Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions?

The system of the European Union consists of more than one level of decision-making, it includes rather three which can be characterized as supranational, national, and subnational. But who is really in charge, who delivers most of the input? The following thesis has two purposes. First, it wants to analyze the opposing theories of Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Multi-Level Governance to ascertain the role of the nation state in European day-to-day decision-making. Second, it looks at the influence possibilities of an institution which is often rather neglected by media and science, the Committee of the Regions, a central forum of local and regional interests, and hence a symbol of Multi-Level Governance. The results show a growing – yet still underdeveloped – role of the regions in Europe. Nevertheless, the European decision-making process which is still partly based on national preferences also includes to a great extent supranational and subnational preferences. Therefore, Multi-Level Governance can account as a useful model in explaining the conducted case study around the Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 where the nation states are only one voice among others. The results also allow assuming that it is worth looking deeper into Multi-Level in order to explain European processes.