Shifting the Power Balance in the EU's Single Market? Central and Eastern European Agents of Change

Abstract This Symposium analyses how European Union (EU) member states have adjusted domestic policies in response to the evolving governance of the single market since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent EU shocks. Confronted with new opportunities and constraints, countries have adopted diverse forms of domestic agency that have, in turn, reshaped the de facto governance of the single market. We focus on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where such forms of agency have been novel and unexpected, given the region's high transnational dependency and their traditional position as passive EU rule‐takers. We show that CEE states have engaged creatively with EU‐level changes, often mobilising actors beyond central governments to tackle domestic economic challenges. This editorial introduction traces the evolving interdependence between CEE agency and the EU's institutional regime, whilst the four empirical contributions examine how CEE countries have leveraged new EU incentives and limitations in practice, with a focus on the manufacturing and finance sectors. Our findings reveal a critical tension: the EU's governance shifts since 2008 have produced a hybrid regulatory framework that combines tighter supranational constraints in some domains with expanded scope for adaptive and experimental domestic agency in others. CEE states have leveraged this uneven regulatory space in creative ways, but outcomes in terms of economic upgrading and convergence remain mixed and uncertain. We conclude that this hybrid governance framework risks entrenching fragmentation within the single market and reinforcing the socio‐economic challenges of the EU's Eastern periphery. By questioning assumptions of minimal CEE agency in managing transnational dependencies and by identifying the specific forms of domestic agency that have emerged in the region since 2008, the Symposium underscores the need to balance national experimentation with strategic economic cohesion and co‐ordination at the EU level.