This article aims to analyse the interrelationship between the Copenhagen Process, EU vocational education and training policy, and Danish initial vocational education and training policies in order to shed light on the role of EU policies in policy and institutional change. The article points to the complexity of policy-making and the crisscrossing of policies across the globe. A major change is the acceptance of the EU as a stakeholder in vocational education and training policy-making and thereby an expansion of the policy space. However, the changes taking place at national level are incremental and the EU policy is translated in the national context, where it contributes to the re-accentuation of existing conflicts and fissures. (Contains 12 notes.)