Networkers, fund hunters, intermediaries, or policy players? The activities of regions in Brussels

Abstract

Regions started opening offices in Brussels in the mid-1980s. Today, well over half of Europe’s regions are present there. What do they do once they are in Brussels? Are they mainly networking, chasing funding, acting as intermediaries, monitoring legislation, or trying to influence the EU’s decision-making process? No study has analysed this question apart from the pioneering work by Marks et al. in 2002. This article breaks new ground by analysing both group-level and contextual factors in a series of multilevel models. Based on a survey of regional offices in Brussels, results indicate that contextual factors, such as levels of self-government back home, matter. However, group-level characteristics, such as an office’s longevity in Brussels, seem to affect a wider range of activities. Overall, older offices are more interested in the EU policy-making process and less interested in chasing funds or networking. Conversely, offices representing regions with weaker self-governing capacities rather conceive of their role as that of an intermediary, acting as an interface between the region and the EU institutions.