Editorial: Relations and Policymaking across EU Actors, National Governments, Parliaments and Parties

Andrea Capati^1,2Marco Improta³Elisabetta Mannoni^3*

• ¹LUISS, Rome, Italy
• ²Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Florence, Italy
• ³University of Siena, Siena, Italy

Rather than treating radical parties as isolated or inward-looking phenomena, this study repositions them within broader transnational dynamics that contribute to their consolidation and normalization within national political systems. Angela Kahil's contribution examines the impact of the 2024 European elections on the French political context. While much scholarship has framed EU elections as second-order contests (Reif and Schmitt 1980), this article suggests that such contests may, under certain conditions, act as catalysts for domestic political realignment. Through a qualitative comparative approach, the study analyses how the growing presence of populist forces in the European Parliament has reverberated within national political competition, affecting discursive frames and institutional agendas. The paper draws particular attention to the evolving role of Eurocentrism as a structuring dimension of party positioning and inter-institutional coordination in France. The article enriches our understanding of how electoral processes at the EU level interact with domestic partisan configurations and public discourse, raising important questions about the boundaries between European and national politics.In a different yet complementary perspective, the article by Manfredi Valeriani, Raffaele Marchetti and Claudio Christopher Passalacqua turns to the role of cities as international actors in times of crisis. Focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors analyse how urban administrations engaged in transnational networks to pursue policy objectives independently or in coordination with national governments. Through a qualitative comparative analysis of selected Transnational City Networks (TCNs), the article identifies the conditions under which these platforms succeed in articulating common goals. The study highlights key dimensions such as the bottom-up or top-down nature of the network, the degree of institutionalization, and the relationship with international organizations. By foregrounding the agency of cities, the article offers a valuable contribution to debates on multi-level governance, demonstrating how subnational actors can assume a proactive role in shaping responses to global challenges.Finally, the article by Álvaro Serna-Ortega, Ana Almansa-Martínez and Antonio Castillo-Esparcia provides a systematic framework for analysing lobbying strategies across different phases of the EU policy process. Adopting a theoretical approach, the study disaggregates the policy cycle into six stages-from problem definition to policy evaluation-and assesses how the influence of lobbying groups varies across each. Particular attention is given to the distinction between social and economic interests, as well as to the tools employed by different types of lobbies, from grassroots mobilization to direct access to decision-makers. The paper identifies both direct and indirect dimensions of lobbying power, including financial capacity and institutional proximity. In doing so, it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how interest groups interact with the EU's multilevel institutional setting, and how their influence is mediated by context-specific constraints and opportunities.Taken together, these contributions advance the study of EU governance by foregrounding the strategic behaviour of diverse political actors across levels. Rather than focusing solely on formal institutions or codified rules, the articles collected in this Research Topic shed light on the less visible, often informal mechanisms that influence political interactions and policy outcomes in the EU. Whether by mobilizing transnational legitimacy, reframing national debates in light of European developments, activating subnational networks, or exerting influence through lobbying, the actors examined here demonstrate the multiplicity of pathways through which political agency and institutional constraints play out in the EU polity. This is especially relevant in a context of 'polycrisis' (Zeitlin et al. 2019) as it has been shown to favour information sharing and exchange of best practices by actors at different levels (Capati 2023) as well as to affect the composition and nature of domestic institutions, including governments (Improta 2025). This Research Topic also invites reflection on the methodological and theoretical challenges associated with the study of multilevel policymaking. The range of methodological approaches adopted-case studies, discourse analysis, qualitative comparative analysis, conceptual analysisspeaks to the richness of the field, but it also underscores the need for continued dialogue across subfields. Moreover, the eclecticism in the analytical and theoretical perspectives embraced by articles in the Research Topic-including external legitimation, eurocentrism, and non-polaritytestifies to the complexity of making sense of relations and policymaking practices across levels and raises fundamental questions about the need to update or refine classical theories of European integration, such as neo-functionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism, new intergovernmentalism and post-functionalism (Schmidt 2024). Future research could build on these findings to further explore the conditions under which cross-level interactions take place and how they reinforce or undermine democratic accountability and political integration.In conclusion, the articles presented in this collection contribute to an expanding agenda of research that recognizes the EU not simply as a layered institutional architecture, but as a political system in its own right (Fabbrini 2010;Hix and Høyland 2022). By analysing how actors operate across and within its various levels, this Research Topic offers analytical tools and empirical evidence that will be of interest to scholars of comparative politics, EU studies, public policy, and beyond.