Regional Interest Representation in the EU and Euroscepticism

The phenomena of regional interest representation in the European Union and of Euroscepticism among the public are increasingly being examined, but rarely are the links between these two phenomena. Regional offices are arguably closer to the public than national and supranational agencies, and previous research indicates that a link between regional interest lobbying and Euroscepticism is likely. I explore through a series of bivariate OLS regressions whether such a link between regional interest representation in Brussels and Euroscepticism in the public exists, relying on different Eurobarometer survey results as indicators for Euroscepticism and on the number of regional offices relative to population. I find that, while there is no correlation with most indicators for Euroscepticism, there is a significant negative correlation with support for EU-level decision-making and a positive correlation with the opposition to it. I derive three potential explanations from the literature, which I plan to empirically test until the ECPR General Conference in August.