Piattoni, Simona --- "The Committee of the Regions: Multi-Level Governance after Enlargement" [2008] ELECD 276; in Best, Edward; Christiansen, Thomas; Settembri, Pierpaolo (eds), "The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union

Editor(s): Best, Edward; Christiansen, Thomas; Settembri, Pierpaolo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847203458

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: The Committee of the Regions: Multi-Level Governance after Enlargement

Author(s): Piattoni, Simona

Number of pages: 21

Extract:

9. The Committee of the Regions:
multi-level governance after
enlargement
Simona Piattoni

INTRODUCTION

The 2004/2007 enlargement of the European Union was expected by many
to amount to a veritable `big bang' for the institutional structure of the
Union. The sheer number of new member states, the consequent increase
in Union population (but decrease in per capita GDP), the augmented
diversity of the languages spoken, the lack of familiarity of many of these
new member states with the trappings of democratic politics and interna-
tional relations ­ all these factors induced many commentators to antici-
pate that this round of enlargement would be like no other before it. Certain
formal institutional changes were carried out in advance of enlargement in
order to prepare the Union for the arrival of the new member states (Dinan
2003; Steunenberg 2001). However, since institutions are governed not just
by formal and codified rules of decision but also by informal relations and
norms of appropriateness (March and Olsen 1989; Christiansen and
Piattoni 2003), enlargement was nevertheless expected to have an impact,
above all, on the institutional performance of the Union.
This chapter explores whether the 2004/2007 enlargement has changed
the inner workings of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and its inter-
relation with the other EU institutions. While only `consultative', the CoR
is nevertheless an institution `of some importance' (Warleigh 1997) because
it is the main channel through which regional and local authorities make
themselves heard in EU policy-making (Hooghe 1995; Hooghe ...