Germany

General information about the policy process
In Germany, the transposition of EU Directives follows similar rules as the national policy making. Depending on the policy area the competences can vary. This means that the federal level (Bund) and/or the regional level (Länder) can be responsible.

For example, in the case of environmental policies there are some areas where the Bund can provide framework legislation. These include water, nature preservation and landscaping. This means that the federal as well as regional level are involved in transposition and implementation.

The policy field of environmental policies is fragmented as there are different competences. In some areas there is concurrent legislation, in other cases framework legislation. When an EU Directive includes regulations on various areas with different competences then these have to be separated according to the competences. This can make the legislative process quite lengthy.

Implementation takes place at various levels, national, regional or local. The trend is towards implementation on the lowest possible level.

Main national actors

National actors involved
 * Bundestag

Regional or local actors involved
 * Bundesrat (which acts as Germany's main legislative body and has a specific committee for matters of the European Union)
 * regional governments (Landesregierungen)
 * communities / cities (Gemeinden und Samtgemeinden)

The relationship between actors

When the regional level (Länder) has the exclusive competence then the federal level (Bund) has almost no influence on the transposition. In the case of concurrent legislation the Bund needs the regional governments (Bundesrat) to agree. This makes the Bundesrat a veto player.

Coordination within the Federal Government
When the European Commission proposes legislation, the German Government becomes actively involved even before the Council takes up initial deliberations.

As most acts, proposed  by the EU Commission, involve more than one political field, several federal ministries within the Federal Government are often responsible. The ministry in charge subsequently represents the Federal Government in Brussels in the configuration of the Council that is to decide on the act.

So as to be able to take into account the positions of the various ministries involved, the ministry in charge establishes a common position of the entire Federal Government that may serve as the German negotiating position in Brussels.

Differences of opinion that arise between ministries are swiftly remedied with the aid of special boards. Among these are the European Affairs Officers of the ministries, who often meet ad hoc and informally discuss current European political affairs.

The most important instrument of coordination within the Federal Government is the round table of the European Affairs Directors-General of the federal ministries. Directors-general report directly to a secretary of state and thus, as political civil servants, occupy a special place within ministries.

The Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of Economics together chair the round table of European Affairs Directors-General. This round table discusses the ministerial positions on European political issues and establishes the common position of the German government.

Issues upon which the Directors-General cannot reach consensus are dealt with by the Federal Committee of State Secretaries for European Affairs. It also adopts the common positions established by the Directors-General. The Committee of State Secretaries is chaired by the Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office.

As in all political areas, the Federal Chancellery also plays a coordinating role in European affairs. The European Affairs Director-General of the Chancellery participates in the sessions of the European Affairs Directors-General and is the Chancellor’s closest political adviser concerning EU policy. The Head of the Federal Chancellery is a member of the Federal Committee of State Secretaries for European Affairs.

The role of Germany’s Permanent Representation to the EU
The Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the European Union also plays an important role: it is kind of German embassy with the EU. Its employees inform the federal ministries, the Federal Foreign Office in particular, about the plans of the EU Commission at an early stage. They maintain contact between Berlin and Brussels.

The Permanent Representation furthermore plays an active part in the decision and legislation procedures of the European Union. The permanent representatives of all EU Member States convene on a weekly basis in the Committee of Permanent Representatives, called COREPER.

This committee has the task to prepare the work of the Council. As Council decisions are mostly the result of negotiations between the governments of Member States, the Permanent Representation plays an important preparatory role in this case. Thus, the working groups of COREPER, which consist of civil servants of the national administrations, can identify conflicts of interest at an early stage and start paving the way towards compromise.

The European policy early warning system of the Federal Government
The EU Coordinating Group, part of the European Directorate-General at the Federal Foreign Office is in constant contact with the Permanent Representation in Brussels. It continually analyses the opinion-formation process in the European institutions as to identify potential conflicts - from a German point of view – between the German Government and the EU Commission or other Member States at an early stage. This allows the Federal Government to determine an appropriate negotiating strategy as soon as possible.

Implementing European acts in Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany must observe and implement directives and regulations adopted by the EU.

EU regulations are binding and must immediately be applied by the Member States. They constitute immediately applicable law.

A directive, however, whilst also being intended for the Member States, constitutes a type of framework law that is to be elaborated by the Member States in an individual legislative process. Directives are implemented along normal German legislative procedures.

The Member States need to implement directives within a given period of time. Should a deadline not be met, the Member State may suffer sanctions, such as the initiation of an infringement procedure. In this case, high fines may have to be paid by the Member States that have not implemented a directive in time. For this case especially, Germany has a set of rules that prescribe how to break down any payment of fines imposed on the Federal Government and the Länder. Both bear part of the costs depending on their responsibility within legislation and the respective part they played in non-compliance.

Furthermore, the implementation of EU Laws in Germany occasionally relies on the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court), which is also an active actor. As the highest court at the national level, the BVerfG has the difficult task of interpreting every law, including EU legislation. It is seen as an actor in the implementation of EU rules. In many cases, the Bundesverfassungsgericht has been given the right to debate EU matters. This was the case with the Treaty of Lisbon, for example, in which the BVefG played an important role. The Court applies limits to EU regulations which must be observed. In this sense,the BVerG is a veto player.

=== The participation of the German Länder in European politics === As the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal state, the legislative powers are divided between the federal level and the Länder. In the course of European integration, Germany has surrendered its sovereignty in some policy areas to the EU.

Among these policy areas are some for which the Länder up to now either had been the legislative authority or indirectly had a say through the Bundesrat. The representation of Germany to the EU is however a competence of the Federal Government. Therefore the Federal Government on EU level also decides on matters which were previously assigned to the Länder before being transferred to the EU.

This effectively constitutes an erosion of Länder competence by the Federal Government via a Brussels detour. To continue to politically involve the Länder in EU affairs, the Federal Government and the Länder have agreed on a number of possibilities for the Länder to participate. Details have been set out in Article 23 of the Basic Law and in the Act on Co-operation between the Federation and the Federal States in Matters concerning the European Union (EUZBLG) and the Agreement between the Federation and the Federal States (BLV).

In practical terms, the Länder have a say in European affairs through the Bundesrat. It is incumbent upon the Federal Government to instruct the Bundesrat at an early stage on all plans at EU level that are relevant for the Länder.

Ordinary participation of the Länder in EU policy
There are three levels of participation of the Länder. They depend on the extent to which the Länder or Bundesrat competences apply. In the case of EU issues involving political fields in which the Bundesrat previously held the right to participate, the Länder now participate in the deliberations which determine the position of the Federal Government.

Should fundamental interests of the Länder be at stake, the next level empowers the Bundesrat to appoint Länder representatives, who alongside the responsible federal ministry can participate in negotiations in the EU Council. Finally, a Länder representative will be the sole German representative in a Council convening on EU proposals exclusively pertaining to Länder authority.

In matters for which it has legislative power itself, the Federal Government nonetheless has to take into account the position taken by the Bundesrat when establishing the German negotiating position.

In addition, the Bundesrat has a right to participate when it comes to changes concerning the basic principles of the European Union. Thus, treaties on accession of new EU Member States or amendments of European treaties require the approval by the Bundesrat.

Europaministerkonferenz ( EMK, national coordination of state EU policy )
Chaired by an individual Bundesland/State for a year, then the chair is rotated in alphabetical descending order. Each state has one representative. Coordination and collaboration on german regional policies with relevance for the EU. It meets 3 times a year.

References

Deutscher Bundestag, BT-Drs. 15/3902, Antwort der Bundesregierung. 

https://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/EN/StatischeSeiten/Schwerpunkte/Europa/2006-03-09-europa-dossier-deutschland-und-europa-en.html

General
The Länder differ substantially in size, ranging from town states (Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen) to economically powerful states such as Bayern or Baden-Würtemberg. Presumably their interaction with the EU differs with the power they have, as well as with the degree of relevance EU policy takes over their local real (i.e. states with big international companies might see themselves more implicated in EU policy).

Generally, also the self image of a state can take an influence of how they interact with the EU. Certain states are designated as "Freistaat" (literally: free state), a term that aparently comes from the times of the german revolution and was set against the (former) royal state rulers (Fürsten) and does not differentiate them legally. Nonetheless inhabitants sometimes take pride in it. States also have their own constitution, but those are also mostly of mere historical relevance. States can take special roles, i.e by virtue of piloting new policies (i.e. the local new police law in Bavaria, on which also the Saxonan new police law might have been modelled). Also due the the strong ties between local and national government in bavaria (the leading party in Bavaria, the CSU takes a felt comparatively big role in shaping the policy of the CDU/CSU combined national party, as the CSU ministers take obvious pride in their state of origin). Local pride and similiar may also influence their willingness to interact with the EU.

Representation offices of the Länder in Brussels
By now, all states have their own representation in both Berlin and Brüssel. This allows them to represent their interests to the EU bodies directly and provides them with short lines of communication on EU activities. In addition, they exert influence through the Committee of the Regions (CoR). This advisory committee of the European Union represents local and regional authorities in the institutional framework of the EU. Informaton about the respective offices are summarized in the following table:

If not indicated elsewhere, information is taken from the wikipedia pages of the corresponding offices. Due to the German reunification in 1989/90, the north-eastern German Länder only founded their representations comparatively late. Number of representatives may not be strongly associated with effectiveness, and could loose in interpretability, especially at lower numbers, as probably at least around 10 people are needed to constitute a functioning office.

The Beobachter der Länder bei der Europäischen Union (Länderbeobachter – Observer of the Länder)
The Beobachter der Länder bei der Europäischen Union (Länderbeobachter – Observer of the Länder) is a common institution of the 16 German Länder. Its task is to support the Bundesrat when obtaining its rights concerning EU affairs and to inform the Länder about processes which are significant for them in the European context. The Länderbeobachter’s main duty is to attend and report on the meetings of the Council of the European Union. Thus the Länder are able to control how the resolutions of the Bundesrat were taken into account and adopted by the Federal Government in the negotiations. The Länderbeobachter works closely with the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the European Union; its office is located in Brussels. http://eu-lbde.webhosting.be/en/

Assembly of European Regions (AER)
Wikipedia: The Assembly of European Regions (AER) is the largest independent network of regions in wider Europe. Bringing together regions from 35 countries and 15 interregional organisations, AER is a forum for interregional cooperation. Currently the AER does not represent any German regions: see https://aer.eu/directory/

Committee of the Regions (CoR)
An advisory body based in Brussels with regional representatives from the European Union' Member States. Since the Lisbon Treaty with some power to block legislation due to subsidiaritiy concerns via their member state's yellow card procedure. In November 2019, for the period from 26 January 2020 to 25 January 2025, new members were appointed by Council Decision. Out of the total of 329 members of the CoR, 21 members represent local or regional governments in Germany (Council of the European Union, Decision 14233/19).

Experts National Détaché (ENDs) / Abgeordnete Nationale Sachverständige (ANS)
Selected by the national representation of each individual country (in collaboration with the regional offices) in Brüssel. "Seconded national experts are national or international civil servants or persons employed in the public sector who are working temporarily for an EU Institution. " https://epso.europa.eu/how-to-apply_en

Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform
"The Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform (EUROPE 2020MP) is a network of regions and cities, coordinated by the Committee of the Regions.  Its main task is to monitor the involvement of regional and local authorities in the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy. "

Currently it includes the following German stakeholders:

München, Kreisfreie Stadt    City Brandenburg State Chancellery    Staatskanzlei des Landes Brandenburg    Region Saar Region    Saarland    Region City of Arnsberg    Arnsberg, Kreisfreie Stadt    City