ABSTRACT
European integration is about more than just building a common market; it is about political regulation as well. This lesson has been learned in the last decade. Since Maastricht, Community competence has been enlarged, covering many aspects of daily life. It is evident that European policy-mak-ing has an impact on substantive policies. Whether or not it has an impact on the ways and means of governing is another question entirely. In the long run, the most important question is whether European integration will bring about a change in governance. The term ‘governance’ refers to patterns of governing which, as we know, vary from country to country.1 In essence, ‘governance’ is about the ways and means in which the divergent preferences of citizens are translated into effective policy choices, about how the plurality of societal interests are transformed into unitary action and the compliance of social actors is achieved.
