DRAFT

Several studies of the OMC deal with its policy effects, or lack hereof, at the local level in EU’s member states. Does the OMC work or not when policy outcomes are measured in single EU member states? Other studies are occupied with the democratic legitimacy of the OMC discussing whether the OMC may be seen as an accountably model of multi-level governance or not (see for example Benz 2007). This article focuses on the impact of the OMC on the national coordination of EU policy. The article presents a study of the organizational and discursive impact of the OMC in Denmark, more precisely the impact of the streamlining of the European Employment Guidelines and the European Macro Economic Guidelines into the Integrated Guidelines for Growth and Jobs 2005-2008. The article shows that the integration of guidelines does not represent a radical change in political content from the EU. Rather the integration of guidelines may be seen as a simplification of guidelines and of member states reports to the EU. However, this change at the EU level of governing has considerably unintended consequences in the Danish case presented in this article. The integration of guidelines leads to an intense power battle between Danish Ministries. The power games are played out on two levels: 1) an organizational level in which the different actors battle for access and core positions in the process of coordination; and 2) a discursive level in which each policy area is forced to redefine itself in a way that gives it a prominent 2 position in the strategic set up of the national strategy. The article, thus, presents a study of possible unintended consequences of a multi-level governing process, as well as the battle for strategic control in a process of policy coordination