Systemic Coordination of European Affairs

Abstract

This study seeks to make a contribution to a limited research on the systemic level of the national coordination of European affairs, which involves both domestic institutions and a permanent representation at the EU and national embassies in the EU member states and other countries. We explore the issue through a case study which concentrates on 1) several middle-sized EU member states and 2) coordination in the field of foreign and security policy. The study argues that the coordination at the systemic level has a rather a centralized character. The elements of decentralization, which can be also identified at the systemic level, are primarily related to information-gathering as well as representation at negotiations. Permanent representations are considerably more involved in coordination than national embassies, however.

Keywords

• European Union (EU)
• EU member states
• national coordination
• Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)
• middle-sized countries