The article explores the effects of non-regulatory EC policies on policy development at member state level. Taking EC regional policy and a recent reform of German regional policy as examples, it is suggested that the EC context may matter for policy development (1) through changing preferences of actors involved in regional policy-making, (2) through the mobilisation of new actors and the emergence of new actor coalitions in domestic policy domains, and (3) through serving as a source of inspiration for policy-makers looking for alternative policy ideas. In developing such thoughts, the article seeks to understand the influence of supranational factors as an integral part of domestic policy-making (rather than an external constraint). On a more abstract level, the aim is to link contributions from the field of policy analysis with the literature on multi-level governance.