Multi-level Governance and EU Structural Funds: An Entrepreneurial Local Government Perspective

Abstract

This article explores some of the underlying forces that provoke local governments to participate in multi-level governance through the creation of networks at the local as well as European level. We focus on the European funding process within local governments to identify some differences in the process between the Italian and the English local government authorities. Subsequently we observe that entrepreneurship theory could assist in untangling and explaining this phenomenon; therefore we explore the EU funding process from an entrepreneurship angle.

Key Words:

• Italian and English local government
• local government funding
• public entrepreneurship

Notes

In the period 1994– 99 the Structural Funds programme represented an average of 36 per cent of the EU budget and amounted to 157bn Ecu (in 1995 prices) (John 2001).

This was one of the requirements of the Structural Funds imposed by the EU.

In most English local authorities, only the councilors (and not the council leaders) are directly elected and usually they do not have a high public and political profile. Only recently, in response to worries about public disenchantment with politics, the new Labour government has advanced a proposal of new political leadership, including directly-elected mayors.

The pre-existing economic conditions represent what the funding process identified as “need for money, cuts in national funds, and local economic crises”.

From the interview with the former Mayor of Council F: “A major local factory closed down leaving most of the local employees without jobs. We were determined to do something to improve the economic situation of our area. We looked around for opportunities and we saw that (a neighboring city) was getting a lot of money from the Structural Funds. Myself and other mayors within the province lobbied at the regional level in order to make the provincial area eligible for the Structural Funds”.