Political agency markers of the European regions in the scope of multilevel governance

Introduction: the discussions on regionalization in the EU countries as a result of regional policy and inter-regional collaboration bring forward the issue of the regions’ political agency and its assessment criteria. Objectives: to determine the possibility of comprehensive assessment of the regions’ political agency in the scope of their commitment to multilevel government. Methods: concept analysis, descriptive analysis. Results: concept analysis of political agency allows to determine structural and functional links between elements that make political agency come into being and gain momentum. “Sub-national regionalism and multi-level policy” database provided the empirical basis for re-conceptualization and preliminary interpretation. Descriptive analysis allows revealing potential explanations for expressiveness of the political agency in the cases of EU regions in the scope of their commitment to multilevel government. Conclusions: firstly, enjoying equal political and institutional opportunities and having equal access to multilevel governance, European regions use them differently. Secondly, even within one country the identical autonomous (self-rule) status of regions doesn’t result in identical schemes of party system regionalization. Thirdly, there are crucial differentiations between regions of “the old” and “the new” EU members; these can be seen in the scope of inclusion into the EU programs and success of regional parties in European elections. Fourthly, by contrast, mother tongue rather than religion becomes the basis for regional identity and regionalism linked with it.