The europeanian strategies of Germany federal states

Abstract

One of the key tasks if the German regions, – federal lands in the field of external and European relations in particular, is to provide direct access to the process of political decision making in the field of European policy both at the national and communitarian level. This necessity continues to be up to date along with the increase of direct interactions between communitarian and regional power levels and, particularly, with the growth of spheres which are transferred from the responsibility of lands to the responsibility of the European Union. European strategy of the German lands is based on the emphasis on the combination of two types of influences – internal (through engagement of federal legal and political mechanisms) and external (through mobilization of all-European support from regions and other actors of subnational level). Depending on the specific political conditions, these directions of the European strategy of federal lands has different level of priority: if before 1990 «external action» was applied at the same level as «internal», at the current stage «internal» component if preferred.
Key words: regionalism, regionalization, European strategies, federal lands, EU.