On Multilevel Governance and the Local Authorities’ Role in Implementing the EU’s Policy on Borders

The main objectives of the present article is to trace down the relationship between several concepts usually referred to as being strongly interconnected, in a vertical and horizontal manner, somehow deriving from each other: multilevel governance, subsidiarity, decentralisation / regionalisation. Hot topics in the European Union discourse and, subsequently, for the Europeanisation (and integration) process, each of the aforementioned notions contributes to the understanding of the EU’s polity as a pre-given condition for the present-day welfare. The multilevel governance system mostly based on the subsidiarity principle greatly explains the present European Union’s institutional architecture and quantifies the progress the EU made concerning the integration process. Taking on the borders’ functionalities - specifically the EU’s borders - which underwent significant changes during the last two decades, the article intends to trace the local authorities’ implications in strengthening or loosening the EU borders’ role - especially the external borders - through different instruments of cooperation or securitisation.