The EU and Local Governments

The impact of European integration on the national legal systems had primarily been examined until the early 1990s in terms of national governmental aspects within the context of evergreen issue of delimitation of competences. This confinement could be discerned in the formulation of theories about the EU integration models which have centred around state-centric and supranational conceptions (based either on intergovernmentalism or neo-functionalism). This also could be noticed even in the analyses of the principle of subsidiarity made in the wake of its introduction to the EC Treaty that were confined to the issue of delimitation of competences between the EU institutions and national governments merely. As correctly described by D’Atena, the European system was suffering from the federal blindness and indifference towards the existence of subnational authorities and was being solely occupied with central levels of governments. (D’Atena, 2005, p. 8