The state of the Union in the context of the economic crisis gave rise to new arguments in favor or against federalism – as a concrete solution to prevent disintegration/collapse. More interesting but not unique to the EU, recent political debates reveal – once again – the ambiguities of federalism as a project (Rosamond 2000) and display a wide variety of meanings. Essentially, these models of federalism vary between two extremes. On the one end is the model of nebulous cooperation between the different levels of governance in the implementation of the European public policies; on the other end is the model of highly structured task division and delineated competences for each level.
Given that the “magic formula of federal systems involves the optimum mixture of unity and diversity” (Rosamond 2000), our paper addresses the following questions: how does the European Commission deal with these diverging forms of federalism? Based on the Commission’s administrative experience, what are their concrete implications for the functioning of the Union? What lessons could be learned? Our theoretical argument is that concrete experiences with the implementation of European public policies play a crucial role in how actors understand, define and explain federalist models.
To answer these questions, the paper is based on interviews with European Commission officials, most suited actors to shed light on the experiences of implementing European public policies and federal solutions. Three cases will be examined: the cohesion policy, Justice and Home affairs and the external action of the European Union.
