The EU White Paper on Governance: The Implications of Misguided Assessment for UK Subnational Authorities

For subnational authorities in Europe the emergence of governance structures at the European level represents an opportunity to further their involvement in the policy process. However, the structures and process by which this governance is to be delivered require a deeper understanding of different national systems of governance. The modernisation agenda in the UK is producing an overall model that clearly emulates the structures of a more formalised federal system and a comparative analysis with Germany and Spain shows that this system does not necessarily match the depth of citizen participation or governmental co-operation and partnership formation upon which the non-regional system in the UK was built. It is suggested that care needs to be taken that a regional form in UK governance is not followed simply for form's sake. For the European Union, the issue is one of ensuring participation and openness - which entails being aware of the consequences of pursuing a purely regional governance programme at the expense of effective subregional actor mobilisation and participation.