Sub-national Units, Member States, and the European Union

The chapter focuses on the relationship between sub-national units, Member States (more specifically Italy) and the EU. It addresses three important issues which are closely related: a) the scope of the constitutional space available to the sub-national units in relation to the European Integration process (formal level-constitutional change); b) the extent to which the regions have occupied the constitutional space (changes in practice) and on a different but related note c) the effects of the initiatives of sub-national units on changes to Member States or to the EU. With this in mind, the chapter begins with a brief description of some basic European principles concerning the relationship between national and European systems. It continues to outline the top-down and the bottom-up pressures of “Europeanization”. These two dimensions could be linked and they are better understood from a comprehensive and complementary perspective. To put it briefly, in order to properly understand the role of the sub-national entities vis-à-vis the Member State and the EU, this chapter will underline the significance of the network dimension, based on a cooperative approach, which will prove more useful than a purely hierarchical perspective,