From this perspective, European Union policies can have a marked effect on the development of certain regions, and it is by no means guaranteed that regional, national and Community interests will necessarily coincide.¹