Which Way to the EU? The Paths of German Youth Policy Discussions into EU Council Policy

In the light of domestic coordination processes in federal states, this article deals with the interplay of domestic governmental and non-governmental actors in the development of a German position for negotiations in the EU youth policy field. The qualitative single-case study is embedded in the evaluation of the German implementation of the EU Youth Strategy (2010-2018). It focusses on the roles, mutual perceptions, conflicts, and resulting action strategies of the different actors involved in the domestic coordination processes. In doing so, the article adds to the debate on Europeanisation and domestic coordination processes in federalist states by facilitating an understanding of the extent to which differing framework conditions of a specific policy field at the domestic and EU-Level can influence domestic policy coordination and its bottom-up processes. The analysis reveals a discrepancy between the intentions of the actors to work together based on a multi-level governance approach, and a reality in which the Federal Ministry assumes a gatekeeper function. The problems following this discrepancy can be explained on the one hand by different perceptions and expectations the actors have towards the coordination process and on the other hand by a lack of a youth policy culture of debate. The article shows how these problems lead to different action strategies by the domestic actors and the use of different pathways to bring their interests to the EU level. Simultaneously, the findings show that these different strategies of action can successfully lead to a stronger German position, provided these pathways are used in a coordinated manner. The analysis shows that a domestic coordination process involving both governmental and non-governmental actors from different levels working together on an equal footing by using a multi-level governance approach, can only function in federal policy cooperation processes when the actors focus on content-related discussions rather than formal forms of cooperation.