A ‘Europe of the Regions’ : Swedish Regions as the Undead

Abstract

The ‘Europe of the Regions’ debate in the late 1980s and early 1990s influenced the current regionalization process in Sweden; regional actors used it as an argument for further decentralisation of power with a degree of success (Warleigh-Lack & Stegmann McCallion 2012). Thus one important element in any discussion around a ‘Europe of the Regions’ and its possible obsolescence is its impact not just at the EU level but also in the regionalization processes within member states. If the EU is a multi-level polity, then for a Europe of the Regions truly to be ‘obsolete’, it must be absent at each level of the polity, in each member state. This article argues that a Europe of the Regions is far from obsolete, although it may well be patchy and expressed differently, and to different degrees, in each EU state. Focusing on the case of Swedish regional actors, the paper argues that officials and politicians from this level, who participate in politics at the EU level or in the EU arena, see this participation as a win-win situation that they wish to preserve