90
Abstract
Over the past two decades, the concept of
multi-level governance (MLG) has been increasingly
discussed by scholars in the ﬁeld of European
integration. While Gary Marks wrote about
a four-level arrangement (supranational, national,
regional, and local), over time the regional
and local levels often became lumped together
as ‘substate actors’ and so easily conceptually
interchangeable. This text, however, shows
the fallaciousness of this reasoning. In certain
circumstances we can ﬁnd a competitive relationship
between cities and regions, positioning
themselves against each other for resources and
access to national and supranational fora, especially
in the context of the new regionalism. The
cities have been given substantial support from
the European Commission in recent years and
we argue that this new constellation may have
a remarkable inﬂuence on relations and possibly
also lead to conﬂicts among local and regional
actors in EU multi-level governance. This was
possible to be clearly seen in the Czech Republic
(CR) between 2012 and 2014, when heated
negotiations took place regarding the implementation
of the Integrated Territorial Investment
(ITI), a ﬁnancial instrument of EU Cohesion Policy
which was implemented on the substate level
– i.e., in cities and regions. In the CR this competition
took place in a speciﬁc context, which also
inﬂuenced its outcome.
Keywords: new regionalism, multi-level
governance, governance, substate actors.
CITIES AND REGIONS
IN COMPETITION? NEGOTIATIONS
FOR THE 2014-2020 PROGRAMMING
PERIOD IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC⃰1
Vratislav HAVLÍK
Petra KUCHYŇKOVÁ
Vratislav HAVLÍK
Assistant professor, PhD, Department of International
Relations and European Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences,
Masaryk University, Brno, The Czech Republic
Tel.: 0042-549-496.267
E-mail: vhavlik@fss.muni.cz
Petra KUCHYŇKOVÁ
Assistant professor, PhD, Department of International
Relations and European Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences,
Masaryk University, Brno, The Czech Republic
Tel.: 0042-549-494.863
E-mail: p.kuchynkova@gmail.com
* This article has been written as part of the research project
‘Europe 2020: A Horizon of Change of Relevant Actors of the
Czech Republic’s Political System’ (Czech Science Foundation
project GA13-24657S).
Transylvanian Review
of Administrative Sciences,
No. 50 E/2017, pp. 90-109
DOI:10.24193/tras.2017.0006
Published First Online: 2017/02/10
91
1. Introduction
One certain ﬂaw or problem of the concept of multi-level governance (MLG) is
that as the use of the concept increases, the formulation of diﬀerent expressions and
deﬁnitions increases accordingly. This situation can be observed even in deﬁning the
level on which governance occurs. While Gary Marks (1993, p. 392) spoke at the outset
about four levels of governance – European, national, regional, and local – subsequent
authors often connected the two latter levels under the collective term ‘subnational’
or ‘substate’, which has been very misleading at the least. The use of the expression
‘substate’ can, in some speciﬁc cases, create the impression that there exists a
coherent group of actors (comp. Callanan and Tatham, 2014) with more or less similar
interests and behavior, which is not necessarily the case. This ‘substate’ term derives
from the three-level concept of policymaking. Kassim (2005) uses this approach when
discussing the Europeanization of substate authorities, which he deﬁnes as subnational
states, regions, and municipalities (similarly to Jeﬀery, 2000). The fact that local
arena is described relatively haphazardly in deﬁnitions of MLG is rather alarming,
as it obscures the clarity of the concept. The answer why this happens exists. As research
on Czech and German cities shows (Havlík, 2013), it is not possible to speak of
‘typical’ actors in MLG in the case of cities, because the nature of their actions is quite
heterogeneous. This statement was valid around 2010, and is more or less valid still
today, even though the role of major cities (with metropolitan suburbs) has changed
since that time. The role of major cities (typically those with more than about 100,000
inhabitants) as clearly emancipated actors emerged decisively after 2007 (and more
strongly after 2014) based on the new period of the EU regional policy, which following
the Lisbon strategy provided them with much stronger tools in implementing the
EU structural funds (the so-called ‘territorial dimension’, see below). The idea behind
this was to raise competitiveness across the EU by making ‘new internationally signiﬁcant
territories of economic dynamism’ (Deas and Lord, 2006, pp. 1848-1849). This
empowering of cities, above all the empowering of the so-called ‘urban regions’ or
‘metropolitan’ areas, has been often discussed in previous literature on ‘new regionalism’
(Harrison, 2007; Deas and Lord, 2006; Zimmermann and Heinelt, 2012; Zimmermann,
2008; Bafarasat, 2016, etc.).
This text’s ambition is therefore to oﬀer a new perspective on the relations between
substate actors; more speciﬁcally, the text shows that in certain circumstances
we can ﬁnd a competitive relationship between cities and regions. It was possible to
clearly see this in the Czech Republic between 2012 and 2014, when heated negotiations
took place regarding the implementation of the Integrated Territorial Investment
(ITI), a ﬁnancial instrument of EU Cohesion Policy which is implemented on the
substate level – i.e., in cities, metropolitan areas, and regions.
This new instrument is interesting for a variety of reasons (see below), but particularly
because it conﬁrms the above-mentioned attempts of the European Commission
to broaden the implementation of cohesion policy, implementing it not only region-
92
ally, but also to metropolitan (subregional and local) areas (comp. Zimmermann and
Heinelt, 2012). This presents a challenge to current understandings of the concept of
multi-level governance from the point of view of the division of individual levels of
governance. In other words, it is necessary to address possible changes in the roles of
substate actors, which were brought about in the context of the new forms of EU Regional
Policy during the 2014-2020 programming period. Speaking about metropolitan
governance is of course ‘nothing new’, but it may be worthwhile to update this
discussion, since cities have been given substantial support from the European Commission
in recent years. We argue that this new constellation may have a remarkable
inﬂuence on relations and possibly also lead to conﬂicts among local and regional
actors in EU multi-level governance.
In light of this, the Czech Republic is a prime case for study. First, as one of the
new Member States of the EU, it is a major recipient of ﬁnancial support under the cohesion
policy. It is precisely due to the fact that substate actors have a tangible chance
to acquire a substantial amount of money from the structural funds that they have
more than suﬃcient reasons to ﬁght for this money. The structure of the Czech state
also makes it a good ﬁt for research. As a unitary state, the regional level did not play
a signiﬁcant role before entry into the EU, and therefore regions had a similar initial
position to cities during the EU accession. As a part of the post-communist heritage,
cities lacked a history of any real autonomy and the regions were newly formed in
the 1990s after a decade of internal political disputes about their formation, number,
and competencies. Both cities and regions had to adapt to speciﬁc mechanisms of
both direct and indirect communication with EU actors and interest promotion bodies.
Moreover, this adaptation has been further complicated by problems of a heritage
of political and administrative culture shared by various post-communist ‘new’ EU
member states. The interaction of all these circumstances, combined with the amount
of European money that cities and regions compete over, make the Czech Republic
an interesting object of research.
In the next parts of the text, we are going to present step by step the features of
Czech substate governance and the relations between regions and cities. In the second
section, we put our case study in the context of the new regionalism theory and
show that the changes of the substate landscape and of the relations between cities
and regions are undoubtedly driven by the activities of the EU Commission. In the
third section, we present the speciﬁcs of the Czech cohesion policy and discuss the
inﬂuence of these speciﬁcs on the performance of Czech substate actors in the EU
multi-level governance. Then, after explaining our methodology we present in the
ﬁfth section our ﬁndings. First of all, we present the discussion about the implementation
of the ITI ﬁnancial tool, than we present and explain the ways which cities and
regions used for their interest articulation. Finally, we show that the ITI tool was a
crucial and divisive factor for the relations of cities and regions in the context of particular
problematic factors concerning the Czech Republic.
93
2. Subnational actors and their strategies
of interest articulation in the context of MLG
Subnational actors have a wide range of options in the process of interest articulation
in the context of multi-level governance of the EU. For greater clarity, these
options can be positioned within various existing concepts (MLG, Europeanization,
paradiplomacy, the partnership principle, etc.) which, rather than identifying the
points that cities and regions can use, oﬀer a basis to understand the activities of these
actors. In this text, however, it functions as a departure point for formulating the argument
that cities may be seen as being on equal footing with and, in some cases,
even competitors to regions.
Activities of substate actors can be further divided as domestically- and foreign-oriented
on the basis of existing empirical studies (comp. Münch, 2006, etc.).
In the case of domestic activities, this is above all interaction with the relevant government
ministry, either directly on a bilateral basis, or more commonly in the form
of membership in an organization representing the interests of such actors (association
of regions, organizations of towns and cities). In their ‘paradiplomacy’ (Soldatos
and Michelmann, 1992), substate actors see increasing regionalization as a ‘throwing
down of the gauntlet’ to increase their activities and attempts to inﬂuence the content
of European legislation. In this process, various possible entry points exist; just as in
the case of interest articulation on the state level, these can be approached bilaterally
(direct contact to EU institutions, participation in public consultations, etc.) as well
as multilaterally (membership in the Committee of Regions, CEMR, Eurocities, etc.).
The term ‘strategy’, used in the title of this section, is imprecise and often distorted.
As previous research (Havlík, 2013) shows, while some substate actors have
a detailed and elaborate approach to ‘European’ interest advocacy,1
others hardly
have any ‘strategy’ at all. In this context, it is interesting that the main line dividing
successful from unsuccessful substate actors is neither the structure of the executive
branch in a given state (unitary vs. federal), nor the ‘dichotomy’ between old and
new EU Member States, nor higher or lower levels of corporatism in a given state.
Often, success of a speciﬁc substate actor is determined by how proactive it is in its
approach, and by its own decision to actively campaign for its interests regarding
individual European policies (comp. Callanan and Tatham, 2014).
This ﬁnding is important for further argumentation. It is clear that while initial
conditions for individual substate actors vary (some are larger, wealthier, and undoubtedly
more inﬂuential), each of these actors have at least a few options to articulate
their interests. Moreover, MLG rejects presenting cities as actors positioned vertically
below regions, but instead places them in a circle beside regions; this reveals
their options in a completely diﬀerent light than they would be in a more ‘conserva-
1 Here, we understand the term ‘European interests’ as speciﬁc interests of substate actors in relation
to the decision-making process of the European Union.
94
tive’, linear understanding. However, cities did not always have the same opportunities
in MLG as regions. Their placement on the same level as regions in MLG is accurate,
but, from a quantitative point of view, they were in charge of a smaller amount
of money in recent decades. The concept of ‘new internationally signiﬁcant territories
of economic dynamism’ (Deas and Lord, 2006, pp. 1848-1849), as mentioned above in
speaking about the new regionalism, changed their opportunities and possibly their
position in MLG as well. Although the European Commission does not give the cities
the right to implement the ITI directly, they do have the opportunity to enter into
competition (with other regional or subregional actors) with a serious chance to win.
In other words, the EU Commission’s latest trend in making regional policy has been
to establish incentive structures for regional and subregional actors in order to let the
best win, but without directly saying who the best is and who exactly the implementing
authority should be.
In this text, we argue that as long as cities did not get any real opportunity to decide
about the implementation of a substantial part of structural funds on their own,
their participation in MLG seemed rather formal and ﬁt for rather theoretical disputations
of political scientists. But in the context of the gradually developing new regionalism,
we may speak during the last decade about cities as ‘true actors’ of MLG,
as they have been strongly supported by the European Commission (comp. Zimmermann,
2008). We further argue that this granting of support may give rise to tensions
between regions and cities, which makes further research of their relationship in this
ﬁeld welcomed (comp. Deas and Lord, 2006, p. 1862).
Since 2006, when Deas and Lord wrote that there is ‘little or no evidence of significant
conﬂict’ of ‘new regions’ with ‘old regions’, the respective literature has become
more profound (Deas and Lord, 2006; Zimmermann and Heinelt, 2012; Bafarasat, 2016).
In spite of this, case studies about the conﬂict of new and old regions in the EU money
distribution process are still lacking. The goal of a speciﬁc case study in the context of
the Czech Republic is thus to examine the relationships between regions and cities in
detail, particularly in a country in which regions as actors have not been historically
more inﬂuential than cities. This makes it an ideal and interesting area for research.
3. Development of cohesion policy in the Czech Republic
For Czechoslovakia and later for the Czech Republic (CR), the year 1989 signiﬁed
a historic break not only in the sense of the end of single-party rule and the transition
to democracy, but also slowly facilitated the debate on the style of governance.
Regionalization and the development of regional policy were not excluded from this
debate, addressing the goal of reducing regional disparities. However, in the ﬁrst half
of the 1990s, this newly formed goal was not visibly achieved. To a large extent, actual
work toward it was connected to the Czech Republic’s drawing nearer to the EU
in the second half of the 1990s, as a functioning regional administrative organ was
one of the conditions for entry (Dočkal and Kozlová, 2006). Thus in the CR, regionalization
often has correlated with increasing Europeanization. On 1 January 1996, the
95
Ministry of Regional Development was established, and in the following year a constitutional
amendment was passed to create and implement 14 administrative units
known as ‘kraje’, in the year 2000.
A similar regional division of the country had existed in the communist era as well,
but in light of the centralized character of state administration, the kraje had rather formal
powers and competences than a real power. In addition to this, the new structure
and number of regions does not copy the structure from the communist era: some new
regions were established, and some of the previous regions were divided into smaller
units. This means that both regions which had some tradition of existence as ‘kraje’
even during the communist era and some regions, which were newly established in
the 1990’s, exist. Also it quickly became clear that the attempts of the CR to create a situation
in which the kraje would be recognized as NUTS II regions would be generally
unsuccessful,2
and in an eﬀort to secure money from the structural funds, some of the
kraje were merged for NUTS II purposes; this resulted in units that were even more
artiﬁcial, lacking any homogenous identity or historical borders (comp. Heinelt and
Lang, 2011; Dočkal and Kozlová, 2006; Benedek and Bajtalan, 2015). This is not to say
that the kraje at the time of their creation had a natural position or authority – they did
not. The law on kraje (Zákon o krajích č.129/2000) indeed gave them relatively limited
powers; with the exception of the right to propose laws in the Parliament, these were
certain limited powers in transportation, education, and health-care.3
Cities had in that time certain amount of experience with interest articulation,
which they had gained at the beginning of the 20th
century (in Austria-Hungary)
when they began to form associations. In the modern era, cities renewed their associative
actions shortly after the Velvet Revolution as the ‘Union of Towns and Municipalities
of the CR’ (Svaz měst a obcí ČR, UTMCR) and shortly thereafter were seen as
a traditional partner of the government. The kraje had to form a similar structure from
scratch. The Association of Regions of the Czech Republic (Asociace krajů ČR) became
a respected and active partner of the government relatively quickly, in part due to the
low number of kraje; the association thus was able to more easily aggregate the positions
of its members than the UTMCR.
But even at the most general level, it cannot be stated that the kraje were a priori
more inﬂuential actors, more likely to succeed in their attempts to lobby for their interests
than cities were. In particular, large statutory cities did not face the same obstacles
as smaller cities – above all, a lack of population, which implies an unattractive
position for industrial development and employment and a generally lower ‘pull’ in
negotiations with central organs of the state. Brno and Ostrava, the second and third
2 This ﬁnding is not without exceptions. Prague, Central Bohemia, and Moravia-Silesia are at once
kraje and NUTS II regions, though another ﬁve NUTS II regions are composed of two or more
kraje.
3 This act is formulated as the right to form a public-beneﬁt corporation, including such entities as
some hospitals and schools.
96
largest cities in the Czech Republic, certainly did not experience these obstacles and
to a large extent represented equal partners to their regional counterparts.4
Among other things, the position of kraje and cities is connected to how the EU
structural funds were implemented in the CR. The means by which the Czech Republic
set up its operational programs for securing of monies from the structural funds has
always been a subject of discussion, particularly concerning the degree of decentralization
of the implementation structure. The country’s ﬁrst period of regional policy
was brief, from the date of its entry into the EU (May 2004) to 2006. Individual NUTS
II regions did not have access to their own operational programs, but drew funds from
a common program, the Joint Regional Operational Program (Společný regionální operační
program, JROP). Conversely, during 2007-2013 seven regional operational programs
(ROPs) appeared in addition to the nationwide thematic operational programs,
indicative of the clear decentralization of the entire process of European subsidy acquisition.
However, the process of implementation of European regional policy was at
this time accompanied by widely publicized corruption scandals that embroiled many
NUTS II regions. Although these cases of corruption were oﬃcially linked to some
NUTS II regions, there always have been connotations to the politicians of kraje, since
the kraje are a constitutive part of NUTS II regions and in some cases (see above), a kraj
has the same territory as the NUTS II region. Partly in response to these scandals, regional
programs for the 2014-2020 period were canceled and the country shifted back
to centralization of the whole process under the JROP heading.
However, the kraje ‘lost’ in their battle over the implementation of another powerful
tool. So-called ‘Integrated Territorial Investment’, which (like the original ROP)
was conceived of as a similar decentralized instrument, was awarded to major cities
after a protracted ﬁght. Precisely this process of the rise of competition between kraje
and big cities is the topic of the following portion of the text.
4. Research design
In connection with the theoretical and empirical ﬁndings described above, this article
attempts to answer the following research questions:
1. Which strategies, approaches, and mechanisms did the given substate actors
(kraje and relevant cities5
) use to advocate for their interests in the area of im-
4 One vivid (though somewhat misleading) illustration of this is the information on the ﬁnancial
income of cities and kraje. While the kraj of South Moravia had an annual income of over CZK 5
billion, just by itself the city of Brno (the kraj’s capital) received almost double (see Brno’s annual
budget, South Moravia’s annual budget). This information is obviously mentioned only for illustrative
purposes. This does not factor in the fact that part of this budget is non-discretionary and
earmarked for various reasons (social services, transit, etc.) and the amount is also dependent on
the actors’ other investments according to their own considerations.
5 In this case, relevant cities are those cities which are components of the seven metropolitan areas
in the Czech Republic qualifying for ITI implementation. Towns located in ﬁve of these seven
areas volunteered to participate in this research.
97
plementation of the EU’s regional policy tools in the case of negotiations on ITI
implementation, and how does this occur on the domestic as well as on the international/EU
levels? And why?
2. What were the reasons for the conﬂict between the old and new regions (kraje
and major cities) in the Czech Republic and which main factors inﬂuenced the
outcome of the conﬂict?
These research questions help us to discover speciﬁc diﬀerences in the tactics of
the relevant cities in the CR on the one hand, and kraje on the other, and at the same
time help in directing attention to important factors which inﬂuence these diﬀerences
in approach, both in the case of cities as well as in the case of kraje.
First oﬀ, regarding cities, it is logical to study the cities of the seven largest metropolitan
areas in the CR as actors qualiﬁed to use the ITI mechanism (districts of ÚstíChomutov,
Plzeň, Prague, Hradec Králové-Pardubice, Brno, Olomouc, and Ostrava).
Of these, the main cities of ﬁve of the districts agreed to participate in the research
project (Prague, Plzeň, Brno, Olomouc, and Ostrava).6
This group of major cities in
their corresponding metropolitan areas represents a suﬃciently representative sample.
In the case of the kraje, out of a total of 14, ﬁve took part in the survey (more
than one-third, and thus they represent an appropriate sample): The Capital City of
Prague, Moravia-Silesia, and South Moravia are three of the top four most-populated
kraje in the CR (each with over 1 million residents), while the Hradec Králové Region
and the Karlovarský (Carlsbad) Region are less populated (the Karlovarský Region
is the least populated of all 14). The sample demonstrates the diverse character of
the individual kraje, not only from a demographic, but also from a geographic point
of view. Moreover, the sample takes into account varying structures of population
distribution. For example, South Moravia has one dominant city (Brno) in terms of
population and economic potential, which makes it a magnet for commuters, etc. In
contrast, in Moravia-Silesia there is a larger number of cities that have grown into a
large agglomeration. Because such characteristics may have a signiﬁcant impact on
methods of interest articulation, they are critical to the selection of an appropriate
sample. One speciﬁc case included in the research is the Capital City of Prague, which
is at once a major city and a de jure kraj, as well as the capital. This gives it a unique
position in terms of socio-economic characteristics, as well as in bargaining processes,
both in national and in the EU-level structures.
Methodologically, this research employs semi-structured qualitative interviews,
or more precisely ‘expert interviews’ (Littig, 2009). This technique was chosen in light
of the goals of the research, which were focused on the practical utilization of existing
mechanisms at the national as well as at the European Union level, on what
6 According to the Czech Statistical Oﬃce, Prague, Plzeň, Brno, Olomouc, and Ostrava are classiﬁed
as ‘Velkoměsta’ or ‘Major Cities’, which have more than 100,000 residents and are the largest
cities in their respective metropolitan area; their relevance for research is the strength of their
negotiating position as representatives of a given metropolitan area.
98
speciﬁc negotiation and communication practices occur through a given channel, and
what factors inﬂuence these approaches.7
Interviews were undertaken with employees
of city halls as well as oﬃces of the kraje.8
Emphasis was placed on the selection
of employees in departments which were directly concerned with regional or local
development, structural funds, and occasional employees who had the authority to
communicate with appropriate actors at the national or EU level in the context of interest
articulation of the city/kraj on these levels (typically in the Oﬃce of the Mayor
or the Oﬃce of the Hejtman9
). Other respondents (who functioned as a control group)
included employees of corresponding structures at the national level that articulate
and aggregate interests of cities and kraje; these structures have means of communicating
their interests to appropriate government authorities (typically the executive
branch, and especially the Ministry for Regional Development), and in some cases to
structures at the supranational level (EU institutions). In the case of cities, this meant
the aforementioned Union of Towns and Municipalities of the CR (UTMCR); in the
case of the kraje, the Association of Regions of the Czech Republic (ARCR). Cities and
kraje can also communicate directly with ministries, so employees of the Czech Ministry
for Regional Development were also included among respondents. Due to their
professional focus, background and experience, some of the respondents had useful
things to say also regarding the relevant structures on the EU level (CEMR, the Committee
of the Regions, the European Parliament).
Altogether, 16 personal and one telephone interview took place. Information
gleaned from these semi-structured interviews was supplemented by follow-up
emails when necessary. Interviews (data collection) took place in the period between
May 2014 and March 2015, thus in a period in which the circumstances that the individual
respondents experienced regarding preparation and implementation of ITI
were still fresh in their memory. By respondent request, all interviews have been an-
onymized.
The Czech case is not only interesting due to the aforementioned implementation
of this new tool for territorial development in a de facto unitary state (with a tradition
of local autonomy that was interrupted during the 20th
century). Above all, the dis-
7 For the characteristics concerning both the appropriateness and also the limits of qualitative interviews
as data collection method see e.g., Burnham et al. (2008) or Dexter (2006).
8 Some of the interviews were made as a part of broader research, which was focused on the activities
of Czech cities and regions concerning the articulation and promotion of their interests
in the process of the development and implementation of EU legislation. As the aims of the research
were to provide feedback and recommendation for further activities in these ﬁelds, it was
focused mainly on the persons who were directly responsible for the everyday execution of these
tasks and activities, i.e., the responsible local and regional oﬃcials and the representatives of
particular structures for articulation and aggregation of the local and regional interests – the Association
of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic and the Association of Regions of
the CR.
9 The Hejtman is the elected leader of the kraj.
99
continuity at the regional level makes this case important. Despite this, both types of
actors – kraje as well as cities – have developed more than a few initiatives to capitalize
on the implementation of ITI on ‘their’ level, either regionally or at the level of the
agglomeration. Beside the parameters of ITI speciﬁed (somewhat vaguely) at the EU
level, speciﬁc internal characteristics (such as territorial administrative structure, the
positions of individual actors in the negotiating process, and the motivations of these
actors) also aﬀect how ITI is implemented in the CR.
5. Empirical ﬁndings
5.1. A discussion on Czech ITI implementation
Since about 2012, an intense discussion has taken place in the Czech Republic regarding
the implementation of the ‘Integrated Territorial Investment’ program, one
tool unveiled in the context of ‘territorial and urban dimensions of cohesion policy
2014+’. The European Commission explained that ‘economic and social cohesion cannot
be achieved at the European level without a stronger focus on the territorial impact
of EU policies’ (European Commission, 2014, p. 2).
One problem since the very beginning has been the vague deﬁnition of the territorial
units in which ITI is to be implemented. The basic conditions the Commission refers
to are limited to stating that implementation should occur in ‘a designated territory
and an integrated territorial development strategy’ (European Commission, 2014,
p. 2). This was followed by another explanation, which also was not very precise:
‘Any geographical area with particular territorial features can be the subject
of an ITI, ranging from speciﬁc urban neighborhoods with multiple deprivations
to the urban, metropolitan, urban-rural, sub-regional, or inter-regional levels.
An ITI can also deliver integrated actions in detached geographical units with
similar characteristics within a region (e.g., a network of small or medium-sized
cities). It is not compulsory for an ITI to cover the whole territory of an administrative
unit.’ (European Commission, 2014, p. 2).
From the perspective of the European Commission, this is a relatively understandable
step, as the territorial administration of Member States in the EU is varied enough
that any more precise deﬁnition under which ITI might be implemented would be
problematic. At ﬁrst glance, it was not obvious whether future ITI implementation
would be dealt with more at the regional or at the local level. Though clearly the
majority of the deﬁnitions discuss various forms of subregional forms of territory, it
is crucial to note that it is not ‘compulsory’ for an ITI to ‘cover the whole territory of
an administrative unit’, though of course it implies that it theoretically could. From
the perspective of the typology developed by Arthur Benz (2009, comp. Marks and
Hooghe, 2005), ITI itself is evidence of the so-called ‘functional federalism’ of the EU,
which is characterized by the formation of ‘special-purpose jurisdictions’; in the case
of ITI, subnational entities have a single goal: to implement ITI. The formation of
specialized jurisdictions having only a single speciﬁc goal is a logical phenomenon,
100
as many territories that have been formed by history and geography are ill-suited to
fulﬁll the conditions needed for more modern undertakings, and it is thus necessary
to create ad hoc territorial units. The eﬀect of the Commission’s relatively open design
of ITI thus was a situation in which a wide variety of actors started to realize that
they could implement ITI, and went about attempts to fully maximize these options.
In the Czech Republic, urban agglomerations and especially the kraje made attempts
from the outset. In the period 2007-2013 the kraje had ‘Regional Operational
Programs (ROPs)’ at their disposal; the media (and not only them), however, associated
these with corruption scandals. Eventually, key players in some kraje were
arrested, and EU regional policy became a shorthand for corruption in the eyes of
the public (see Havlík, 2015). The government responded to these developments by
deciding to scrap individual ROPs for 2014-2020 and form a single ‘Joint Regional
Operational Program (JROP)’ which would centralize the management of regional
policy and would (in the government’s view) guard against possible continued corruption
on the regional level. Thus at the start of the 2014-2020 round, kraje faced
a situation in which a lucrative, ﬁnancially secure, subsidized territorial instrument
was clearly welcomed. Moreover, they were able to point out the fact that many other
EU countries were considering ITI implementation exactly at the regional level (Romania,
Spain, etc.), or in both regions and urban areas (Slovakia, Italy, Germany, etc.).
For a long time, this argument seemed decisive (or at least the kraje were convinced).
Major cities, however, also made an argument that they, rather than peripheral areas
(with reference to reducing regional disparities) should be supported as ‘poles of
growth’ (see e.g., Zimmermann and Heinelt, 2012; Hradec Kralove, 2014); major cities
along with their agglomerations had the potential to be engines of economic growth
and job creation. It was this point that substantially divided the arguments of the kraje
and the cities, and created short-term, mutually antagonistic postures.
5.2. Divided strategies of Czech kraje and cities
in the process of interest articulation
Options and strategies of cities and kraje in the CR often diﬀer in the interest-articulation
process. By deﬁnition, one reason for this is that kraje are geographically and
demographically larger and thus have a logically greater chance of being ‘heard’. In
the context of EU regional policy implementation, they have enjoyed a more advantageous
position than cities in the last decade. They have been administrators of ROPs
(some of them de jure, the others de facto, see above) and more frequently represented
in key advisory bodies, including ROP monitoring committees, ministerial working
groups, etc. In these same fora, cities have usually had only one or two representatives,
the same position as NGOs. Kraje thus have been in a better position vis-à-vis cities
from the point of view of access to information and options to present their interests.
Cities and kraje share some basic mechanisms when discussing interest articulation.
Both types of actors have umbrella organizations whose goal is to aggregate the
interests of their members, select a common position, and accordingly articulate it to
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other actors. In the case of EU regional policy, these ‘other actors’ are typically the
government or respectively the relevant ministry; at the EU level, typically the Council
of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), Eurocities (for major cities), the
Committee of the Regions, the European Commission, etc. Both national umbrella organizations
– the UTMCR and the ARCR – are fully professionalized and completely
aware of the options they oﬀer; their diﬀerences can be seen in (A) how they utilize
their options, and (B) which communication channels they choose to articulate their
interests.
In 2000, the government took the step of creating the kraje as substate units. However,
the main motivation was not to counter any trend of centralization, but instead
to prepare the country for EU membership; a functioning regional administration
was one condition of membership (comp. Dočkal and Kozlová, 2006). This is important
also from the point of view of the overall development of political and administrative
culture in the Czech Republic, when we think about the position of substate
(in this case regional) actors in the whole system of communication, policy making,
and governance in the CR as a unitary state. Kraje thus from the beginning of their existence
should be understood as new actors (in spite of the above-mentioned ‘history’
of communist kraje), who had to create their communication channels from scratch.
They never completely managed to emancipate themselves and present their interests
on EU aﬀairs except mainly through the central government, which they considered
(and still in part consider) as their natural and closest partner in spite of their
status as autonomous substate actors. The interviews indicate close communication
on the part of the kraje with ministries and conversely their hesitation to establish or
reestablish their representatives in Brussels.10
These kraje focus on articulating their
interests through national-level access points, especially the ministerial level, which
they also see as a natural partner for interest promotion at the EU level.11
This may be illustrated also by the fact that several Czech kraje terminated their
direct representation in Brussels in recent years. The reasons were not only economic,
but also personnel (diﬃculties to ﬁnd proper staﬀ with enough experience in working
on various levels of governance, including not only regional or national, but also
the EU level). These facts in combination with frequent ﬂuctuation of this properly
10 Shortly after the EU accession, each kraj created a representative for the EU located at the ‘Czech
House’ in Brussels. After a few years, however, the kraje began to close their representatives’ ofﬁces.
Of the ﬁve kraje under study, in 2015 only three still had an EU representative.
11 For example, in one interview, an employee of Moravia-Silesia clearly stated that when developing
the kraj’s position concerning the legislation aﬀected by the EU or on the European level, it
was primarily transmitted through a ministry. The relevant ministries are deemed the primary
partner with whom the kraje communicate and they lead the debate in cases at the European
Union level, such as the preparation of new legislation that directly aﬀects the substate level (‘[t]
he partner for the European Commission is understandably the state, individual departments.’
Interview, Kraj Moravia-Silesia, 8 July 2014).
102
trained and experienced staﬀ represent certain negative elements of the administrative
culture, which are not without impacts on the practice and eﬀectiveness of the
process of interest articulation on the supranational levels (‘[i]t’s all about who is sitting
at the permanent representation in Brussels. If they’re only there to be there, then
it’s meaningless.’ Interview, Kraj Karlovarský, 10 September 2014). It is necessary to
point out that the experience with permanent regional representation in Brussels varies
in diﬀerent Czech regions. Nevertheless, the kraje which do have an oﬃce in Brussels
see it primarily as a ﬁgurehead position, as typically have one employee (and
possibly a single intern), which is not suﬃcient to systematically promote the interests
of the kraj in the EU; in addition, it makes this activity highly dependent on the
personnel factor.12
Even 15 years after its founding, the Association of Regions of the
CR has not yet established a common representation of the kraje in Brussels, though
respondents of the Association indicated this is regularly considered (according to
ARCR, a common representation of the kraje in Brussels would help unite capacities
and end the current fragmented situation).
Cities had been represented in Brussels through the UTMCR since 2007, though
this oﬃce was later closed. In this case, however, it was understandable. Oldřich
Vlasák, the vice-chairman of the UTMCR, has been the executive president of the
CEMR since 2002, and in 2012-2014 was a vice-president of the European Parliament.
Interests of Czech cities therefore have been represented at a high level and any other
advocacy was unnecessary in the UTMCR’s view.13
A comparison of cities and kraje shows that on the national level, kraje use similar
communication channels to cities; however, the kraje are better represented on key
committees (see above) and working groups, allowing them to better communicate
with the executive at the national level. On the other hand, on the EU level, cities beneﬁted
from personal contact with the executive president of CEMR and a vice-president
of the European Parliament. In spite of the fact that at ﬁrst sight the position of
cities seemed less comfortable on the national level, this could be transformed into
an advantage if we take into account that they could further beneﬁt from a longer
12 On the other hand, kraje that see direct representation in Brussels as useful emphasized its importance
for gaining information and contacts (‘[the kraj’s representation in Brussels] keeps its
eyes open, gets involved, watches for chances for funding, deals with various activities in Brussels
that occur, which could help or harm the kraje and especially South Moravia, gives presentations
at those [...]’) (Interview, South Moravia, 25 July 2014; comp. Sălăgeanu, 2014).
13 From the long-term perspective, this tactic also could have been seen as rather shortsighted, as
it again connected to a great extent the eﬀective promotion of the interests and positions of the
cities with a particular person possessing both the experience and contacts on inﬂuential national
and EU fora. This again only illustrates the limits of strategic behavior in an environment of limited
ﬁnancial and personal resources and in an atmosphere of a political culture that is not used
to putting enough emphasis and importance on the communication between the substate and
supranational level and the process of interests promotion via these channels.
103
experience with interest advocacy. In other words, they were in the habit of being
actors that had to ﬁrmly articulate their interests and in this process utilize a wider
spectrum of contact points. Naturally, this is again not true for Czech cities en bloc. An
important role is played by the municipalities themselves that take an active interest
in EU legislation even at the preparation stage on the level of the relevant EU institutions,
and not just when it is implemented into the Czech legal system. This means
not only having the ability to prepare eﬀective communication strategies with the
relevant points on the national level (especially the UTMCR, or a ministry) and use of
available channels at the supranational level, but also the availability of appropriate
structures and (again) especially personnel in speciﬁc oﬃces.
In the case of the new Member States, it is true that at the (not only) substate level,
the development of a team, which ideally would have extensive experience from
multiple levels of representation of local and regional interests (city/kraj, UTMCR/
ARCR, possibly ministerial positions, or even direct experience with EU institutions,
particularly the Committee of the Regions), is a long-term project.14
The appropriate
structures to deal with substate EU issues (especially in connection with the structural
funds) were created in the context of EU accession, and have been understaﬀed, especially
at the beginning. Eﬀective work with European Union issues, which in addition
to simply obtaining information also includes eﬀective interest articulation of substate
actors by means of various available channels on the national and supranational
level, requires continuity of personnel; this is critical for the building of formal as well
as informal contacts, which play also a vital role (especially) at the supranational level
(‘I think that in this area there are reserves. It won’t do to leave out the horse-trading
which took place after the last elections and still continues at the ministries. That’s
also not completely OK.’ Interview, City Hall of Olomouc, 4 July 2014). It is also important
to be aware of the importance of the EU issues from the side of the relevant
players (‘Unfortunately, other countries understand this reality better. If you want to
promote some interest on the Union level, you also have to be a beneﬁt for them. And
that’s not just true for the Council.’ Interview, City Hall of Plzeň, 24 July 2014).
14 Interviews with representatives from cities as well as kraje stressed the importance of building
internal structures and communications regarding the relevant institutions at the substate level
(‘[a] mechanism can be built well, but the problem might be communication in the context of an
individual kraj and the Regional Authority. The ARCR can’t control how information internally
ﬂows through the kraj. Each Hejtman [the elected leader of a kraj] gets the information, but the
question is how it then gets transmitted to lower levels.’ Interview, Association of Regions of the
CR, 9 July 2014). The structural changes in the form of establishment of particular units or positions
on the municipal and regional level were rather the outcome of top-down Europeanization
in the polity dimension. Personnel discontinuity (and in some cases also insuﬃciency) has been
another frequent limiting factor for building long-term contacts, which are necessary for eﬀective
lobbyist activity, especially on the EU level.
104
5.3. ITI as a divisive factor
ITI has been divisive, escalating tensions between cities and kraje since the very
beginning of the discussion about how to implement this instrument, around 2012.
While kraje attempted to gain an advantage in new ROPs, which had yet not been
promised to them for the following programming period, cities hoped to use ITI to
strengthen the growth potential of major areas of agglomeration. Respondents generally
agreed that from 2012 to January 2014 the kraje counted on them implementing
ITI and altogether receiving several billion euros. The position of the kraje is understandable,
insofar as they had become used to the idea that EU Regional Policy
was something that had always been implemented at the level of regions up to that
point (with a few exceptions), and that they could not imagine it being any other
way. However, it soon became clear that the government was more inclined to the
development of urban agglomerations. In particular, this inclination was conﬁrmed
by the ‘Regional Development Strategy 2014-2020’, a key strategic document regarding
regional policy that emphasized urban development. The Strategy noted that ‘[i]n
relation to urban issues, there is an increased role of cities in the system of implementation
(e.g., delegating some tasks and responsibilities of the administration to
cities, strengthening of partnerships and strategic planning, integrated approaches).
The second level thus is increased emphasis on support of satisfying development
needs at the subregional and local levels [...]. ITI will be a prominent implementation
tool in the sections of development plans for metropolitan areas and the largest urban
agglomerations’ (Ministry of Regional Development of the Czech Republic, 2013, pp.
109-111). From this point on, major cities’ hopes grew for ITI; nevertheless, kraje continuously
tried to convince the government, and were far from losing hope in January
2014 during crucial negotiations among all actors.
Municipalities focused their strategy on another logical contact point – the European
Commission – which is a key actor in the process of negotiating the form of
implementation of regional policy. It is the Commission who signs the Partnership
Agreement with the government of the Member State at the end of the process. Cities
were personally assured that the Commission never considered that kraje would implement
ITI, and repeated this stance during questioning by the UTMCR two months
later. It was exactly at this point that the kraje undertook no meaningful activity at the
EU level, and based on similar answers from key respondents, probably did not even
know about the meetings with cities (based on the interviews, i.e., City Hall of Brno,
22 July 2014 or City Hall of Ostrava, 8 July 2014). It was at this time that the kraje likely
suﬀered most from the lack of permanent representation in Brussels (in contrast to
regions of many EU states who send representatives), as well as from their reluctance
to think in terms of lobbying and multi-level governance.
This leads to the question of why at such a critical phase of the negotiations, the
respective ministry stood up for the major cities and not the kraje. One partial explanation
may lie in the political aﬃliation of the participating actors to which some respondents
referred. While the majority of the principals of the kraje were members of
105
the strongest government party, the ČSSD, since 2013 the key post of Minister of Regional
Development has been in the hands of the second-strongest party, ANO (also
in the government); ANO may have had a problem with allocating such an amount
of ﬁnancing to the kraje, which are controlled by their political rivals. Less ‘conspiratorial’
is the argument discussed above. Around 2012 or 2013, the government was
already worried about the implementation of ROPs, as these were associated with an
increase in corruption. Thus the goal was likely to exclude the kraje and the regional
level as such from ﬁnancial decision-making in regional policy. Therefore, from a certain
point of view, the ITI can be seen as a ‘welcomed’ tool for the respective Czech
Ministry of Regional Development to prevent the kraje from implementing the EU
money. This clearly shows how the multiple opportunities the ITI oﬀers can lead to
possible conﬂict between old and new regions, especially in the speciﬁc context of EU
Member States that had negative experiences with implementation of the EU funds as
a result of corruption scandals. (We do not argue that this development is typical for
the newer, post-communist EU member states, but the lack of experience and political
culture do play a role here, and this should not be underestimated).
Since the Commission did not clearly say which actor should implement the money,
national state administration shifted into that position and thus got a powerful
tool. In this environment, the cities managed to ﬁnd their way around and took advantage
of the situation by turning to the supranational level channel, in spite of their
initially less advantageous position in the negotiations and communication on the
national level. Of course, the factor of internal political changes (as mentioned above)
must also be taken into account if we want to fully understand the factors which may
have inﬂuenced the governmental decision.
From the point of view of the current understanding of actors’ interest articulation
in the context of EU regional policy in the CR, we ﬁnd a relatively new image of mutual
relations. Cities and kraje were faced with a situation in which they had the same
goal, but only one of them could succeed. Obtaining the chance to implement ITI was
strategic, particularly from the perspective of the substantial amount of money which
could be budgeted to implement this tool in 2014-2020. Throughout the negotiating
process various factors played a role as we described above. However, the strategy
of cities focused on promoting their interests directly at the EU and the Commission
respectively; this was a step that the kraje did not take at a crucial point. It could serve
as an example of the importance of direct lobbying at the EU level, which not only the
substate actors in the CR often have tended to underestimate.
6. Conclusions
Regionalization as a trend of the last two decades, particularly with the support
of the European Commission, brings challenges to the concept of multi-level governance
regarding precision. As more and more attention is paid to substate actors, it is
increasingly important to diﬀerentiate among them. This is logical particularly when
considering that the European Commission has shifted from its original emphasis on
106
regional implementation of structural funds since 2000, and has increasingly looked at
the metropolitan level, which is a degree ‘lower’ in MLG. As a result, it is increasingly
appropriate to look at MLG as a four-level concept, dividing the local and regional
levels from each other. Hand in hand with this process we now see a transformation
in the character of governance structures, whereby the original ‘substate actors’ disintegrate
into smaller basic units (cities, agglomerations) that have played ever larger
roles in the context of European governance. This generally conﬁrms the validity of
Marks’ deﬁnition from the beginning of the 1990s, which explicitly stressed the role
of the local sphere in MLG.
We have demonstrated the splitting of these levels by their speciﬁc interests and
preferences in the example of negotiations surrounding the implementation of the ITI
regional policy tool in the Czech Republic. It turns out that in the discussion of this ﬁnancial
tool the Czech kraje and cities diverged signiﬁcantly in their preferences. One
key point in the entire process was the ability of cities to recognize their position in
the MLG framework and their decision to bargain for a more advantageous position
directly at the European Commission. Kraje, on the other hand, chose a conservative,
more ‘traditional’ approach and their strategies, focused almost completely on the
centralized authorities in Prague.
In the overall process, kraje made several fundamental mistakes. They:
A) underestimated the logic of negotiating on multiple levels and over-relied on
working with the government. Further, they probably
B) underestimated the political nature of decision-making; at key points, the Ministry
of Regional Development sided with cities or agglomerations led by major
cities respectively. While kraje have mostly been headed by Social Democratic
politicians, the relevant ministry was headed by their political rivals. While it is
not possible to remodel history, it can be assumed that in the case of early establishment
and maintenance of contact with the European Commission, the kraje
could have prevented adverse developments. However, individual actors were
not prepared; especially for the kraje, we see that at the beginning of their existence
they did not learn the logic of multi-level governance.15
We conclude that the volatile situation between kraje and cities probably would
not have occurred in the Czech Republic if the European Commission had not decided
to support the so-called territorial dimension of regional policy in recent years.
By doing so, whether consciously or unconsciously, the European Commission made
special incentive structures (ITI in this case) in order to raise competitiveness and
economic growth. The probably unintended consequence of this was conﬂict among
regional and subregional actors. This can be demonstrated with the case of the CR,
15 On the other hand, it is also necessary to note the speciﬁc situation of the Czech Republic at the
end of the 2007-2013 period, characterized by corruption scandals on the level of Regional Operational
Programs; the government most likely wanted to prevent this in the future.
107
where the conﬂict took place in the context of problems with the EU structural funds
in the previous programming period and where the factor of the development of the
internal political situation also played an important role. The outcome of the conﬂict
then showed the importance of using multiple communication channels in the process
of interest promotion of substate actors and may serve as one piece of evidence
that multi-level communication should not be underestimated in these cases.
The major argument of this article may be used by further studies describing similar
processes in other EU countries as well. The nature of conﬂict between new and
old regions in diﬀerent EU member states may depend on their tradition of cohesion
policy, as well as on the longterm relations of their substate actors. The conﬂict potential,
which was created by the new period 2014-2020, may gain various forms both in
the older and the newer EU member states. Further research of this topic could bring
other case studies, especially of the countries which share similar characteristics of the
newer EU member states with the CR, representing the region of Central and Eastern
Europe. These characteristics often include the lack of experience with ‘multi-level’
negotiations of the substate actors, frequently combined also with problems of political
and administrative culture. Further research of the described processes both in the
older and the newer EU member states may reveal the relative importance of these
variables (or factors), which inﬂuence both the course and outcomes of the conﬂict (as
we saw in the case of the CR).
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