Abstract

The Lisbon Reform Treaty would improve the role of the sub-national level in the European Union institutional framework. Not only the intended institutional reforms but also the process that led to the Reform Treaty - the European Convention, the Constitutional Treaty, and the period of reflection - strengthened the presence of the regions in the European decision-making process and improved network building within the regions and the system of "Muli-Level Governance" in Europe. In this system of Multi-Level Governance the German Laender followed their two main strategies. The first was to search direct ways to affect actors on every level ("let us in") and the second was to save their own autonomy regarding their own politics ("leave us alone"). Obviously there was no big bang of great expansion of regional rights in the constitutional treaty or in the treaty of Lisbon. But nobody - the regions neither - would have thought that such a big bang would come. It seems to be a path dependent strengthening of the role of the regions.