Regionalism and regional self-government - a comparative outline of basic documents

Polazeći od sve značajnije uloge subnacionalne razine u procesu europskog integriranja, u radu se nastoje razjasniti pojmovi regionalizma i regionalne samouprave. Ističe se kako je regionalizam evoluirao kroz djelatnost subnacionalnih jedinica i nastoji se prikazati pozicioniranje tih jedinica s obzirom na nacionalnu i europsku razinu. Također, detaljno se komparativno prikazuju temeljni dokumenti koji promoviraju ideju regionalizma s obzirom na njihovu koncepciju, pravni status i temeljna načela koja promoviraju. Osobita pozornost posvećuje se pravnom sustavu Europske unije u pogledu njegova kapaciteta da prepozna i legitimira europsku razinu. Kritički se analiziraju i odredbe Ustavnog ugovora za Europu s obzirom na regionalno pitanje.The author explains the terms regionalism and regional self-government using the increasingly important role of sub-national level in the European integration processes as a starting point. He argues that regionalism is a process which evolved through the activities of sub-national units and shows their position with regard to national and European level. The concept of regional self-government represents the legal form of regionalism, through which the basic ideas of regionalism are formed. The paper also provides a detailed list of basic documents promoting the idea of regionalism, listed according to their concept, legal status, and the basic principles they promote. The documents analysed in the paper are the Community Charter for Regionalisation, the Declaration on Regionalism in Europe, and the Draft European Charter on Regional Self-government. The capacity of the EU legal system to recognise and legitimise regional level is carefully analysed in the paper together with the provisions of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (Constitutional Treaty) dealing with regional issues. The author puts special emphasis on the comparison and the analysis of legal capacity of the EU legal system before and after the adoption of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. The paper ends with an analysis of the development of regionalism as an idea in different documents. It is concluded that regionalism is constantly developing and is considerably dependant on the relations between national states and the European Union. Finally, the author points out several cases showing certain stagnation in promotion and legitimisation of regionalism in Europe