We currently witness a period of time when being 'European' seems to be ever less attractive for member states as well as for European citizens. Indeed, the 'European' variable has recurrently been identified of having an impact on institutions, processes and policies of member states – causing institutional convergence or divergence, changing identities and opportunity costs of loyalties and deeply regulating specific policy fields. In this panel, we want to investigate the effect of Europe on multilevel structures and processes in member state governments in order to get a more balanced impression of the costs and benefits of being 'European'.

The panel aims at assembling papers that tackle the problem from different perspectives. Papers may present single cases or comparative studies, aimed at hypothesis testing or theory building. Topics can be for example the effect of Europe on:

- regional accommodation policies or secession threats in multinational member states such as Spain and UK

- regional development due to European funding strategies

- the institutional set up and processes of intra- and intergovernmental relations

- intra-state competence allocation in legislation and implementation with regard to European directives and regulations

- national and sub-national taxing, budgeting and debt management strategies.