Focusing on the identity and role perceptions of national officials in EU policy-making, intergovernmentalism may be transcended in two different ways. First, as asserted by neo-functionalists, national elites may shift their loyalty from a national to a supranational level owing to the effect of EU institutions. Second, as could perhaps be interpreted as the argument of the functionalists, functional role orientations acquired in sectoral ministries and specialized agencies at the national level may be sustained in the cross-border interactions of national officials. Based on an organisational and institutional perspective, the identity and role conceptions, and their conditions, are analyzed by applying interview data from 47 national transport ministry officials in five small member states.
A later version of this article was published in Journal of European Public Policy 6 (3): 456-474, 1999.