Negotiating European Union Law: Which Decision Making Model?

Since the SEA and the complexion of the Single Market, the increasing flow of EU directives – with its inherent characteristics of supremacy over national law and of direct effect characterizing de facto most of the EU legislation, including most directives - made member states realize the usefulness of being proactive negotiators in EU law making. Consequently, all member States elaborated procedures and established ad hoc coordinating bodies to deal at best with the formative phase of EC law – i.e. that phase in which the national administrations (in primis the governments and its bureaucracies, but also the Parliaments and the parties in them and, where relevant, also regional authorities) determine their “national position” to be negotiated with their European partners.