Briefing note - The Emerging Core of the EU’s Macro-regional Governance Architecture: Mapping the Roles, Tasks and Self-Perceptions of Priority Area Coordinators and Horizontal Action Leaders in the EU Strategies for the Baltic Sea and the Danube Regions

Abstract

Macro-regional strategies of the European Union (EU), such as the ones for the Baltic Sea and the Danube Regions, are relatively new elements of EU cohesion policy. Targeting EU member and partner countries alike, these strategies aim at developing an integrated framework for collective action in priority areas such as the transport infrastructure, economic development and protection of the environment. With regard to policy coordination and implementation, the strategies have encouraged the establishment of a system of Priority Area Coordinators (PACs) and Horizontal Action Leaders (HALs), which operate as highly flexible and increasingly networked bureaucracy across borders. Drawing on data from a survey conducted amongst PACs and HALs, this study explores the factors that empower and constraint PACs/HALs in their day-to-day work. It demonstrates that this transnational governmental network (TGN) between participating countries and other stakeholders has significantly extended the ‘reach’ of the European Commission into (sub-)national bureaucracies of EU members and partner countries.