The National Interest in EU Law and Governance: The Hungarian Perspective

Abstract

The national interest in EU law and governance: the Hungarian perspective - findings of the mutual learning experiments (MLEs) conducted by the Lendület-HPOPs Research Group. The MLEs were conducted with two purposes in mind. Firstly, we aimed to collect insights from officials working in the Hungarian and the European Union administration at the expert level concerning how they understand the national interest in the policy development and decision making processes in which they participate. Secondly, we wanted to share with them different interpretations and perspectives of formulating and representing the national interest/national position in the EU political and legal context, as they follow from academic work. The MLEs were not conducted as formal research interviews and their results are not used directly in our research.

Keywords: national interest, EU law, EU govenance, Member State preferences, interest formation