Europeanization of regional governance: With Sinatra towards more autonomy in German federalism?

Within the last years integration theory is focusing on studies analysing the impact of Europeanization on national and regional governance. This contribution demonstrates that the German Lander till the mid 90'ies have developed and still follow a twofold strategy in representing their interests in the European interactive system: interest representation through the German federal system and direct interest representation at the European level. Since some years the guiding ideas of the Lander have changed. Thus, the further development of co-operative and interactive policy-making was no longer on top of the agenda. Despite, the Lander asked for a clear cut of competence within the multi-level system - what is called here Sinatra-strategy, according to the song "I did it my way...". This discussion at the European level is linked with the demand for reforming German federalism in the sense of "competitive federalism". The contribution asks whether the Sinatra-strategy at the European level could have an impact on the German co-operative federalism and could help to transform it towards a more "autonomy oriented system".