In her report ”Regional voices in the European Union – regions with legislative power and multi-level governance. Perspectives for the Åland Islands” Sarah Stephan, LL.M. and researcher at the Peace Institute raises an inventory of channels of participation used by the Åland Islands and points to the unexploited potential of multi-level governance for small regions with legislative power.

The report is published within the Åland Islands Peace Institute Report Series and can be downloaded here.

The report will be launched at an open seminar in the City library of Mariehamn on January 11th at 6 p.m. Sarah Stephan will present her findings in English and a following discussion can be conducted both in English and Swedish.

Sarah Stephan has chosen to examine the theoretical foundations of the debates on multilevel governance and regional blindness and to contrast them to the actual practices of regions with legislative competence, drawing mainly upon the examples of Åland and the German Länder. One of her main conclusions is that the constitutional status and the intergovernmental relations necessary for a successful regional representation within the EU need to be complemented by regional entrepreneurship.

This is the second time that a report within the Åland Islands Peace Institute Report Series focuses on the position of regions in European integration. Our previous report, entitled ‘Constitutions, Autonomies and the EU’ (Report No. 3-2008) discussed the institutional solutions and challenges at the domestic and the European levels and did so primarily through a comparison of Spanish and Ålandic experiences.