INSTITUTIONS, PUBLIC POLICY AND SOCIAL REALITIES, pages: 137 - 152, 2016

The Interdependence of the Decision-Making Levels in the EU’s Multilevel Governance. Case Study: the North-Western Part of Romania

Rezumat: The present paper focuses on the challenges that the EU’s multilevel governance brings to the process of governance in the Member States: the political processes, the institutional structures or the content of policies. In this context, the way different national actors participate to / and influence the EU decision-making process is of high importance. Therefore, the general objective of the paper is the analysis of the EU’s multilevel governance framework and of the national governance (Romanian), for the purpose of determining the degree in which, eight years after Romania's accession to the European Union (2007-2015), different actors (public, private, NGOs, citizens) from the North – West Region capitalize the rights, powers and mechanisms at their disposal, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon, in order to influence the EU decision-making process, but also of how they self-position in the EU’s multilevel governance structure. As a consequence, the applied research of this paper is based on three case studies that regard, at the same time, three target-groups: the Romanian MEPs, the MPs from the North – West Region (comprising the following counties: Bihor, Bistrita- Nasaud, Cluj, Maramures, Salaj and Satu-Mare) and the county councilors from the North – West Region. For each of these three target-groups, the research objectives were, mainly, their role in influencing the European decision-making process and their positioning in the EU’s multilevel governance.