This research investigates the EU's intervention into the regulation of players' agents, as a policy issue, in the context of EU sports policy. A socio-cultural perspective is developed through analyzing the EU policy actors of the socio-cultural advocacy coalition (the Education and Culture DG within the Commission, the Committee on Culture and Education in the European Parliament and the Member States) operating within the EU sports policy subsystem. The research conceptualizes the socio-cultural regulation of sport as the EU policy actors’ strongly held policy core beliefs. In order to deduce policy core beliefs, there are three research dimensions examined in relation to the regulation of players' agents: coordinated activity between the actors, selective perception by policy core beliefs, and the actors' preference with regards to policy instruments to regulate players agents at European level. This research utilizes the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) as the theoretical framework. Primary documentary sources of the EU are analyzed through the method of content analysis. The EU policy actors have gradually coordinated their activities with regards to the regulation of players’ agents. During the preparatory phase of the White Paper on Sport, there was a weak level of coordination involving interactions and information exchange. During the aftermath of the White Paper on Sport, the actors fostered a stronger coordination through developing and implementing a common plan of action. At the same time, the actors learned about the problems within the activities of players’ agents which they perceived as a threat to their policy core beliefs. As a result, the EU policy actors developed their policy position in relation to players’ agents. In this context, their policy core beliefs performed selective perception by selecting, interpreting and ignoring certain stimuli in order to support that policy position. Consequently, the EU actors agreed on the necessity of a more effective regulatory framework governing players’ agents, yet the EU’s constitutional limitations have constrained potential available options at European level, in particular the emergence of European legal initiative. The research evidences that the EU policy actors’ policy core beliefs have been the main driver for their activities, perceptions and preferences related to players agents.

A travers l’historiographie du XXe siècle, Pierre Nora et Paul Ricoeur, entre autres, font le constat d’une croissance accélérée des problématiques mémorielles dans la société française, aux portes du IIIe depuis notre ère. Les décloisonnements sociaux et l’accélération du Temps ont œuvré à la mise à distance de l’histoire traditionnelle, au profit d’une appropriation mémorielle polyphonique des enseignements du passé. Enfant de l’ère industrielle, le sport contemporain s’est construit en miroir de la société qui le porte. Apanage des élites au croisement du XIXe et du XXe siècle, le sport est un phénomène de société hégémonique et transversal cent ans plus tard. Sa progressive ascension en France est le fruit de mutations constantes, de l’amateurisme coubertinien au professionnalisme marchand, de l’échelle identificatoire locale au prisme mondialisé. Le sport est à la fois un laboratoire et un observatoire de la société. L’émergence du spectacle sportif de masse à partir des années 1980, savamment orchestré par la télévision, ses enjeux économiques et ses soutiens financiers, ainsi que soutenu par la démocratisation de la pratique et de l’émotion sportive, favorise l’avènement d’une conscience sociale du sport en France. La multiplication des représentations sportives s’accommode d’une course à la modernité de plus en plus marquée. Cependant, la diversification du rapport au passé sportif engendre consubstantiellement une tentative de réappropriation collective de l’histoire du sport, à la lumière d’une continuité plurielle de sa signification à travers les temps. Cette visée patrimoniale définit une nouvelle étape vers l’âge de mémoire du sport français. / Through the historiography of the 20th century, Pierre Nora and Paul Ricoeur noted an accelerated growth of memory issues in French society since the 1970’s. Social decompartmentalisation and acceleration of Time have contributed to the distance of traditional history, in favour of a polyphonic appropriation of lessons from the past. Born with the industrial era, modern sport built himself as a mirror of the contemporary age. Elite’s prerogative at the crossing of 19th and 20th centuries, sport became an hegemonic and transverse social phenomenon one hundred years later. In France, its progressive rise is the result of constant changes. From Coubertin’s amateurism to mercantile professionalism, from local recognition to globalized prism, the sport has moved. It is at the same time a laboratory and a social observatory. Starting from the 1980’s, the emergence of show business sport has stimulated the accession of a social conscience in French sport. Television, financial issues and democratization of the practice have taken part in this evolution. The growth of sport representations has adapted itself to the race to modernity. However, this movement generates an attempt to recapture collectively sport history, in the light of a plural continuity of its meaning through times. This patrimonial aiming defines a new stage toward the age of memory in French sport.

In 2007 the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) was reformed by the introduction of the so-called trio Presidency . The trio mechanism encourages policy continuity by grouping incumbent Presidencies in teams of three and inviting them to coordinate. This thesis seeks to contribute original knowledge on EU policy-making by mapping how trio practices are established, exploring which factors explain how Member States coordinate, and by assessing how the trio arrangement affects the EU agenda. Empirically, the trio function is examined through its implementation in the policy area of sport, focusing on the three trios to assume office after the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. The analysis is structured around a number of carefully selected dossiers adopted between 2010 and 2013. Guided by a conceptual framework based on agenda-setting and new institutionalism, these decisions are submitted to in depth process-tracing. The analysis draws on qualitative research, primarily official documents and 37 semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that actors approach the trio with differing preferences and expectations, leading to much variation in how the arrangement is performed. The thesis identifies a number of factors that explain variation. Thus, a fixed agenda supports trios in coordinating priorities and activities ex ante. Moreover, coordination is conditioned by trio composition, as federal and new Member States are more inclined to cooperate. Further, trio practices are shaped by factors such as multiannual planning and focusing events, with the intenseness of trio coordination reflecting whether the agenda includes issues that demand sustained attention. The thesis concludes that the introduction of the trio mechanism has preserved the ability of Member States to use the Council Presidency to prioritise national priorities whilst also encouraging and facilitating EU policy continuity. By extending agenda-management beyond a six month spell, the trio can strengthen the agenda-setting powers of incumbent Member States, particularly on issues that concern establishing urgent responses or developing Council procedures. Moreover, evidence suggests that the arrangement can produce a specific spirit of collegiality, trio solidarity, which sees trio Member States support each other during negotiations, thus affecting EU policy-making beyond agenda-management.