National Coordination of EU Policies: A Comparative Appraisal

The national coordination of EU policies is critical not only to identify who was responsible to scrutinize proposed legislation in the Council, but also to understand the societal and public actors that were involved in shaping the national position on an EU legislation. Unfortunately, the most extensive study on this subject (Kassim, Peters & Wright, 2001), pre-dates the Lisbon Treaty, the EU’s enlargements, and the poly-crisis the EU experienced. From this exploration, a typology developed emerged capturing the diversity of national administration along two dimensions i.e. the degree of centralization of the coordination and the comprehensiveness of issues on which such coordination would take place. This paper takes off from this observation and aims to fulfil three objectives: First, it presents an up to date overview of methods of national coordination covering all 27 member states. Second, it extends the dimensions along which coordination systems are classified, incorporating the degree of politicization, consultation practices and transparency. Third, by guaranteeing continuity with earlier research, we can explore changes in national coordination practices.