Better Late Than Never? EU Implementation Beyond the National Level – An Analysis of the Sixteen German Regional Parliaments between 1990 and 2018

Research on the multi-level implementation process of EU laws has almost exclusively focused on the national level, while little is known about the role of subnational authorities. Nevertheless, it is a prerequisite for the functioning of the European Union (EU) that all member states and their subnational authorities apply and enforce EU laws in due time and in the correct manner. We address this research gap and take a closer look at the transposition process in the sixteen German regional states (‘Länder’) via their regional parliaments. Using a novel data set comprising detailed information on about 700 subnational implementation measures between 1990 and 2018, we show how state-level variables such as ministerial resources, the participation of committees, and the composition of governments account for variation in the timing of the transposition and repeatedly lead to a delayed implementation at the subnational level. To conclude, the paper addresses the role of subnational parliaments in the EU multi-level system and points to their interest in actively shaping the implementation process in order to counterbalance their loss of competences to the national level.