EU industrial Policy and the post-regulatory state: The rise of Direct and Supportive Meta-governance

The development of new policy competences at the EU level generally takes the form of a zero-sum game that limits member states’ policymaking autonomy while subjecting them to EU’s legal hierarchy. The close analysis of the new EU industrial policy offers a completely distinct perspective on EU integration. We observe win-win patterns, where new policy initiatives at the EU level are accompanied with broadened policy options at and sup-port to the national level. The article conceptualizes these patterns as the positive EU and the supportive EU, which we distinguish from the bossy EU that embodies traditional hierar-chical and zero-sum game relationship across levels. The article explains the development of the positive and supportive EU by the use of financial and organizational policy instruments in the context of EU industrial policy. In short, the move beyond the regulatory state in the EU appears to come with a redefinition of the relationship between the EU and the member states.