A Europe of the Regions vs

This paper addresses the somewhat paradoxical situation whereby on the one hand, the concept of a “Europe of the Regions” has largely been discredited and has generally fallen out of favour, whilst at the same time, the level of regional engagement in Europe continues to grow at an exponential rate. Regions themselves continue to operate actively in Europe. The number of offices in Brussels representing regional authorities from member states has grown exponentially over the past twenty years (Jeffery, 1997; Bomberg and Peterson, 1998; Heichlinger, 1999; Moore, 2006a). Regions from the new member states have been racing to set up representative bureaux in Brussels and thus to get ahead of ‘the competition’ or at least, be in the game. Beyond this, the older and more established regional representations are expanding their capacity in Brussels by deploying more resources, hiring more staff and moving to larger, better-located premises in the city (Moore, 2006b).