Andrew Jordan - Environmental Policy in Europe - The Europeanization of National Environmental Policy (Routledge Research in Environmental Politics) (2005)

Environmental Policy in Europe
The continuing development of the European Union (EU) is transforming policy and
politics in its member countries, and possibly in an even larger number of potential
members. This book offers a detailed investigation of the Europeanization of national
environmental policy in ten Western European countries since 1970.
By blending state of the art theories with fresh empirical material on the many
manifestations of Europeanization, Environmental Policy in Europe sheds new light on
the dynamics that are decisively reshaping national environmental policy. It also offers an
original assessment of how far Europeanization has produced greater policy convergence
in Western Europe. Throughout, the approach taken is genuinely comparative, drawing
on the insights provided by leading country specialists.
By combining cutting edge accounts of national policy developments with a fresh
perspective on the theoretical debate about Europeanization, this book has much to offer
students and scholars alike.
Andrew Jordan is Philip Leverhulme Prize Fellow at the University of East Anglia
and a Manager of the ESRC Programme on Environmental Decision Making in the
CSERGE, UK. Duncan Liefferink is Lecturer in Environmental Politics at Radboud
University Nijmegen in the Department of Political Sciences of the Environment, the
Netherlands.
Environmental Politics/Routledge Research
in Environmental Politics
Edited by Matthew Paterson, Keele University and Graham Smith,
University of Southampton
Over recent years environmental politics has moved from being a peripheral interest to
become a central concern within the discipline of politics. This series aims to reinforce
this trend through the publication of books that investigate the nature of contemporary
environmental politics and show the centrality of environmental politics to the study of
politics per se. The series understands politics in a broad sense and books will focus on
mainstream issues such as the policy process and new social movements as well as
emerging areas such as cultural politics and political economy. Books in the series will
analyse contemporary political practices with regards to the environment and/or explore
possible future directions for the ‘greening’ of contemporary politics. The series will be
of interest not only to academics and students working in the environmental field, but
will also demand to be read within the broader discipline.
The series consists of two strands:
Environmental Politics addresses the needs of students and teachers, and the titles will
be published in paperback and hardback. Titles include:
Global Warming and Global Politics

Matthew Paterson
Politics and the Environment

James Connelly and Graham Smith
International Relations Theory and Ecological Thought

Towards synthesis
Edited by Eric Lafferière and Peter Stoett
Planning Sustainability
Edited by Michael Kenny and James Meadowcroft
Deliberative Democracy and the Environment

Graham Smith
Routledge Research in Environmental Politics presents innovative new research

intended for high-level specialist readership. These titles are published in hardback only
and include:
1 The Emergence of Ecological Modernisation
Integrating the environment and the economy?
Stephen C.Young
2 Ideas and Actions in the Green Movement

Brian Doherty
3 Russia and the West

Environmental cooperation and conflict Geir Hønneland
4 Global Warming and East Asia

The domestic and international politics of climate change
Edited by Paul G.Harris
5 Europe, Globalization and Sustainable Development

Edited by John Barry, Brian Baxter and Richard Dunphy
6 The Politics of GM Food

A comparative study of the UK, USA and EU
Dave Toke
7 Environmental Policy in Europe

The Europeanization of national environmental policy
Edited by Andrew Jordan and Duncan Liefferink
8 A Theory of Ecological Justice

Brian Baxter
Environmental Policy in Europe
Edited by Andrew Jordan and Duncan

Liefferink
LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2004 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14
4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York,
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© 2004 Andrew Jordan and Duncan Liefferink for selection and editorial matter;
individual contributors their contributions
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ISBN 0-415-33941-3 (Print Edition)
To Annika, Rein, Lauren and Benjamin
Contents
List of illustrations xi
List of contributors xii
Foreword by Caroline Jackson (MEP), Chairman of the European xiii
Parliament’s Environment Committee
Preface and acknowledgements xiv
Abbreviations and acronyms xvi
1 The Europeanization of national environmental policy 1

ANDREW JORDAN AND DUNCAN LIEFFERINK
2 Europeanization and policy convergence: a basis for comparative 14
analysis
DUNCAN LIEFFERINK AND ANDREW JORDAN
3 Measuring Europeanization and policy convergence: national baseline 30
conditions
DUNCAN LIEFFERINK AND ANDREW JORDAN
4 Austria: inducing a philosophy of ‘no unnecessary efforts’ 44
VOLKMAR LAUBER
5 Finland: a realistic pragmatist 60
RAUNO SAIRINEN AND ARTO LINDHOLM
6 France: getting between the vertical 76
HENRY BULLER
7 Germany: from environmental leadership to partial mismatch 92
RUDIGER K.W.WURZEL
8 Ireland: the triumph of policy style over substance 109
BRENDAN FLYNN
9 The Netherlands: the advantages of being ‘Mr Average’ 126
DUNCAN LIEFFERINK AND MARIËLLE VAN DER ZOUWEN
10 Norway: top down Europeanization by fax 142
EIVIND HOVDEN
11 Spain: old habits die hard 158
SUSANA AGUILAR FERNÁNDEZ
12 Sweden: reluctant but environmentally ambitious 174
ANNICA KRONSELL
13 The United Kingdom: from policy ‘taking’ to policy ‘shaping’ 188
ANDREW JORDAN
14 Europeanization and convergence: comparative conclusions 205
ANDREW JORDAN AND DUNCAN LIEFFERINK
Index 226
Illustrations
Figures
5.1 The co-ordination of EU matters in Finland 68
14.1 Patterns of domestic action and domestic impact c. 2000 217
Tables
1.1 Degrees of domestic policy change 7
3.1 Indicative examples of domestic change 33
3.2 Environmental policy content in the ten countries c. 1970 34
3.3 Environmental policy structures in the ten countries c. 1970 36
3.4 Environmental policy style in the ten countries c. 1970 39
6.1 The institutional history of the French Environment Ministry 83
14.1 Environmental policy content in the ten countries c. 2000 as 206

compared to c. 1970
14.2 Environmental policy structures in the ten countries c. 2000 as 208

compared to c. 1970
14.3 Environmental policy style in the ten countries c. 2000 as 211

compared to c. 1970
14.4 The overall extent of Europeanization in the ten countries c. 212

2000
Contributors
Susana Aguilar Fernández, Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology, Complutense

University of Madrid, Spain
Henry Buller, School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources, University of
Exeter, UK
Brendan Flynn, Department of Political Science and Sociology, National University of
Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Eivind Hovden, The Research Council of Norway, Oslo, Norway
Andrew Jordan, CSERGE, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, UK
Annica Kronsell, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden
Volkmar Lauber, Department of Political Science, University of Salzburg, Austria
Duncan Liefferink, Department of Political Sciences of the Environment, Radboud
University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Arto Lindholm, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki University of
Technology, Finland
Rauno Sairinen, Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki University of
Technology, Finland
Rüdiger K.W.Wurzel, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of
Hull, UK
Mariëlle van der Zouwen, Department of Political Sciences of the Environment,
Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Foreword
I am delighted to welcome this book. The idea of following up what happens to EU laws
once adopted is one that needs much more attention. In many member states there is a
deep distrust of a dispersed system where ‘the others’ are suspected of not living up to
their EU obligations. There is also huge ignorance of how the EU adopts laws, and what
is then expected to happen next.
This book tackles the question of how far common policies on the environment,
adopted by EU environment ministers at Council meetings, where we must presume all
know what they are doing, actually do go on to produce results at the national level that
can later be seen to adhere to the common formulae of the original agreement. Thus a key
finding of the book is that the content of environmental policies has become
‘Europeanized’ more strongly than policy structures and styles.
This is a worrying finding for those who produce the policies in the first place (on the
implicit understanding that common implementation would follow) and for those (like
MEPs) who have to explain continuing national divergencies to irate constituents. It is
worrying because divergent ‘policy structures and styles’ can, as the book shows, give
rise to different rates of implementation (varying from high to virtually non-existent) and
in effect allow policy differences to continue. These can give rise to distortions of
competition (one of the starting points of EU environmental policy in the 1970s was the
need to avoid these), and to the continued degradation of Europe’s environmental
heritage, in defiance of collective ministerial rhetoric.
Should we be worried about such differences or should we just accept them as
inevitable in an EU of 25 plus countries? As the editors ask in their concluding chapter:
‘lf we don’t find significant Europeanization and convergence in the environmental
sector, where are we likely to find it?’ My response is that we are perhaps being too
impatient. EU environmental policies can be very expensive indeed to implement—a
point often wilfully ignored by the Commission (and by MEPs) on the understanding that
any environmental protection measure deserves full support and, probably,
reinforcement. The lesson that proper implementation then has to be paid for is hard
learned. EU environmental policies also impose, by consent, new ways of doing things on
all EU countries. Meanwhile, the EU lacks a robust and swift means of checking who
does what (a process to which this book makes an important contribution), or of exerting
central control when divergencies occur.
Convergence will therefore be more gradual than many people expect. The real
‘drivers’ of such convergence will, as the editors show, probably not be the European
Commission, Parliament or Court of Justice but simply time and prosperity. That is what
we must all hope—even if we ourselves do not live to see it.
Caroline Jackson MEP
Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public
Health and Consumer Policy
Preface and acknowledgements
Just a few years ago, if you wanted ‘European’ news, it felt as though you had to go and
search for it in the little-read corners of our daily newspapers. With the exception,
perhaps, of the half-yearly summits of the European leaders, most EU affairs were little
known or discussed outside a narrow circle of EU watchers. In so far as there was any
impact of European Union (EU) policies at the national level, it was almost completely
ignored in mainstream political debate.
Today, the situation is very different. The words ‘Europe’, ‘European’ and ‘EU’
appear in newspaper headings several times every day, not only in the international news
but, significantly, also in relation to mainstream ‘domestic’ stories that are the bread and
butter of national newspapers and TV channels. This provides a very simple but powerful
indication of the extent to which decisions taken at the European level in the EU often
interfere deeply in domestic political and economic affairs. Moreover, the EU’s
increasing involvement extends almost right across the entire range of public policy
areas, from agriculture to immigration, and from monetary policy to environmental
protection. The idea that ‘Europe matters’, or, more precisely, that the national and the
European levels are intricately and irrevocably interwoven, is nowadays a fact of life in
many, if not all, walks of life, even though it is still not as widely reported or discussed as
its political importance deserves.
Having said this, we still know surprisingly little about what this increasingly intimate
relationship between the EU and its member states looks like, how it has been formed and
how it may evolve in the future. Whereas the ‘bottom up’ process through which EU
policy is made by the member states meeting in the EU has been an important theme of
academic research since the 1950s, a rapidly growing literature is only now beginning to
uncover the ‘top down’ or ‘boomerang’ effect of EU policy on national polities and
policies.
This body of literature has been christened ‘Europeanization’ research, even though it
is probably technically more correct (but grammatically less elegant) to refer to it as ‘EU-
ization’. In the introductory chapters of this book, we show that we are now beginning to
see the emergence of a common understanding of the term ‘Europeanization’ and also a
greater awareness of the basic causal mechanisms that drive it in certain directions. Much
of this research remains at a fairly general and abstract level, however. While this may be
a necessary stage in the development of a new field of enquiry, eventually empirical flesh
and blood has to be added to what can, at times, feel like an overly skeletal discussion.
This volume therefore goes into the more detailed aspects of Europeanization in one
particular policy field—the environment—and analyses and compares the experiences of
ten selected member states in this field. By blending state of the art theories with fresh
empirical material on the many manifestations of Europeanization, it tries to shed new
light on the dynamics that are decisively reshaping national environmental policy. It also
offers an original assessment of how far Europeanization has produced greater policy
convergence in Western Europe.
The book has its origins in a seminar held in Cambridge, UK, in the summer of 2001.
We would like to thank Sian Pearce in CSERGE for the typically prompt and efficient
manner in which she went about organizing it. In Cambridge the very first drafts of the
country chapters presented in this volume were discussed among the authors and a
number of other distinguished experts in the field, who kindly agreed to comment on our
approach. Without the national experts this book would, of course, never have been
written. We would like to thank them for patiently and promptly responding to what felt
like an endless round of requests from us to revise and update their texts.
The Cambridge seminar was sponsored by the European Science Foundation (ESF)
under its TERM II programme, the UK Economic Research Council (under grant
R000237870 and the core funding of CSERGE), Nijmegen University and the Philip
Leverhulme Prize Fellowship that funded Andrew’s sabbatical in 2003–4. We would like
to express our gratitude to these institutions for their indispensable support. Finally, in
turning the seminar papers into book chapters we were greatly helped by the detailed
comments made by three anonymous reviewers as well as by the editors of the
‘Routledge Research in Environmental Politics’ series, Matthew Paterson and Graham
Smith. Our thanks also go to them. Any remaining errors or omissions are the sole
responsibility of the authors and/or us, the editors.
Norwich/Nijmegen, January 2004
Abbreviations and acronyms
ADEME Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’energie
ASPB area of special protection for birds
BAT best available technology
BATNEEC best available technology without entailing excessive cost
BMI Bundesministerium des Inneren
BMU Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutzund
Reaktorsicherheit
BNC Commissie Behandeling Nieuwe Commissievoorstellen
CAMA Advisory Council (Forum) for the Environment
CAP Common Agricultural Policy
CC Constitutional Court
CDU Christlich Demokratische Union
CFC chlorofluorocarbon
ChemI Chemicals Inspectorate
CiU Catalan Nationalist Party
CO2 carbon dioxide
COREPER Committee of Permanent Representatives
CPNT Chasse, Pêche, Nature, Tradition
CSU Christlich Soziale Union
DATAR Delegation d’aménagement du territoire et a l’action
régionale
DG Directorate-General
DIREN Directions régionales de l’environnement
DNR Deutscher Naturschutzring
DoE Department of the Environment
DoELG Department of Environment and Local Government
EAP environmental action programme
EC European Community
ECJ European Court of Justice
EEA European Economic Area
EEB European Environmental Bureau
EEC European Economic Community
EFTA European Free Trade Association
EIA environmental impact assessment
ELV End-of-life Vehicles (Directive)
EMAS environmental management and auditing system
EMU Economic and Monetary Union
EP European Parliament
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
EPI environmental policy integration
EQO environmental quality objective
EQS environmental quality standard
ESA EFTA Surveillance Authority
ESI environmental sustainability index
EU European Union
FDP Freie Demokratische Partei
GDP gross domestic product
GMO genetically modified organism
IBEC Irish Business and Employers Confederation
ICT information and communication technology
IGC inter-governmental conference
IMPEL Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law
(network)
IPPC Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (Directive)
ISO International Organization for Standardization
LNV (Ministerie van) Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit
MAPA Ministry of Agriculture
MEP Member of the European Parliament
MIMAM Ministry of the Environment
MINER Ministry of Industry and Energy
MOPTMA Ministry of Public Works, Transport and the Environment
MP Member of Parliament
NEPI new environmental policy instrument
NEPP National Environmental Policy Plan
NGO non-governmental organization
NOx nitrogen oxide
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development
OSPAR Oslo and Paris Conventions (on dumping at sea)
PCP pentachlorophenol
PHN Plan Hidrológico Nacional
PNE Plan national pour l’environnement
PP Popular Party
PR Permanent Representation
REPER Permanent Representation
SEA strategic environmental assessment
SEM Single European Market
SEPA Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
SGCI Sécrétariat general du Comité interministériel pour les
questions de cooperation économique européenne
SO2 sulphur dioxide
SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands
SRU Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen
T&E Transport and Environment
TGAP Taxe générale sur les activités polluantes
UBA Umweltbundesamt
UK United Kingdom
UKREP United Kingdom Permanent Representation
UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development
UNICE Union of Industrial and Employers’ Associations
US(A) United States (of America)
VA voluntary agreement
VOC volatile organic compound(s)
VROM (Ministerie van) Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening
en Milieu
WWF Worldwide Fund for Nature
1
The Europeanization of national
environmental policy
Andrew Jordan and Duncan Liefferink
Introduction
The European Union (EU) affects domestic politics, policies and administrative
structures. Even ten years ago, this statement might have generated controversy in some
quarters. But today, it is almost axiomatic that the EU ‘matters’, sometimes hugely, in the
daily political life of bureaucrats, parliamentarians, pressure group campaigners and
members of the wider public. The recognition of this fact has helped to open up a new
and important research frontier in European studies, which has been termed
‘Europeanization’ (Featherstone and Radaelli 2003a). The Europeanization ‘turn’ is
exciting because it provides a fresh perspective on some very old debates within
European studies, and also an extension of newer ones on topics such as policy transfer,
multi-level governance and policy convergence. But Europeanization has also been
recently described in more negative terms as a ‘faddish’ concept (Featherstone 2003:1),
and ‘not so much a theory as a distinct set of processes in need of an explanation’
(Featherstone and Radaelli 2003b:333). Furthermore, Europeanization has also developed
very rapidly into a somewhat ‘disorderly’ (Olsen 2002:922) field of research, in which
there are no widely accepted definitions of key terms, let alone a grand explanatory
‘theory’.
Part of the problem is that, while they are undoubtedly important, theoretical debates
about the precise meaning and analysis of Europeanization have, in our view, run too far
ahead of detailed empirical research. In this book we seek to offer a detailed comparative
empirical test of some of the most important theories and models of Europeanization. In
approaching this task we have opted to employ a relatively simple, top down view of
Europeanization, which we define as the impact of the EU on its member states. Many
member state characteristics can, in theory, be Europeanized by the EU, such as party
politics, public policy and administrative structures, through to less tangible features such
as interest group representation, cognitive structures and belief patterns. For the sake of
simplicity, we have elected to focus somewhat narrowly on national policy, which we
have nonetheless defined broadly enough to capture several important features of national
polity and politics. By ‘policy’ we mean the content of policies (the paradigms of action,
the objectives and the policy instruments), the legal and administrative structures that
have been established to oversee them, and the dominant style in which policy is made
and implemented. Finally, we measure the extent of domestic change on a five-point
scale ranging from negative change (i.e. retrenchment) through to significant national
Environmental policy in Europe 2
adaptation (i.e. transformation). We explain all these terms more fully below and in the
next chapters.
This book has two main aims. First, we attempt to document the Europeanization of
national policy since 1970 in ten European states, namely Austria, Finland, France,
Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom
(UK). Given our wish to explore how far common policies adopted by the EU are
refracted by national institutional forms, we have opted to focus on just one policy
sector—the environment—rather than look at the Europeanization of many sectors in one
single country. Interestingly, our sample of ten states includes a number of lesser known
cases such as Finland, Norway, Austria and Spain, which lie outside the already heavily
researched core of the EU. Crucially, because our sample includes states that joined at
different times (i.e. in 1957, 1973, 1981 and 1995) and one (i.e. Norway) that is still not a
full member, it should reveal the extent to which the length of membership has affected
the overall pattern of Europeanization. Importantly, it should also help us to disentangle
the EU’s influence from other causes of change such as domestic drivers.
Unlike many existing Europeanization studies, which tend to track the impact of
relatively small numbers of individual directives over relatively short time periods, we
seek to explore the combined impact of the entire environmental acquis over a thirty-year
time period (i.e. 1970–2000). Hopefully, this should reveal the full pattern of domestic
changes, including those which are often held to take place very slowly if at all (namely
those to policy style and administrative structures) (Jordan 2003). Having set up the study
in this way, an obvious question to ask is which aspects of national policy have been the
most significantly Europeanized—national structures, styles or policies? Has
Europeanization proceeded faster and further in some sub-sectors (e.g. water) than others
and what are the causal factors? Moreover, has Europeanization affected the relationship
between different national actors, both vertically (i.e. between levels of governance—
European, national and sub-national) and horizontally (i.e. between environment and
cognate policy sectors such as transport and energy). Finally, as ours is a political
analysis of Europeanization, we will also seek to assess the overall pattern of losers and
winners to emerge from the EU’s effect on national policy systems. The existing
literature, which is reviewed more extensively in the next two chapters, claims that
national parliaments, sub-national bodies and foreign ministries have been the prominent
losers, whereas Europeanization appears to have empowered national sectoral
departments and pressure groups. In this book we explore how far these trends are also
discernible in the environmental sector.
The second aim of this book is to look across the ten countries and measure how far
Europeanization is causing their national policies to converge. Simply put, are national
policies moving towards a common, European model of governance, or do pre-existing
differences (if, indeed, that was the dominant pattern) remain resolutely in place? In the
very early literature, Europeanization was often uncritically elided with strong
convergence, but now scholars are beginning to appreciate that it can generate many
possible outcomes including convergence, divergence and even persistence (i.e. neither
convergence nor divergence). Page (2003:163) distinguishes between Europeanization
‘as an impact of whatever sort’ and Europeanization ‘as having a homogenizing
impact…across a wide range of state activities’. This is a useful distinction because some
elements of policy (e.g. style) could well be converging, while others (e.g. structure) may
The Europeanization of national environmental policy 3
be remaining the same. Just to complicate matters still further, Europeanization may or
may not be the main cause of any of these domestic changes.
At this point, it is important to explain why we consider the environment to be such a
good policy area in which to pursue the two aims identified above. The first reason is that
the environment is one of the EU’s most well-developed areas of competence. Although a
small selection of environmental measures were adopted prior to the 1972 Paris Summit,
that meeting formally launched EU environmental policy. The thirty years that have
elapsed since then give a sufficiently long time-frame comprehensively to assess the
extent to which Europeanization is implicated in any policy convergence which we
observe across the countries. It would be more difficult to study the Europeanization of
sectors in which the EU does not have such a long history of involvement, such as
defence or foreign affairs.
Second, in contrast to the view of Moravcsik (1994), national policy was already
relatively well developed in the late 1960s. This means we can construct a policy
‘baseline’ (see Chapter 3) for each of the ten countries (c. 1970) against which we can
more systematically measure: (1) any subsequent EU induced effects (i.e.
Europeanization); and (2) the development of national policy over time relative to other
states (i.e. convergence-divergence). By using this approach, we should be able to test the
often untested assumption that national environmental policies used to be dissimilar but
have gradually become more similar. It would be much harder (though not impossible) to
study Europeanization in sectors where there was no pre-existing policy to Europeanize
(i.e. where it is difficult to identify a baseline or where one is totally absent). Dyson and
Goetz (2003) refer to these as ‘policy voids’.
A huge amount of good empirical work has already been conducted on the
implementation of EU environmental policy, much of it originally written by the chapter
authors. The third and final reason for selecting the environment is therefore to use this
substantial empirical base to assess popular models of Europeanization and convergence.
The remainder of this introductory chapter is structured as follows. The next section
outlines the intellectual origins of the Europeanization ‘turn’ and briefly reviews the
literature which has emerged around the interlinked concepts of Europeanization and
policy convergence. Section three draws upon this review to offer five competing
definitions of the term ‘Europeanization’. It reveals that the debate about Europeanization
is extremely lively but not always systematically organized, with advocates offering a
competing set of definitions, each with its own theory, epistemology and ontology. In
section four we justify our decision to adopt one of these definitions—‘Europeanization
as a top down process of domestic change’—and explore its methodological and
theoretical underpinnings in some detail. The final section introduces the remainder of
the book.
The Europeanization ‘turn’ in the social sciences
In the 1990s the first generation of Europeanization research emerged in three separate
but closely related streams of social science analysis. The first addressed the process of
European integration at the European level. In the mid-1990s EU scholars began to shift
away from looking at European integration as exclusively an EU-level activity, to analyse
its ‘rebound effect’ on states. After all, one way to determine how far states control
integration (an analytical puzzle that continues to stimulate much integration analysis) is
to examine how far its diverse outcomes (i.e. Europeanization) reflect their initial
preferences. Crucially, however, the new Europeanization literature treats European
integration as an independent rather than a dependent variable, tracing its impact down
through multiple levels of governance to the sub-state level.
The second stream analyses the implementation of individual EU policies. By the
1990s this field had progressed from being an essentially empirically driven exercise in
assessing (top down) the implementation of EU directives, to developing broader
hypotheses based on more detailed comparative work (Knill and Lenschow 2000). One
particularly influential line of analysis argues that implementation problems arise when
the EU asks states to do what they cannot, or do not want, to do. In other words, they
emerge when EU requirements ‘misfit’ with national practices (Héritier et al 1996; Knill
1998; Knill and Lenschow 1998; Boerzel 1999). The misfit concept is an integral part of
more top down accounts of Europeanization (see below). Interestingly, it first arose in
detailed empirical studies of the environmental sector.
The final stimulus has been the desire to catalogue and explain the European sources
of domestic political, policy and administrative change. Today scholars of national
political systems increasingly accept that domestic politics cannot be understood without
some reference to EU politics. The full extent of the EU’s impact is now being uncovered
by more nationally framed studies inter alia of national administrative, parliamentary,
policy and sociocultural change.
Starting in the mid-1990s a second generation of Europeanization work began to
synthesize and theorize the insights generated by the three streams of analysis identified
above. Some of the first systematic Europeanization studies were actually completed by
lawyers and influential research consultancy bodies in the late 1980s, but they were not
centrally concerned with Europeanization per se. In fact, some of the authors involved
(e.g. Haigh 1984; Siedentopf and Ziller 1988) might still resist attempts to label their
work as Europeanization. In the 1990s the literature proliferated under the banner of
Europeanization. Studies were undertaken of single countries (Jordan 1998; Schmidt
1997; Liefferink 1996; Radaelli 1997; Aguilar Fernández 1994), but more recent analyses
compare two or more countries (e.g. Knill 2001; Boerzel 2002). Some analysts have
compared the Europeanization of particular aspects of the nation state, such as sub-
national government (Boerzel 2002), administrative structures (Page and Wouters 1995;
Kassim 2003; Goetz 2001a/b; Demmke and Unfried 2001; Bossaert et al. 2001), national
parliaments (Maurer and Wessels 2001), and even national cultures (Risse 2001).
Attempts are now being made systematically to compare the Europeanization of different
sectors in one country (Dyson and Goetz 2003), or across different sectors within several
countries (Featherstone and Radaelli 2003a), but at the time of writing there are still no
published studies which, like ours, systematically compare the Europeanization of one
sector across a selection of countries.
In spite of its enormous vitality, Europeanization research remains essentially ‘ad hoc’
in nature (Radaelli 2000:19). Even a fairly cursory inspection of the corpus of existing
work is sufficient to reveal the enormously different questions asked, methods used and
theories invoked. The literature on convergence is similarly fragmented. Much of it is to
be found in the field of comparative politics, but even though it shares a surprisingly
common research agenda with the field of Europeanization, the two have not been
systematically linked in the way that we propose to offer in this volume. The
convergence literature (which we review in Chapter 2) argues that some elements of
national policy are converging, whereas others seem to be resilient to centripetal forces,
thus producing a highly differentiated pattern—what Cowles et al. (2001:1) refer to as
‘domestic adaptation with national colors’.
More recent Europeanization studies have begun to explore the links between
Europeanization and convergence in an increasingly systematic fashion. Thus, national
policy appears to be homogenizing in several important respects, whereas national
structures appear to be fairly resilient (Bulmer and Burch 1998; Rometsch and Wessels
1996; Harmsen 1999; Kassim et al. 2000 and 2001; Dimitrakopolous 2001; Wessels et al.
2003:xv). However, these studies do not yet add up to a coherent or complete picture,
because they do not employ the same analytical terms, or compare similar mixes of
countries and/or sectors. By employing consistent definitions to construct policy
baselines for the ten countries, we hope that this book will help to fill a gap in the
research record by generating a set of comparable snapshots of national policy
development over a thirty-year period.
What is ‘Europeanization’?
Europeanization research has generated a bewilderingly large number of definitions.

Developing definitions is not simply a semantic exercise, because definitions dictate how
social phenomena are conceived and ultimately studied empirically. Perhaps reflecting its
mixed pedigree, the existing literature defines Europeanization in at least five different
ways:
1. The top down impact of the EU on its member states. For instance, Héritier et al.
(2001:3) define it as ‘the process of influence deriving from European decisions and
impacting member states’ policies and political and administrative structures’. In this
mode, the EU acts in a very top down fashion through legal and other policy acts.
2. The accumulation of policy competences at an EU level Cowles et al. (2001:2) equate
Europeanization with ‘the emergence and development at the European level of
distinct structures of governance’. In this mode, Europeanization is synonymous with
European integration—i.e. the creation of the EU itself.
3. The growing importance of the EU as a reference point for national and sub-national
actors (e.g. Hanf and Soetendorp 1998:1; Wessels et al. 2003:xiv). In this mode, the
EU is akin to a lodestar that is difficult if not impossible to ignore.
4. The horizontal transfer of concepts and policies in the EU between member states.
Bomberg and Peterson (2000) relate Europeanization to the similarly popular term
‘policy transfer’, while Burch and Gomez (2003:2) believe it even encompasses
examples of ‘cross loading’ through which states share ideas amongst themselves. In
this mode, the EU is at best a facilitator of inter-state transfer.
5. The two-way interaction between states and the EU. This definition arose from the
empirical observation that states routinely pre-empt domestic adjustment by shaping
an emergent EU policy in their own image (Bomberg and Peterson 2000:8). In this
mode, Europeanization is ‘circular rather than unidirectional, and cyclical rather than
one off’ (Goetz 2002:4). The EU, therefore, is both a cause and an effect of national
change.
These five are, of course, only the most popular ones. Olsen (2002) argues that
Europeanization could just as well encompass the territorial expansion of the EU (e.g. the
process of enlarging the EU to incorporate new members), or the process through which
European forms of governance spread out to other parts of the world.
In this book we have decided to adopt the first and most simple definition—
Europeanization as a top down process impacting on states. One reason is that we wish to
focus upon what most differentiates this particular sub-field of research from other,
closely associated sub-fields such as European integration studies and policy transfer.
Another reason is that some analysts have persuasively argued that environmental policy
naturally lends itself to a top down definition. Knill (2001:214–15), for example, argues
that there are at least three ways in which the EU can exert a top down influence on
states: (1) it prescribes clear models of national action, usually in the form of directives
and regulations; (2) it alters domestic political opportunity structures by offering national
actors new points of leverage to achieve domestic change (see also Cowles et al. 2001;
Boerzel 2002); and (3) it affects national beliefs and perceptions indirectly through the
publication of strategies, informal benchmarking exercises and research. Clearly these
overlap with several of the five definitions listed above, but they are most strongly
associated with the first of them. Many have argued that top down approaches are better
suited to a regulatory (or market-correcting) policy area such as the environment, in
which the EU prescribes or imposes a relatively concrete model of domestic compliance
(Knill and Lehmkuhl 2002). In contrast, market creating or so-called distributional policy
areas, such as regional policy, tend not to prescribe a specific model but instead operate
more through modes (2) and (3). In the concluding chapter we assess the value of this
three-fold distinction, and how far it is appropriate to maintain a strong attachment to top
down models.
Like the majority of Europeanization scholars, we decided not to adopt the third
definition (‘Europeanization as European integration’) as this risks eliding
Europeanization with the alleged source of domestic change—European integration. We
also decided not to rely, at least initially, on the fifth definition (‘Europeanization as a
two-way street’) even though it appears to chime with many empirical accounts of how
EU environmental policy is actually made (Jordan 2002b). These show that states do
often try to shape European rules so that they align with their own national approaches
and practices. By working to ensure a ‘goodness of fit’ (Cowles et al. 2001) between the
two, states hope to reduce adjustment costs, achieve ‘first-mover advantages’ and reduce
political and legal uncertainty by minimizing Europeanization. If, as has often been the
case in the more environmentally progressive states such as the Netherlands and
Germany, European rules are based on the core features of national policy (Liefferink and
Andersen 1998), the misfit is likely to be low and the degree of Europeanization
correspondingly weak. Even if, as some have suggested, the flow of influence was
completely recursive and continuous, it would still be difficult to forge a rigorous
research strategy because, in crudely positivistic terms, a two-way definition lacks a set
of dependent and independent variables (Radaelli 2003:32). Put simply, where should the
analyst look for the causes and consequences of change if they are reciprocally
interconnected? And what theories or frameworks should they use (Boerzel and Risse
2003; Jordan 2002a and 2003)?
Measures of national change

Having examined the broad concept of Europeanization, we now turn to look at the
Europeanization of national environmental policy. We have already noted that the most
influential, top down accounts of Europeanization relate the extent of domestic change to
the amount of divergence or ‘misfit’ between EU requirements and domestic-level
characteristics. Generally speaking, the larger the ‘misfit’, the greater the adaptive
pressure and the greater the likelihood of domestic change (see Table 1.1).
In an attempt to quantify the extent of the changes in the ten countries since c. 1970
we will employ the scale shown in Table 1.1. It is a relatively wellknown scale but has
not been systematically applied to so many countries in
Table 1.1 Degrees of domestic policy change
Difference Level of domestic
between change
EU and
national
policy
(the
‘misfit’)
Inertia varies small: states resist
change (but this often
increases adaptive
pressure and leads to
change in the longer
term)
Retrenchment varies negative: states actively
resist adaptive pressure
by stressing their
unique features
(‘nationalization’)
Absorption small small: states
incorporate/domesticate
EU requirements
without substantially
modifying national
policy
Accommodation medium medium: states
accommodate/mediate
EU requirements by
adapting existing policy
while leaving its core
features intact
Transformation high high: domestication
fails; states forced to
substantially alter or
replace existing policy
Source: Adapted from Boerzel and Risse (2000;
2003), and Boerzel (2004).
one sector before. Absorption arises when the misfit between EU requirements and
prevailing domestic characteristics is low. Therefore EU requirements are simply
absorbed without substantially modifying national policies. An environmental example
might be when the EU simply asks states to tighten the pre-existing limit for a certain
substance as part of the reform of an existing directive. Accommodation occurs when
states adjust their pre-existing policies while leaving their core features intact. As the
misfit is small, the amount of domestic adaptation will be low. In the environmental
sphere, states may have to implement a new policy tool (such as environmental impact
assessment or an air quality standard) without fundamentally restructuring their whole
environmental protection systems or overturning the underlying policy paradigm.
Transformation relates to a situation in which states can only implement EU requirements
by fundamentally altering their existing protection systems. For instance, the EU has
often pushed the UK to adopt clear limits for specific polluting emissions. These caused
huge ructions because, until then, the UK had only ever set a small number of such limits,
and only ever on a relatively informal basis. The final two points on the scale refer to
more specific circumstances. Inertia arises when states deliberately block EU
requirements either by not implementing policies or by engaging in partial compliance.
Regardless of whether the misfit is large or small, the amount of domestic change will be
limited, at least until sufficient political pressure has built up to deliver the necessary
national adaptations. Retrenchment occurs when states do not simply block EU
requirements at the implementation stage, but very consciously develop new national
policies that diverge from EU requirements. Consequently national policy becomes more,
not less, national.
Top down approaches

The fundamental premise of the ‘goodness of fit’ or ‘misfit’ approach to understanding
Europeanization is that there has to be a misfit to trigger Europeanization. Without a
misfit there cannot, by definition, be Europeanization. However, empirical studies have
cast doubt on this claim, by identifying instances of national change where there is no
misfit and vice versa. Researchers are now searching for intervening variables that must
be included in the analysis to offer a more nuanced account of the empirical patterns of
Europeanization that have started to be comprehensively catalogued at the member state
level (see Cowles et al. 2001; Boerzel 2002).
For example, Knill (2001) and Knill and Lenschow (1998) have pointed out that some
features of policy are more institutionally rooted (or embedded) in national systems than
others, and hence more difficult to Europeanize. They differentiate between ‘core’
features and more peripheral features. The problem with this line of argument is that it
borders on tautology—i.e. it argues that things are unchangeable because they do not
change very much. It is very difficult to determine a priori what might change and what
might not. Therefore the chapters in this book identify what has actually changed and
what has not, as a necessary precursor to more general theorizing.
Intervening variables
In the final chapter we analyse the importance of other potential intervening variables.
The first is the internal structure of states themselves, namely the number of ‘veto points’
that those supporting domestic adaptation have to negotiate to achieve change. One claim
that is sometimes made is that the more the power is diffused in the political system, the
more difficult it will be to build a sufficient coalition to effect the domestic changes
required by the EU. In an illuminating study of the implementation of EU packaging
waste policy in three countries, Haverland (2000) shows that Germany experienced more
problems in adapting itself than the Netherlands and the UK, even though the ‘goodness
of fit’ between German and EU policy requirements was high. He believes that the
difference can be accounted for by the extra veto points that had to be passed to achieve
change in the more federal German system than in the more centralized Dutch and UK
systems. This suggests that, for a given misfit, federal systems will normally experience
greater adaptation problems than more centralized systems, because of the greater
number of obstacles that have to be overcome. Other types of systemic (formal or de
facto) veto points, such as deep-seated corporatist arrangements, may work in a similar
way.
A second intervening variable might be the presence of actors such as national
pressure groups which are sufficiently well motivated to socially construct and exploit
misfits. In particular, do those ‘norm changers’ have an obvious political interest in
promoting a more maximal approach to implementation, and hence greater
Europeanization? Do they have the skills and the wherewithal to bring the presence of
any misfits to the attention of the Commission? Then there is the Commission itself.
Unless and until it initiates infringement proceedings against a ‘misfitted’ state, there
may be little long term legal pressure on that state to adapt its domestic policy The start
of such proceedings may, in turn, depend upon the presence of a commissioner
determined enough to confront a particular state. Finally, do non-state actors have
sufficient legal and political means to force state executives to implement the national
adaptations demanded by the EU?
Third and fourth intervening variables might be national societal support for
environmental protection and European integration respectively. Thus, each of the ten
empirical chapters begins by considering the environmental and European stance of the
state in question. If Europeanization is one part of a much wider ‘regulatory competition’
to set EU standards, it seems reasonable to expect states with lower environmental
expectations and a weaker commitment to European integration to be more deeply
Europeanized than those without a commitment. Or to put it another way, states that do
not actively shape the EU are a priori more likely to find themselves ‘misfitting’ with EU
norms than those that do. Helen Wallace uses the term ‘domestication’ to describe the
process through which the EU’s top down influence is mediated and possibly even
distorted by domestic institutional and political factors (Wallace 2000:369–70). There are
many things that states can do to circumvent misfits. They can: shape political agendas in
the EU; work inside the EU to erode or modulate policies before they are downloaded
from the EU; steer the comitology process (Weale et al. 2000:90–1), by finding the right
participants to project the national interest; and finally, engage in selective or partial
compliance.
Problems with top down approaches

What initially developed as a fairly static measure of the congruence (or otherwise) of EU
and national policies is now grappling to account for some of the more obviously political
factors that shape the domestic impact of the EU. Consequently, the top down approach
remains the most popular of the five approaches identified above, but it is not without its
critics. For example, some have argued that notions of ‘fit’ and ‘misfit’ are presented as
though they can easily be read off from a ‘snapshot’ comparison of national and EU
policy, when in fact ‘fit’ is a constant and recursive process of interaction between many
different sub-elements of ‘policy’ (Dyson and Goetz 2003). Some fits or misfits may
even be deliberately created by states as they seek to shape the EU in their own image or
force through unpopular measures in the teeth of domestic opposition. Looking back at
the history of EU environmental policy since the early 1970s, many aspects of state
behaviour do appear to have been motivated by a strong desire to minimize adaptive
pressure by minimizing misfits. In fact, two different types of state can be identified.
‘Policy shapers’ in the EU seek proactively to align national and European policies,
whereas ‘policy takers’ struggle to achieve such a fit because they continue passively to
accept whatever the EU adopts. We reconsider this distinction in the final chapter. Before
moving on, it is important to note that this particular criticism tends to be voiced by those
advocating a ‘two-way street’ interpretation of Europeanization.
Second, some have argued (Héritier et al. 2001:288) that it is quite possible for
Europeanization to occur when national and EU policies are basically congruent
(‘fitted’), i.e. a misfit is not a necessary condition for domestic change. To a large extent,
the way one handles this criticism depends on how one defines Europeanization; if one
holds tightly to a top down definition, Europeanization can only logically occur if the EU
triggers national adaptations. Change which does not originate from the top down
influence of the EU cannot be Europeanization, unless, that is, national policy anticipates
or is contemporaneous with EU action. Of course, other definitions of Europeanization
(e.g. definition (4) above) do allow for other sources of change, such as policy transfer
from a neighbouring state, but purists would claim that these are not really sufficiently
well defined to be characterized as Europeanization. By the same token, researchers such
as Haverland (2000) have argued that large misfits and high adaptive pressure may not
necessarily culminate in the transformation of some national systems, if there are other
intervening variables modulating the stimulus-response process (see above).
A third problem arises in relation to situations where states are ‘fragile’ (Radaelli
2003:43) or where there is no national policy at all to misfit with (i.e. a ‘policy void’, see
Dyson and Goetz 2003). We will pick up this point in Chapter 3, where we construct the
ten policy baselines.
Finally, those advocating the use of a misfit approach do not always fully explain
precisely which aspects of policy they have compared when reaching a judgement on fit
and/or misfit (Radaelli 2003:43). To put it baldly, should we compare policy content,
structure, style or some unspecified amalgam of all three? To explore this question we
asked the chapter authors to analyse which aspects of national policy most strongly fitted
and/or misfitted with EU requirements, i.e. the content, the structure or the style?
Conclusions
To conclude, Europeanization is a term in good currency, but it has eclectic roots in many
sub-literatures characterized by theoretical and methodological pluralism. The purpose of
this book is deliberately to select the most pure and simple approach to studying
Europeanization and assess its utility by subjecting it to detailed empirical testing. In so
doing, we hope to reveal whether Europeanization is, in fact, a useful term that reveals
new and important characteristics about the enlarging and deepening EU, or just a
passing fashion. The remainder of this book is devoted to exploring the impact of
European integration on the environmental policies of ten states (i.e. Europeanization),
and assessing the extent to which this is contributing to a secular drift towards more
common national policies (i.e. convergence). The next chapter offers a more detailed
exploration of the theoretical underpinnings of the latter question. Chapter 3 deals with a
number of important methodological issues and then constructs the baselines for each
country in c. 1970. Chapters 4 to 13 cover the ten countries. Each is written to a common
template, which relies upon the same concepts of national policy, Europeanization and
convergence (and its various possible causes) discussed above. Finally, the concluding
chapter (14) draws together all the evidence presented in the country chapters to address
the two main aims of the book. We conclude by considering the value of our approach
and then finally look forward to future research needs in this important and very fast-
moving field of political science.
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2
Europeanization and policy convergence
A basis for comparative analysis
Duncan Liefferink and Andrew Jordan
Introduction
In the previous chapter we outlined the two main aims of this book, which are: (1) to
document empirically the Europeanization of ten national environmental policies in the
period 1970–2000; and (2) to assess the extent to which Europeanization is causing these
ten national policies to converge. Whereas Chapter 1 focused on the issue of
Europeanization, this chapter grapples with the theoretical and methodological issues
which are raised by the question of convergence. Part of the problem is that convergence
and/or divergence may have several interrelated causes, not all of them directly or even
indirectly EUrelated. Trying to disentangle them, however, is a potentially profitable
exercise which promises to explicate the relationship between two bodies of academic
research—one on Europeanization, the other on policy convergence—which have thus
far proceeded along separate tracks.
If national policies are indeed Europeanizing under the influence of the EU, does it
necessarily imply that they are also becoming more similar? The question of convergence
of national policies has, of course, puzzled scholars for considerably longer than the
processes and outcomes of Europeanization (e.g. Kerr 1983; Unger and Van Waarden
1995), but the Europeanization ‘turn’ has undoubtedly given it new salience. At first
sight, the converging effect of the EU may appear obvious. If the EU member states
decide to tackle a range of common issues together and all commit themselves to
implementing the resulting policies in their respective national systems, ceteris paribus
how could they not grow more alike?
It must be kept in mind, however, that the EU did not start with a blank canvas.
Fifteen different fabrics of national politics and policies were already in place when their
respective governments decided to enter the EU. Institutional theories (broadly defined)
tell us that the EU may be able to alter some aspects of national policy, but it cannot take
away these different fabrics altogether and replace them with one single European
‘model’. If the most likely outcome is neither stasis (i.e. no change) nor deep
convergence, two obvious questions to ask are precisely which aspects of national policy
are indeed changing and how far are they actually converging? Furthermore, if they are
changing, is any trend common to most if not all member states? Or have the starting
positions been so different as to ensure that the ‘top down’ influence from Brussels is
working out very differently in each national context?
In the next section we discuss some basic conceptual and methodological problems
which arise when studying policy convergence in the EU. We show that many of the
Europeanization and policy convergence 15
theories predicting either convergence or divergence are not actually sufficiently

sophisticated or specific enough to account for the more complex patterns of
Europeanization that have already been reported by some scholars. Part of the problem is
that, while these two literatures study more or less the same phenomenon, they have
developed largely in isolation from one another, using different theories and different
methods. Therefore, in section three of this chapter we attempt to engineer some
analytical convergence of our own, by comparing and contrasting the rich stock of
empirical literature on Europeanization and convergence that has emerged, especially in
the last decade. In an attempt to bring some order to this material as well as prepare
ourselves for the ten national case studies, in section four we draw on the work of Colin
Bennett (1991) to identify four possible mechanisms of convergence that may be
operative in the EU. The final section sums up our argument about the relationship
between Europeanization and policy convergence.
Europeanization and policy convergence
Problems of causality
To what extent does the EU lead to a secular convergence of national policies and
politics? This attractively simple question is actually a lot more complicated than it first
appears. Basically, convergence is the expected effect and Europeanization its suggested
cause. Confirming the existence of this causal chain, however, brings with it at least two
analytical problems. First, one should ask whether the effect—the convergence of
national policies—really exists. Convergence in the EU has all too commonly been
assumed to occur (it is almost an article of faith for advocates of European integration),
rather than been studied empirically. Second, if convergence is taking place, a wide
variety of factors can be supposed to be responsible for it, ranging from broad cultural or
socio-economic change to the specific impact of international institutions such as the EU
or the United Nations. How can we single out the role of European integration (i.e.
Europeanization) from these other potential causes?
First, does convergence really take place? In order to ‘measure’ the convergence of
national policies, the analyst must compare political change in at least two countries and
assess to what extent they are moving in the same direction. In this book we have
assembled a sample of ten countries, which makes it easier to single out the impact of
sheer coincidence (changes that run parallel in different countries but with unrelated
‘national’ causes). Furthermore, the time perspective of thirty years employed in this
book allows us to evaluate long-term processes of change (see Chapter 3). However, as
discussed in the previous chapter, national ‘policy’ is a multi-faceted concept, ranging
from the position of the prime minister to the degree of local autonomy, and from
financial budgeting arrangements through to negotiation styles. It is unclear in advance
where we should look for evidence of convergence. An approach led by a set of
theoretical expectations regarding the possible converging effect of Europeanization
could help to make the dependent variable more tractable. This, however, leads us to the
second problem.
As we have seen in Chapter 1, Europeanization research has boomed in recent years,

but so far it has not succeeded in providing specific theories of how the process runs and
what its overall effects are. There is, in short, a problem of causality. On a time-scale of,
say, ten to twenty years, it is certainly not hard to find instances of fundamental political
change in every EU member state, but it is considerably more difficult to isolate and
measure the main causes. Here we might include electoral shifts, domestic socio-
economic change (economic growth, shifts in economic structure, etc.), cultural shifts
(e.g. the increase of post-materialist values), the globalization of culture and the
economy, etc. ‘Europe’ is likely to be just one of those factors, which, to make things
even more complicated, may be expected to work in a closely interrelated way. As Klaus
Goetz has pointed out, the obvious danger is that, in the wrong hands, Europeanization
research can very easily become ‘a cause [i.e. the EU] in search of an effect [at the
domestic level]’ (Goetz 2001:211). But as soon as the supposed effect (i.e.
Europeanization) is scrutinized in detail, it soon becomes obvious that there are many
other equally plausible explanations. The only way to circumvent the problem of
causality, it seems, is to resort to detailed empirical research, which is one of the primary
aims of this particular book.
Theoretical approaches to convergence

Generally speaking, two schools of thought exist which posit different predictions about
the extent and mechanisms of policy convergence. The first of these draws upon
sociological institutional concepts and theories to predict growing levels of similarity (i.e.
convergence) among organizational forms. The basic claim made by these theories is that
organizations tend to become more similar as they struggle to become more isomorphic
with their operating environment (Meyer and Rowan 1977). What drives the process of
convergence is not a mechanical, Weber-like rationality or a neo-Darwinian competition
to survive, but a desire to conform to institutionalized notions of what it means to be
‘successful’. Organizations (or, in our case, countries) must, it is claimed, be seen to be
doing certain things. Since any departure from the dominant pattern or ‘myth’ spells
failure, organizations tend to mimic one another in an attempt to reduce uncertainties in
their task environments. Consequently, they tend to converge around common norms.
This line of argument has been used to account for the spread of ideas like new public
management (Powell and Di Maggio 1991), but it could apply equally well to
environmental ideas like environmentalism or ecological modernization. To summarize,
sociological institutional theories argue that similar national policies do not simply arise
because they are the most ‘efficient’ or ‘effective’ means of tackling problems (cf.
Lowi’s (1964) dictum that ‘policy determines politics’), but because they have a far wider
cultural value and legitimacy That is to say, extra-rational logics of cultural
appropriateness are hugely important in shaping the pattern of national policy change
(Peters 1999:102–3).
Pulling in the opposite direction are powerful forces that maintain or even increase the
level of diversity (i.e. divergence) among national policy systems. This argument is most
commonly associated with historical institutional scholars, who claim that national
policies are not empty vessels, but the accumulated product of successively different
combinations of ideas, interests and institutions. These institutional forms, which are
strongly rooted in history and are regarded as legitimate in the eyes of national actors,
pre-structure new combinations of responses in a highly path-dependent manner. Instead
of a block-like formation, a better analogy for the internal structure of states might be
layer upon layer of sand. As these layers cannot easily be moved about, states, to quote
Olsen (2002:935), will tend to ‘differentially adapt…to European pressures on their own
terms’. Consequently, we might find that states respond very differently to the same
problems, in terms of the content, structure and style of the policies they deploy. In fact,
on this view there are no ‘common’ environmental problems at all: very basic and deep-
rooted institutional differences between the states ensure that each perceives, processes
and responds to the ‘same’ environmental problem in a uniquely different way.
These different national forms are part and parcel of what Hoffman (1966:881) long
ago referred to as the fundamental ‘logic of diversity’ that is the wellspring of inter-
governmental conflict and negotiation in the EU. This means that national policy forms
will perpetuate themselves even when compelled to converge by a legally superior entity
such as the EU (March and Olsen 1989:53–69). Thus, we commonly find different
national repertoires of policy instruments (Bennett 1988:439; Jordan et al. 2003),
different national regulatory regimes (Héritier and Thatcher 2002:869) and different
policy objectives. National bureaucratic systems have not converged under the influence
of new public management ideas (Hood 2001), so why should the EU be expected to
have produced a systematic convergence in national environmental policies? After all,
there are many different varieties of national capitalism in what is supposedly a single,
globalized world economy (Berger and Dore 1996; Hall and Soskice 2000; Hay 2000).
The main problem with the ‘divergence’ thesis is that the underlying causes of
incrementalism are not always spelt out. At its most extreme, the divergence thesis is
potentially highly tautologous (i.e. things do not change because they are resistant to
change). In recent work, North (1990) and Pierson (2000) have drawn upon studies of
technology policy to explain the ‘stickiness’ of institutional structures. Their ideas have
been applied to explain the stickiness of national administrative and policy arrangements
in the face of harmonizing pressures from the EU (Jordan 1999b). Put simply, national
policy forms tend to be quite rigid because both national administrations and polluters
have probably spent large amounts of money to implement them. In addition, social
networks soon emerge around new policies and other actors benefit by co-ordinating their
activities with others in those networks. All these factors help to ‘lock’ a policy into
place, making deregulation and even more minor updating difficult.
Different theories and different predictions

At a very general level, both these bodies of theory offer a compelling explanation of
some aspects of national environmental policy change. A sociological institutional
perspective would presumably account for any observed convergence among our ten
countries by relating it to taken-for-granted ideas such as those expressed by the social
movement of environmentalism. Once one country responds to the demands made by this
movement (e.g. by creating an environment ministry or adopting a protectionist policy
stance), others quickly follow. On this view (which, interestingly, shares many features
with the early neo-functional integration theories), the EU provides a mechanism for
maintaining and spreading cultural norms. Interestingly, the EU effect can be both direct
and hierarchical, i.e. top down Europeanization, or more horizontal and diffuse, e.g.
through processes such as policy learning and transfer—horizontal Europeanization (see
Chapter 1 ). Convergence will occur in such a context because countries that frequently
interact naturally ‘develop similarities in organizational structures, processes, recruitment
patterns, structures of meaning, principles of resource allocation, and reform patterns’
(Olsen 1996:161).
In contrast, historical institutional theories would account for the many obvious
differences in national environmental policy by invoking the more conservative
characteristics of national institutions. One does not need institutional theory to observe
that differentiation is in fact legally embedded in the widespread use of directives, which
are still the dominant instrument of EU environmental policy. Directives specify policy
goals but not how to achieve them; they deliberately leave room for member states to
maintain a wide variety of implementing approaches and contain many ‘escape devices’
(see Chapter 14). Thus, each member state has its own, relatively unique administrative
structure (CEC DG XI 1993; Council of the European Union 2001). In some countries we
find large, highly concentrated environmental ministries, whereas in others
environmental responsibilities are distributed across many ministries (Demmke and
Unfried 2001; Weale et al. 2000). Some states spend relatively large amounts on
environmental protection, whereas others spend much less (Pearce and Palmer 2001).1
Persistence or even divergence arises because in each country the stringency of
enforcement, the norms of ‘proper’ behaviour and the expectations of the participants
involved will all differ, as will the bargaining power of the various groups involved
(North 1990). It is therefore not especially surprising that policy outcomes—i.e. the
environmental performance of different states—also exhibit similarly large variations
(Scruggs 2003). This is because ‘the common imposition of a set of rules lead[s] to
widely divergent outcomes in societies with different institutional arrangements’ (North
1990:101).
A theoretical synthesis?
On the face of it, there is little scope for synthesizing these two perspectives because
sociological and historical institutionalism generate very different hypotheses regarding
the possible impact of the EU on national policies. While the former predicts
convergence, the latter predicts persistence and possibly even some divergence. As will
be demonstrated below, however, the rapidly developing empirical literature on the
Europeanization of state policies does not fit neatly with either approach, as some aspects
of national policy appear to be converging whereas as others remain the same. There is a
temptation to invoke sociological institutional theories to explain individual instances of
convergence, and historical institutional theories to deal with distinct cases of divergence.
Crucially, however, the two bodies of theory fail to account for what appears to be the
overall pattern, i.e. differentiation. Our problem of causality thus remains. If convergence
can be identified, it is by no means certain that Europeanization is the primary cause.
Autonomous national change may be a critical factor, as may other more international
factors. And if a clear EU effect on national policies and policy-making structures can be
identified, it is by no means certain that the overall outcome is one of secular
convergence. National differences may persist or even become more pronounced.
Europeanization: a convergent force?
Having failed to find an unequivocal theoretical answer to our problem of causality, what
does the burgeoning empirical literature on Europeanization have to offer? Put simply,
how far does the Europeanization of national environmental policy actually go and to
what extent does it lead to convergence? In this section, we review the prevailing
literature on Europeanization to see if it offers any additional clues. We show that it
paints a highly differentiated picture as regards the Europeanization of national policy
content, structure and style.
Policy content
It is widely accepted that European directives have a direct impact on the content of
member state policies and often lead to the adaptation of national regulation. According
to the EU Treaty (Article 249), directives set common goals, while member states are free
to choose the means for attaining those goals. In practice, however, these ‘goals’ may be
quite broadly defined and also involve the choice of policy instruments (legal obligations,
financial instruments, plans and programmes, etc.) or specific standards. A rapidly
increasing body of literature shows that the implementation of European policies does not
always proceed smoothly (Jordan 1999a). Early work on Europeanization (see Chapter 1)
tried to explain the EU’s failure to get its policies implemented by making reference to
the considerable ‘misfits’ that in some cases exist between European requirements and
pre-existing national policies (e.g. Boerzel 2000; Knill and Lenschow 2000), i.e. the
larger the misfit, the less likely implementation is to run smoothly.
However, as we explained in the previous chapter, EU policies are very rarely an
entirely extraneous imposition: particularly pro-active member states often compete to
shape the overriding ‘model’ of new European legislation (cf. Héritier 1996). Member
states that are most successful in this ‘regulatory competition’ will effectively limit the
extent to which their domestic policies are Europeanized. Instead, they seek to
‘domesticate’ European policy to make it compatible with what they are already doing.
The same country does not necessarily always triumph in this competition, however. In
the environmental field, Germany with its law-based, standard-oriented approach
dominated in the 1980s, while the more discretionary, quality approach of the British
gained influence in the 1990s (Héritier et al. 1996). As a result, Héritier (1996) argues,
European policy has the character of a ‘patchwork’ of national traditions and solutions,
not leaving any member state entirely untouched by Europeanization. However, countries
with less advanced policies at the time EU regulation is initiated will be less able to take
part in the process of regulatory competition in Brussels. They may be expected to end up
as ‘policy takers’ (see Chapter 1) more often than highly regulated (i.e. in environmental
policy usually ‘northern’) member states. Apart from that, it is conceivable that some
countries have a more Versatile’ approach to solving environmental problems than
others. Dutch environmental policy, for example, combines elements of both the German
and the British environmental policy paradigm (Chapter 9) and has thus been able to
accommodate most EU environmental legislation rather smoothly (cf. Liefferink 1996).
There is not necessarily ‘less’ Europeanization of national policies in such countries in
absolute terms, but it is probably less visible than in countries where an obvious ‘misfit’
has led to considerable political struggles.
Policy structure
Although Europeanization is still an ‘emergent’ field of enquiry (Hix and Goetz
2000:15), there is already a reasonably widespread belief that the EU’s impact on
national institutional structures has been far less obvious and less deeply rooted than on
the substance of national policies (e.g. Bulmer and Burch 1998; 2000a/b). Yes, national
structures have been Europeanized, in the sense that the EU has encouraged national
bureaucrats and politicians to spend more and more of their time negotiating in
‘European’ venues such as the European Council. And yes, the resulting policies have,
through a steady process of Europeanization, become more similar in many important
respects. But in spite of these trends the ‘EU remains with fifteen-plus-one quite different
component units’ (Wessels et al. 2001:25).
That institutions change only slowly and, more than that, should actively resist change
is an enduring feature of organizational analysis, starting with the work of Downs and
Selznick, through to the ‘new’ institutionalism of March and Olsen (1989). In his seminal
work on bureaucracy, Downs (1967:20) observed a ‘Law of Increasing Conservatism’
through which organizations become more conservative (i.e. resistant to externally
induced change) as they get older. Part of the reason is that, once organizations (or indeed
countries) have developed a specialism, they fall into the ‘competence trap’ of clinging to
it long after it ceases to be optimal, rather than incur the risks associated with new
approaches (Levitt and March 1988:322).
So, if there is one aspect of a state’s basic make-up that we would expect to be the
most sticky—and hence the least affected by Europeanization—it is likely to be policy
structures, given the time and expense required to build new administrative arrangements.
By and large, this expectation is borne out by the emerging literature on national
institutional structures. For instance, Rometsch and Wessels (1996:xiii) refer to a process
of ‘institutional fusion’ that is bringing states and the EU into closer contact with one
another. National institutions have, they claim, been deeply ‘Europeanized’, i.e. they
have adapted their structures and procedures and are, to a growing extent, oriented
towards the activities in Brussels and Strasbourg. However, they conclude that ‘the trend
towards institutional fusion is moulded and taking shape, without…leading to the
convergence of the national constitutional settings towards (one) state model’ (ibid.:
329). Similarly, Bulmer and Burch (1998), in their study of the Europeanization of
Whitehall, conclude that ‘at the level of machinery, governmental structures and
procedure, the impact of Europe has been far less evident’ (ibid.: 624) than on the
substance of policies. In fact, the main effect of EU membership ‘seems to have been to
renew national traditions of administration rather than to confound them’ (Bulmer and
Burch 2000a:75, emphasis added). Such ‘domestic adaptation with national colours’
(Cowles et al. 2001:1) is broadly consistent with the findings of many other comparative
studies (e.g. Harmsen 1999; Weale et al. 2000; Kassim et al. 2000; 2001), including
some conducted by the EU itself (Council of the European Union 2001).
Not surprisingly, therefore, many scholars tend to speak of the transformative rather
than converging impact of European integration. This idea is expressed in the title of the
volume by Cowles et al. on Europeanization, Transforming Europe. The concluding

chapter of that book suggests that such a transformation undermines Moravcsik’s
argument that the EU is predominantly state dominated (Cowles et al. 2001:225), i.e. if
the EU was a creature of state control, then it should leave their operating structures
relatively intact—it does not. Héritier’s (1996:331, 341) co-authored volume provides the
very slightest of hints that the ‘European state is undergoing an ineluctable, often
imperceptible process of change little noticed by the general public’ (emphasis added).
The ‘transformation of the state’ argument (see also Risse-Kappen 1996; Kohler-Koch
1996; Kohler-Koch and Eising 2000) has been most forcefully expressed by Christiansen
et al. (1999:529), who argue that:
a significant amount of evidence suggests that, as a process, European

integration has a transformative impact on the European state system and
its constituent units. [I]t is reasonable to assume that…agents’ identity and
subsequently their interest and behaviour have…changed. (emphasis in
original)
Moravcsik (2000) interprets this argument as being more about the differential
empowerment of the state, rather than its wholesale transformation per se (i.e. some
transformations are very deliberately and consciously sought by the core executive as a
means to enhance their domestic autonomy) (Moravcsik 1994). At this point, both sides
could be accused of splitting hairs. But what is more striking for our purposes is that
those supporting a ‘resilience’ line tend to concentrate on the formal hardware of the
state, whereas those advocating ‘transformation’ generally focus on the software of the
state. In many respects this is just a restatement of the hoary debate between inter-
governmentalism and neofunctionalism about the drivers and outcomes of European
integration, only with the extra feedback effect of domestic transformation added on.
Policy style
As regards the possible convergence of national policy styles, the existing literature deals
with two related, but analytically distinct, questions: the emergence of a European policy
style characteristic of the policy process in Brussels, and the convergence of national
policy styles under the influence of the European integration. The former question of the
development of a recognizable ‘Brussels’ style of policy making as such is not the subject
of this volume. However, if it were true that a more stable European style is emerging, it
means, by implication, that the conduct of member states (at least in Brussels) is
converging towards a ‘Brussels model’. Such a convergence, which may also have
consequences for policy co-ordination and implementation at the national level, is at the
heart of this volume.
Unfortunately, opinions about the form of a possible European policy style differ
strongly. Streeck and Schmitter (1991:159) argue that the EU is not moving—and is
unlikely ever to move fully—towards ‘(German or Scandinavian) neocorporatism’.
Instead, an ‘American-style pattern of “disjointed pluralism” …characterized by a
profound absence of hierarchy and monopoly among a wide variety of players of different
but uncertain status’ (ibid.; emphasis in the original) is their best prediction. At the other
end of the spectrum, Greenwood and others (Greenwood et al. 1992; Greenwood and
Cram 1996) argue that neocorporatisttype relations between private actors and EU
institutions, particularly the Commission, do exist. But Greenwood and his colleagues
have conceded that this phenomenon has so far been limited to certain policy sectors,
while others are still characterized by large numbers of actors, shifting coalitions and
multiple lobbying strategies (Mazey and Richardson 1996). The current picture is
complex, in sum, and ranges from loose, pluralist issue networks around some issues to
more closed policy communities with an element of corporatist reciprocity around others.
This implies that a clear convergence of national styles on one ‘Brussels model’ is
highly unlikely because of the apparent lack of such a model. In fact many analysts,
basically following an historical institutional logic, assume national styles are firmly
rooted in historically developed legal and administrative institutions. Van Waarden
(1995:361ff.), for instance, underlines the robustness of national regulatory styles on the
basis of both theoretical first principles and the actual empirical experience of change in
small countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden. Despite the fact that their
economies have been relatively open for a long time, he argues, they have largely
retained their regulatory traditions. Van Waarden even claims that:
although the different nations may be confronted with similar economic

and political developments, their different institutions and regulatory
styles will cause them to react differently to the common contingencies.
This could even produce further divergence, rather than convergence.
(Van Waarden 1995:364)
In a slightly less forceful manner, Vogel (1986), Bennett (1991) and, more recently, also
Cowles et al. (2001:15ff. and 228–9) and Knill and Lenschow (2001), observe a strong
resilience of national institutions and styles. Generally speaking, these authors consider a
convergence of policy substance to be a much more likely outcome than a convergence of
system-wide structures, including deeply rooted national styles (e.g. Bennett 1991:229;
Van Waarden 1995:364; Cowles et al. 2001:232). This is of course not to say that
national institutions and styles will only ever change on a geological time-scale.
Revolutionary events or heavy internal or external pressure—economic or political crises,
a radical change of government, etc.—may cause key elements of national administrative
systems to adapt, as illustrated, for instance, by the impact of the Thatcher governments
in the UK. European integration, however, can hardly be regarded as a ‘sudden’ or one-
off political event. Instead, it is a gradual process and its domestic impact probably comes
about even more gradually This makes it considerably more difficult to identify this
impact and to separate it from other causes of long-term systemic change.
This review of the literature makes at least three things clear. First, it is not easy to
identify a tangible effect of ‘Europe’ on policies or policy making in the member states.
And second, even if one was able definitively to identify such an effect, Europeanization
cannot simply be equated with convergence. The impact of Europe can in fact just as
easily be so differential (Héritier et al. 2001) as to lead to persistence or even divergence
among previously similar member states. At a very general level, it may be concluded
that the EU’s efforts to achieve harmonization may have led to a considerable
convergence in the substance of national policy. As far as national structures and styles
are concerned, however, their adaptation appears to have taken place largely according to
pre-existing national models and traditions (Kassim 2003; Page 2003).
Third, the existing literature does not adequately explain whether this pattern has more
to do with the weakness of the EU, or the institutional resilience of national policy forms.
It is obvious that the EU’s ability directly to generate national change is actually quite
modest. After all, as a regulatory state (Majone 1996), the EU only actively disseminates
models of policy content in the form of directives and regulations. This may lead to a
direct impact on, for instance, national environmental policy goals or the level of
standards. The EU’s impact on the way national policies are made (i.e. the institutional
layout of the policy field and the style of interaction between the actors involved) can, by
definition, only be indirect, implicit in the substantive requirements of directives and
regulations, and heavily modulated by state characteristics. We have already noted the
marked absence of a European policy style emanating from Brussels, or a structural
blueprint that every state is compelled to reproduce in its own territory. However,
historical institutional scholars would no doubt also wish to emphasize the path-
dependent character of national structures and styles vis-à-vis policy (see Pierson 2000).
In one sense, Europeanization scholars are now beginning to confront this problem in a
much more direct fashion than scholars of comparative politics studying convergence.
Mechanisms of convergence in the EU
The challenge now is to find a way through this jungle of empirical findings and
theoretical predictions without getting trapped in the mutually exclusive, ‘deadend’
explanations of either sociological and/or historical institutionalism. One possibly more
fruitful way forward is to focus not on the fundamental causes of change but rather on the
possible mechanisms by which the EU could have brought about the observed effects.
This approach is deliberately eclectic, building on what Olsen (2002:944) refers to as
‘middle range…models of institutional change’. In pursuing it, we build upon the work of
Colin Bennett (1991) to develop a set of expectations about how the EU could
conceivably foster convergence.
Bennett distinguishes four general mechanisms which may induce national policies to
converge:
1. Emulation, characterized by ‘the utilization of evidence about a programme or
programmes from overseas and a drawing of lessons from that experience’ (ibid.: 221;
emphasis added).
2. Elite networking, characterized by ‘the existence of shared ideas amongst a relatively
coherent and enduring network of elites engaging in regular interaction at the
transnational level… Unlike emulation, the policy community engages in a shared
experience of learning about the problem’ (ibid.: 224; emphasis added).
3. Harmonization, ‘driven by a recognition of interdependence’ (ibid.: 225) and
characterized by ‘the coincident recognition and resolution of a common problem
through the pre-existing structures and processes of an international regime’ (ibid.:
227; emphasis added).
4. Penetration, ‘in which states are forced to conform to actions taken elsewhere by
external actors’ (ibid.: 227).
Convergence through emulation

Bennett suggests that both policy content and policy structure can be subject to emulation
and gives examples of policy goals, precise standards and special administrative agencies
being modelled on foreign examples (ibid.: 211–33). Interestingly, he argues that policy
style is ‘logically’ excluded from emulation (ibid.: 211), but this is difficult to maintain a
priori. For instance, there was a very rapid proliferation of consensus-seeking ‘Round
Tables’ in Central and Eastern Europe immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall that
engendered a more openly democratic style of decision making in areas that had
previously been communist. Rather, the problem is that style is often closely associated
with the institutions surrounding it (here the ‘Round Tables’), so that it is hard to say
where the learning process—if it can be demonstrated to have occurred at all—actually
started. As Bennett points out, lesson-drawing from others may be triggered by a number
of conditions, such as the timing of policy and the sense of urgency, the inherent
properties of the policy, the level of value consensus in the ‘emulator country’, and the
institutional compatibility between ‘example’ and ‘emulator’ (ibid.: 213). To this may be
added the sheer awareness of the existence of a potential example abroad. The latter two
conditions—institutional compatibility and awareness of the foreign example—suggest a
certain preference to learn from (physically, politically) ‘neighbouring’ countries. In this
sense the EU framework may be relevant, but by no means exclusively important.
Convergence through elite networking

Elite networking is assumed to occur within transnational policy (Marsh and Rhodes
1992; Peterson 1995) and epistemic communities (Haas 1992) where shared perceptions
and solutions develop slowly over time. The ideas are then ‘taken home’ by the
participants, without further involvement of any international agency. In other words, if
policy change occurs, it is likely to be entirely at the discretion of the national level
(Bennett 1991:225). Like emulation, elite networking will most probably be concentrated
on policy content (goals, instruments, settings of those instruments) and institutional
structures. National styles are less likely to be strongly or immediately affected by
individuals taking part in transnational meetings with colleagues and carrying any
‘Brussels style’ home with them.
With its permanent ‘circus’ of expert committees (Bach 1992; Christiansen and
Kirchner 2000), at first sight the EU looks like a fertile context for elite networking.
However, most of its committees are primarily occupied with the task of preparing,
negotiating and implementing regulations and are thus designed formally around
harmonization efforts. Strictly following Bennett’s definition, they would come under the
third process—harmonization. At the same time, the effect of such committees on
developing common views and a common language beyond their formal subject matter
should not be underestimated. They may, in fact, be breeding-grounds for new ideas that
can be taken up not only by the Commission (Pellegrom 1997; Liefferink and Andersen
1998), but also by individual member states. Apart from that, genuinely informal
committees do exist in the EU. By bringing together national civil servants, they are key
sites of elite networking. Some of these, such as the Implementation and Enforcement of
Environmental Law (IMPEL) network, have as their explicit goal the exchange of
information and ‘best practices’ with a view to common ‘lesson-drawing’ and,

eventually, the adoption of common policy objectives and instruments.
Convergence through harmonization

Harmonization is very much the core business of the EU. It is undoubtedly the most
important mechanism used by the EU to secure national change and, probably,
convergence. As directives specify the ends to be achieved but not the means of doing so,
harmonization is most likely to directly affect the content of policy. However, in some
cases the establishment of new institutions (or the adaptation of existing ones) is required
in all but name by some EU legislation, e.g. the obligation to organize water policies
around water catchment areas that is deeply embodied in the recent Water Framework
Directive (2000/60/EC). In other cases, policy structures and policy styles may be only
indirectly affected. The application of a new policy instrument, for instance, may lead to
shifts in competences between domestic agencies, new procedures and new working
routines, or create new political opportunities for pressure groups to exploit (see Jordan et
al. 2003).
Convergence through penetration

In Bennett’s view, ‘certain efforts at harmonization can have a coercive effect on states’
(Bennett 1991:227), particularly if there is some sort of (formal, political, economic)
penalty at stake. Since the Amsterdam Treaty revisions, for instance, much EU
environmental legislation has had to be formally adopted by a qualified majority, i.e.
potentially against the will of one or more member states. Deficient implementation,
moreover, can lead not only to a formal judgment from the European Court of Justice
(ECJ), but also to a considerable fine. Here harmonization fades into penetration, the
fourth of Bennett’s mechanisms. Also, other EU rules, such as veterinary or anti-trust
provisions, can have a coercive effect upon member states. In addition to this, Bennett
(ibid: 228–9) uses the term ‘penetration’ to encompass the role of transnational actors as
they seek to create a level playing field across the EU. He gives the example of the
influence of multinational capital on national deregulation policies, but transnational
NGOs can play a similar role by mobilizing public opinion across borders. In the case of
penetration by transnational actors, the EU serves as the anchor point for private-actor
coalitions with the potential power to push different states in similar directions.
Conclusions
This chapter has sought to demonstrate that the empirical link between Europeanization
and convergence is not clear cut. In fact, the existing literature suggests that there is no
rigid, automatic link between the two. There may be Europeanization without
convergence, i.e. the impact of Europe may come down to pre-existing national polities
and policies in such different ways that it leads to persistence of cross-national variation
or even divergence, rather than convergence. But there may also be convergence without
Europeanization. This can occur when national policies grow more similar to one another
because of factors other than Europeanization (e.g. cultural or economic globalization in

a more general sense, or ‘bilateral’ learning effects, or even similar, but essentially
autonomous, domestic developments).
In order to make the link between the convergence (or otherwise) of national policies
and the impact of the EU more tractable, we have chosen in this chapter to focus on more
middle-range theories of change. Applying Colin Bennett’s mechanisms of convergence
to the EU, a picture emerges of policy content being more susceptible to convergence
under the influence of the EU than structure and style. As we have seen, this is in general
agreement with the prevailing literature on Europeanization. Unfortunately, as much of
this empirical material has been collected in a somewhat unsystematic fashion (i.e. some
aspects of policy and/or countries are better covered than others), the fit may not be a
robust one. In the remainder of this book we use these theoretical insights to shed light on
our own empirical findings, which are set out in the ten case-study chapters. But first, in
the next chapter, we will describe some of the analytical devices that we will be using to
pinpoint the dominant patterns of change, and to disentangle the EU’s influence from
other causal factors.
Note
1 In fact, the main finding of Pearce and Palmer’s study is that states report their spending to the
OECD so inconsistently that it is extremely difficult to make valid comparisons.
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3
Measuring Europeanization and policy
convergence
National baseline conditions
Duncan Liefferink and Andrew Jordan
Introduction
In the first two chapters of this book we explored the literature that has emerged around
the two interlinked concepts of Europeanization and policy convergence respectively.
The remainder of this volume will consist of ten detailed country studies, followed by a
comparative analysis (Chapter 14). However, before turning to the empirical case studies,
we first need to address two important analytical problems that were raised, but not fully
addressed, in the previous chapters. The first of these relates to the measurement (and
eventually the comparison) of the main changes in national policy in the period 1970–
2000. We shall explain that our preferred approach relies upon the construction of
national policy ‘baselines’ for each of the ten countries around 1970. In the concluding
chapter we assess the amount of Europeanization and, if applicable, policy convergence
that has occurred in relation to these baselines. The other analytical problem relates to the
quantification of the EU’s influence as compared to other possible causes of national
policy change, be they domestic, international or a combination of both.
The remainder of this chapter unfolds as follows. The second section offers a more
detailed description of how we handled these two analytical problems. The third part
describes the baseline conditions in the ten countries in c. 1970 and relates them to the
prevailing empirical accounts of national patterns of policy making which are to be found
in the existing literature (and were summarized in Chapters 1 and 2).
Analytical and methodological issues
Any study which attempts to examine the interlinked phenomena of Europeanization and
policy convergence must confront a number of important analytical and methodological
issues. These are broadly concerned with the measurement of national change and the
identification of its underlying causes, i.e. domestic, EU and/or international. The first of
these concerns the selection of countries. We have already explained that the empirical
core of this volume comprises ten studies of the Europeanization of national
environmental policy. The ten countries covered are Austria, Finland, France, Germany,
Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK. This selection was made
so as to constitute a representative sample of ‘new’ (i.e. post–1995) and older member
Measuring Europeanization and policy convergence 31
states, environmental ‘leaders’ and ‘laggards’, and northern and southern states. Of the
ten, Norway is very much a special case, as it is not formally a member state, although
Chapter 10 reveals that it has always enjoyed close and harmonious connections with the
EU.
The second issue relates to the sectoral focus of the study. In Chapter 1 we offered
three reasons for focusing exclusively on environmental policy. Firstly (and briefly
summarizing the arguments developed in Chapter 1), EU environmental policy has
evolved over a sufficiently long period of time (around three decades) to enable broad
changes to be tracked over time. Secondly, national environmental policies pre-existed in
at least some form when the first EU initiatives in the field were launched, thereby
allowing us to construct national policy ‘baselines’ for each of the ten countries (see the
next section). Thirdly, considerable expertise on EU environmental policy and its
implementation in the member states already exists, which eases the burden of
undertaking a large comparative study such as ours. We should also note that there are, as
explained in Chapter 1, good grounds for believing that environmental policy is
intrinsically well suited to a simple, top down approach to Europeanization.
Third, we need to identify who or what is doing the ‘Europeanizing’. As our approach
is top down, our independent variable is obviously ‘the EU’, although we actually
employ the term ‘Europeanization’ rather than ‘EU-ization’ (Wallace 2000), which is
technically correct but a bit of a mouthful! One might be forgiven for assuming that it is
self-evident what ‘the EU’ represents with respect to environmental policy measures. But
in fact the precise boundaries of EU environmental policy are surprisingly difficult to
delineate, with some scholars favouring a maximal definition and some a much more
minimal definition (see Jordan et al. 1999; McCormick 2002). Just to complicate matters
further, Haigh (2003) argues that the introduction of the environmental policy integration
(EPI) principle (Schout and Jordan forthcoming) has made that task even more difficult.
So now EU environmental policy could be said to encompass those acts adopted under
the internal-market policy that directly relate to the environment (Article 95) and those
adopted under, or in association with, the environmental parts of the Treaty (Articles
174–6), as well as any steps taken by ‘non’ environmental sectors to advance EPI. In
writing their accounts, the case-study authors started by looking at the impact of the
environmental acquis communautaire as set out in directives, regulations and other
strategic documents such as action programmes, strategies and white papers. Where
other, ‘non’ environmental policy drivers were deemed to be locally important, they are
noted in the relevant chapter.
In trying to pinpoint our independent variable, we have already partially addressed the
fourth analytical problem, which is how best to disentangle the top down impact of the
EU from other drivers of domestic change, not least globalization and national initiatives
such as new public management (Goetz 2001:219). Unless these rival explanations are
fully considered and steps taken to control them, Europeanization risks being ‘a cause in
search of an effect’ (ibid.: 211). But as Radaelli (2003:48–9) very honestly points out,
stressing the need for multi-causal analysis is one thing, but actually doing it is another
entirely. In order, therefore, to disentangle the EU’s effects, we asked the chapter authors
to do three things: (1) compare the effects of Europeanization with other possible causes
of domestic change; (2) where Europeanization is invoked as a driver, specify the mode
or modes of influence (see Chapter 1); and (3) throughout their accounts, actively explore
the counterfactual, i.e. what would have happened without the EU (Schmitter 1999).
It is worth emphasizing that our case selection should also help to control for rival
sources of domestic change, in that the ten states did not join the EU at precisely the same
time (in fact one, Norway, is still not a full member). If we find that the post–1973
entrants joined the EU with national policies that were already strongly aligned with the
environmental acquis, then there is a strong possibility that some of the rival explanations
(e.g. industrialization) deserve closer attention, although we should be careful not to
underestimate the ‘pre-membership’ effects of the EU. At first sight, the inclusion of
Norway in our sample of ten offers an additional means of disentangling the EU effect, as
it shares similar socioeconomic characteristics with many of the other highly
industrialized states but has never been a full member of the EU.
Fifth, we also need to be clear about what is being impacted by the EU. As this
volume employs a top down approach to Europeanization, we are essentially looking for
the impact of the EU on its member states. This implies that our dependent variable
should encompass some aspect of a member state’s form or function. But which one? In
some studies the dependent variable is defined very broadly. For instance, Cowles et al.
(2001) refer to the Europeanization of national structures at large, which they take to
include policy structures (political, legal and administrative arrangements) and ‘system-
wide’ structures (e.g. legal systems, sub-national government, business-industry relations,
citizenship norms and even public understandings of the legitimate role of the nation
state). In this book, we have elected to focus on a much narrower, but consistently
defined, sub-set of characteristics, namely policy content, policy structures and policy
style. We provide a more precise definition of these three concepts below. By adopting a
narrower definition, we hope it will be easier not only to compare the Europeanization of
policies across countries, but also to plot policy changes over time within any individual
country.
Having identified ‘national policy’ as our main dependent variable, we still need to
narrow this down to a specific sector. As we are broadly interested in environmental
policy, the answer should be self-evident. Unfortunately, national environmental policy is
just as difficult to pin down as EU environmental policy, if not more so. Therefore, for
entirely pragmatic reasons, we have decided not to ask the chapter authors to analyse a
common sub-set of environmental policy problems. The main difficulty is that the
definition of the ‘environment’ differs from country to country and, moreover, has
changed significantly over time. In many countries, the traditional ‘anthropocentric’
focus on human health has evolved into a wider, more ‘ecocentric’ focus which also
encompasses the effects of environmental deterioration on ecosystems as a whole. Since
the 1990s, the idea of ‘sustainable development’ has closely linked traditional
environmental policies to social and economic issues. Protection of natural areas, on the
other hand, has been the object of state policy since the end of the nineteenth century,
particularly in the northern and more central parts of Europe. For obvious geographical
reasons, the south has a set of environmental problems of its own, including for instance
forest fires and desertification.
Although these definitional differences could be studied from the perspective of
Europeanization and globalization, we have chosen not to do so. Instead, our chapter
authors have utilized a more pragmatic approach, which starts from what is regarded as
‘environmental policy’ in their respective countries. In reality most of this volume

analyses policies focusing on pollution and its effects on human health, as well as
ecosystems and policies for the protection of nature, i.e. both areas and species. Both
aspects have been the subject of EU policies since the early 1970s, when the First
Environmental Action Programme was published. Slight national differences in emphasis
within this broad policy field exist but clear outliers generally do not.
Table 3.1 Indicative examples of domestic change
Policy Policy Policy
content structures style
Inertia no change no change no change
Retrenchment no change no change no change
Absorption existing existing co- slight
instruments ordination changes
recalibratednetworks within a
retuned; sub-type,
coordination e.g. more to
committees less
reformulated anticipatory
Accommodation completely new co- changes
new ordination within a
instruments structures subtype,
added created; e.g. more to
existing less
competences anticipatory
reallocated
between
levels
Transformation paradigmatic machinery significant
changes of flip
government between
changes; sub-types,
new e.g.
competences reactionary
added to
anticipatory
The sixth analytical issue we need to address is the measurement of domestic change.
Radaelli (2001:10) puts his finger on the core problem when he asks what sort of
empirical evidence is needed to know that a particular domestic change should be
categorized as, for example, ‘adaptation’ but not ‘transformation’. To address this
problem, we provided the chapter authors with an indicative list of different magnitudes
of domestic change (see Table 3.1). We reassess the utility of this typology in the final
chapter.
Finally, as we have decided not to define Europeanization ‘as a two-way street’ (i.e.
the fifth definition discussed in Chapter 1), the chapter authors were initially asked to
bracket off the upward flow of influence on the EU. In order, however, to give due credit
to the flow of influence going in the downward direction, each chapter does refer to
instances of ‘uploading’, ‘domestication’ or ‘projection’ as far as this has been employed

as a specific strategy to minimize Europeanization.
National policy baselines, c. 1970
In this book, the combined effects of Europeanization and domestication will be assessed
along three distinct but subtly interrelated variables, namely policy content, policy
structure and policy style. In this section, these variables will be further defined. In
addition, a general comparative overview will also be given of the basic features of
environmental policy in the ten countries covered in this study in the early 1970s, i.e.
prior to the EU’s involvement in the area of the environment. Within these countries, of
course, environmental policy was still very much in statu nascendi in 1970, but the most
basic organizational features of national policy and policy making were already well
established. The overview will serve as a ‘baseline’ against which, in Chapter 14, the
impact of Europeanization will eventually be assessed.1
Policy content
Following Hall (1993), policy content can be divided into three different levels. The first
relates to the precise setting of policy instruments, e.g. the level of emission standards or
taxes, the chemicals included in ‘grey’ and ‘black’ lists, etc. The second comprises the
instruments or techniques by which policy goals are attained, e.g. direct regulation, fiscal
instruments or voluntary agreements. The third level comprises the overall goals that
guide policy. These goals operate within a policy paradigm or a ‘framework of ideas and
standards that specifies not only the goals of policy and the kind of instruments that can
be used to attain them, but also the very nature of the problems they are meant to be
addressing’ (ibid.: 279).
Table 3.2 characterizes the key features of policy content in the ten countries in c.
1970. Although necessarily crude and tremendously simplifying, it does reveal a number
of interesting differences in the ‘starting situation’ of the ten. So, whereas environmental
policy in the early 1970s can everywhere be characterized as basically reactive or
curative, i.e. directed at solving existing (often
Table 3.2 Environmental policy content in the ten
countries c. 1970
Policy goals Main instrument
(s)
Austria source-based regulation
Finland source-based regulation
France primarily source- regulation
based
Germany source-based regulation
Ireland mix of source- regulation
based and effect-
based
Netherlands source-based predominantly

regulation
Norway source-based regulation
Spain source-based regulation
Sweden source-based regulation
UK predominantly regulation (though
effect-based with nonspecific
(optimization) objectives)
urgent) problems (see also Table 3.4 on policy style), a clear division already appears as
regards the more concrete policy goals that were adopted in different parts of Europe. On
the one hand, continental European states tended to organize policies according to the
main sources of pollution. Without downplaying the possibility of flexible practices of
implementation, general rules were applied to entire categories of sources. This fitted the
axioms of statute or Roman law in these countries. By contrast, the UK, and to a lesser
extent also Ireland, preferred a more contextual approach, reflecting their common-law
traditions and island geography. Very often pragmatic judgments were employed by
officials in these countries, aiming to ‘optimize’ pollution by piping waste into the air or
the sea, thereby bringing local effects to an acceptable level without incurring
unnecessary economic costs. In a number of (predominantly northern) continental
countries, the source-based approach developed in later years into the principle of
precaution, which aims at preventing pollution at source even if the effects are uncertain
or locally absent. The conflict between the continental uniform emission standards and
‘best available technologies’ approach, on the one hand, and the more British
environmental quality objectives (EQOs) and ‘best practicable means’ approach, on the
other, became a recurring source of conflict in the development of EU environmental
policy in the period after 1973 (Wurzel 2002:19ff.).
As regards the main instruments of national environmental policy, the early 1970s
exhibit a universal preference for regulatory tools. This is not to say that there were no
obvious exceptions to this overall pattern, as other types of instruments (e.g. taxes,
subsidies, voluntary agreements, etc.) were being applied in all ten countries c. 1970. In
some cases (e.g. the Dutch water pollution charge) these were anything but marginal
(Andersen 1994). Nor does it imply that regulation was everywhere the same. Formal
laws tended to have a rather general character, while there were differences with regard
to the way these ‘frameworks’ were ‘filled in’ with concrete norms and standards (Jordan
et al. 2003).
Finally, there is no column in Table 3.2 which summarizes the calibration of national
instruments. In many respects, the baseline situation is extremely difficult to capture in
one number or even qualitative measure. Across the board (i.e. in all countries for the
large majority of issues), the precise setting of environmental standards was no doubt less
strict than it is now. There were also certainly significant differences between countries
(see above), but this is a trivial observation. What really interests us in this book is the
extent to which the EU has caused an additional tightening of standards between 1970
and the present day. In that sense, Hall’s final aspect of policy content (i.e. calibration)
does feature strongly in the country chapters as well as in the concluding chapter, even
though it does not appear in Table 3.2.
Policy structures
The concept of policy structure is also potentially very broad, which raises similar
definitional problems. In very general terms, national institutional structures range from
formal bureaucratic organizations with staff, budgets and buildings, through to more
cultural phenomena such as codes, conventions and other socialized ways of looking at
the world (Peters 1999:28, 146). It is not surprising, therefore, that very often scholars
study very different phenomena even though they all claim to be studying national
‘structures’. The recent volume on Europeanization edited by Cowles et al. (2001:4)
defines national structure very widely to mean ‘patterned relationships which are stable
over time’ (emphasis added), of which the most significant element is national
institutions. Like Dryzek (1996), they differentiate between formal structures (i.e.
national legal systems, national and regional administrative arrangements) and informal
ones (business—government relations, discourses, identities and citizenship norms).
Rometsch and Wessels (1996:xv), on the other hand, are more centrally concerned with
things at the ‘harder’ end of Dryzek’s continuum of types, namely central government
departments and agencies, parliaments, the courts and sub-national government. Goetz
(2001) and the contributors to the two volumes by Kassim et al. (2000; 2001) restrict
their focus to the central
Table 3.3 Environmental policy structures in the ten
countries c. 1970
Creation of Relative Arrangements Importance of Importance of
Environment strength of for EU and national sub-national
Ministry Environment foreign policy parliament in government in
Ministry* co-ordination environmental environmental
policy process policy making
Austria 1972 −− Env. Min. − −
leading
Finland 1983 − Foreign Affairs − −
leading (implementation:
some discretion
for regional state
offices)
France 1971 −− Foreign Affairs − +
discretion for
specialized state
offices and
municipalities)
Germany 1986 (env. + Interior Min. − ++
pol. under leading
Interior Min.
from
1969/70)
Ireland 1979 − Foreign Affairs − − −
some discretion
for
municipalities)
Netherlands 1971 − Foreign Affairs − −
leading
Norway 1972 − Foreign Affairs + −
leading (but increasing
during 1970s)
Spain 1996 (env. −− Min of Public − − −−
pol. under Works leading (Franco period (but rapid
Min. of until 1975) regionalization
PublicWorks from 1978)
from 1977–
96)
Sweden 1987 (Env. − −− −− −
Protection Foreign Affairs
Agency in leading
1967)
UK 1970 − Foreign Affairs − ++
supervising (strong
discretion vested
in technical
agencies/ local
government)
Notes Meaning of symbols: ++ = crucial; + = strong/important; − = weak/secondary; – – =
insignificant (for further explanation: see text).
* The Environment Ministry or, if this did not exist at the time, any other ministry in which
environmental competences were concentrated.
parts of the executive, that is the prime minister, his or her cabinet and the central
(cabinet) mechanisms for co-ordinating the national policy input to Brussels. Finally,
other scholars who, to differing extents, conflate structure, content and style (Knill and
Lehmkuhl 1999; Knill and Lenschow 2001; Weale et al. 2000).
In this volume, we take structure to include the formal structure or architecture of the
state as well as the norms and rules (both formal and informal) that govern the operation
of its constituent parts (cf. Bulmer and Burch 1998; 2000a/b). The formal aspects include
the basic building blocks of the state (i.e. the ‘machinery’ of government: departments,
agencies, formal relations between national and sub-national layers of government, etc.).
In the environmental sphere, the most important ‘block’ is of course the ministry of the
environment. A key competence enjoyed by some environment ministries is the ability to
negotiate international (including EU) environmental policy, whereas in other countries
this competence is partially or wholly owned by the foreign ministry. Meanwhile the
norms and rules govern many activities, including decision making, conflict resolution
and inter-departmental co-ordination. They also allow us to characterize the relationship
between central government, national parliaments, sub-national bodies, etc. Finally, the
more cultural aspects of state activity—the norms and values associated with
administrative work (Bulmer and Burch 1998:604, 620)—are not discussed here. They
come under ‘policy style’ (see below).
The five columns in Table 3.3 seek to capture the most important elements of
structure. With regard to the basic organizational structure of environmental policy, at
first sight Table 3.3 suggests a clear dichotomy between the ten countries in our sample:
those which already had an environment ministry in place in the early 1970s (i.e. Austria,
France, Netherlands, Norway, UK) and those which did not (i.e. Finland, Germany,
Ireland, Spain, Sweden). However, care is needed in interpreting this pattern. In a number
of countries, a separate ministry for the environment did not exist at the time, but the
relevant competences were concentrated (to a greater or lesser extent) in other
departments, which were environment ministries in all but name (e.g. Germany). In
Sweden, a separate ministry did not exist until 1987, but a relatively large and powerful
environmental protection agency performed many (particularly executive) tasks covered
by ministries in other countries. The picture is further qualified by taking into account the
strength of the ministries in charge of the environment relative to other departments (see
our second column). It then appears that, for instance, the Austrian and French
environment ministries remained very small and weak until far into the 1980s, whereas
the ‘stand in’ environment ministry in Germany (i.e. the Interior Ministry) was relatively
strong. Generally speaking, however, environmental competences in all ten countries
were quite dispersed c. 1970; the core areas of environmental policy were located in the
inchoate environment ministries, but many important policy levers often remained in
sectoral departments such as energy, agriculture and transport. In some of the countries
where no formal environment ministry existed in the early 1970s, environmental
competences were fragmented among many departments (e.g. Spain and Sweden).
One aspect of structure which is especially relevant to our analysis of Europeanization
is the location of foreign environmental policy-making competences. In one group of
countries, the ministry of foreign affairs formally had and, to a greater or lesser extent,
effectively took the lead in international environmental negotiations (Finland, France,
Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden). In a number of these countries, an environment
ministry proper did not exist in the early 1970s (Finland, Ireland, Sweden). In a second
group, responsibility was formally vested in the foreign affairs ministry, but in practice
the environment ministry (or its functional equivalent) had leeway to develop its own
international activities (e.g. Austria, Spain, UK), because the field was simply considered
unimportant by the respective foreign ministries. Germany, finally, appears to be the only
country in our sample where, as far as environmental policy is concerned, the Interior
Ministry enjoyed considerable formal power in the international sphere.
It is obvious from Table 3.3 that, with the possible exception of Norway, national
parliaments were not directly involved in national environmental policy making, other
than to discharge their formal legislative tasks. In the formative period of national
environmental policy, the main lines were therefore set out by the executive, either with
or without private actors (see below), rather than by the parliament. Weale (1992)
believes these arrangements were constitutive of the ‘old’ politics of pollution control.
Finally, the importance of sub-national levels of government is of course linked to the
national administrative structure at large. Federal and strongly decentralized states will
generally exhibit greater involvement of lower levels of government in environmental
policy than unitary, centrally organized states. There are, however, some anomalies.
Whereas the location of many environmental tasks at the Länder level in the Federal
Republic of Germany broadly confirms this general rule, environmental competences in
Austria, another federal state, were strongly concentrated at the central level. Something
similar can be seen in Sweden and Norway. The Nordic tradition of quite strong local
autonomy hardly affected early environmental policy, with most policy-making and
implementation competences residing at the central government level. Finland generally
has a lower level of decentralization than Norway and Sweden anyway, but its
environmental tasks were also mainly concentrated at the national level. Spain only
started to decentralize in the post-Franco period, i.e. after 1975. In the early 1970s,
Madrid still played first fiddle. The only other countries where local and/or regional
authorities had considerable power in the environmental field are those where a strong
tradition of local/regional discretion exists, i.e. France, Ireland and particularly the UK.
Obviously, this discretion concerns the interpretation of national laws and regulations.
Local government bodies generally did not enjoy law-making or budgetary powers.
Table 3.4 Environmental policy style in the ten
countries c. 1970
Active Adversarial In line/at
(precautionary) vs odds with
v. reactive consensual national
(curative) policy style
Austria reactive basically in line
consensual,
except some
highly
controversial
issues
Finland reactive consensual, generally in
but nature line, except
more nature
adversarial conservation
France reactive consultation generally in
and line, but
negotiation most other
areas more
state-led
Germany moderately moderately in line
active, but more consensual,
reactive from but more
1973 adversarial
from 1973
Ireland reactive informal generally in
consensual/ line, but
negotiative most other
areas more
state-led
Netherlands reactive basically generally in
consensual line, but
env. pol.
initially less
consensual
than most
other areas
Norway reactive consensual in line
Spain reactive state-led in line
(Franco
period until
1975)
Sweden reactive consensual in line
UK reactive informal in line
consensual/
negotiative
Policy style
Attempts to capture the ‘soft’, cultural side of policy systems have a long history in
political science (Hayward 1974; Heisler and Kvavik 1974). An important step was made
by Jeremy Richardson and his associates. With their concept of policy style, they sought
to describe a given society’s ‘standard operating procedures for making and
implementing policies’ (Richardson et al. 1982:2). In an attempt to keep their model as
manageable as possible, they restricted themselves to only two primary features of
policy-making systems: (1) a government’s approach to problem solving, ranging from
anticipatory/active to reactive; and (2) a government’s relationship to other actors in the
policy-making and implementation process, characterized by their inclination either to
reach consensus with organized groups or to impose decisions. This produces a simple
2x2 matrix on to which different national policy systems can be ‘mapped’ (ibid.: 12–14).
The main deficiency of the Richardson typology is that it does not really differentiate
cases sufficiently well when they are all drawn from relatively homogeneous regions
such as Europe. It is telling that all Western European liberal democracies, for instance,
tend towards the ‘reactive/consensual’ quadrant (Freeman 1985). In this book, however,
we are not really interested in ‘locking up‘cases in any of the four quadrants. Rather, we
want to look for relative changes in national policy style (e.g. more or less consensual,
etc.) as a result of the EU’s influence. For that purpose, the simple matrix by Richardson
et al. is helpful in comparing the historical development of policy styles in different
countries. In fact, scholars of policy style agree that style is a relative concept, which can
only properly be discerned by comparing states (Van Waarden 1995:346). Finer-grained
typologies that were subsequently developed to refine Richardson’s work, such as the one
by Van Waarden (1995), employed up to six different dimensions, producing a total of
144 possible combinations. These score more highly in terms of their theoretical
sophistication (Liefferink et al. 2000) but are very hard to operate in a multi-country
study like the present one.
On the basis of the (admittedly crude) generalizations contained in Table 3.4, we are
driven to conclude that environmental policy in all ten countries was basically reactive in
nature. Generally speaking, environmental problems were only in the early stages of
gaining public and political attention in 1970. The most pressing policy problems were
perceived to be those with a strong human health dimension. More often than not,
policies also focused on mitigating the effects of pollution rather than tackling its
underlying causes. Long-term perspectives were largely absent. In none of the ten
countries can environmental policy around 1970 be characterized as ‘active’. In Germany
and the Nordic countries the appearance of the paradigm of ecological modernization was
still some way off.
With regard to the second axis of policy style, Table 3.4 does not produce many
surprises either. In countries with a basically neocorporatist tradition, national
environmental policy was characterized by co-operative, consensual relations between
public and private actors (Austria, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and with some
restrictions also Germany). Interestingly, however, in some of the most consensual
countries, new issues of environmental protection tended to generate more controversy
than ‘traditional’ political issues, i.e. those of a more socioeconomic nature. They gave
rise to atypical levels of polarization between groups in society (Austria, Netherlands,
Finland—particularly in relation to nature conservation). The UK and Ireland stand apart
as a second group that may also be described as consensual. However, in these two cases,
the main focus of consensualism and informal negotiation was policy implementation on
the ground, rather than national level policy making. In the final group, a generally state-
led tradition of policy making was more or less reproduced in the environmental field
(Spain and, with some caveats, also France). Policies here were more top down, with less
effort being made to achieve consensus with actors in society than in the other two
groups. This is not to say, however, that policies thus ‘imposed’ necessarily led to strong
controversy. Regulatory bodies tended to be quite responsive to business interests,
whereas NGO activity and influence in these countries was limited. In Francoist Spain it
was virtually absent.
Conclusions
This chapter began by explaining how we will address a number of important analytical
issues, then moved on to explore the pre-existing state of national environmental policy
in the ten countries, i.e. just before EU environmental policy began formally to evolve.
By constructing a policy ‘baseline’ for each state, it should be easier to identify the ‘EU’
effect as well as plot any convergence in national policies over time.
Without pre-empting our main discussions in Chapter 14, it should already be apparent
that national policies were already broadly convergent prior to the EU’s involvement,
particularly with respect to policy content and, to a lesser extent, policy style. Regulation
was the preferred instrument of policy in most countries, and, with the exception,
perhaps, of the UK and Ireland, policies tended to be mostly source-based in their overall
goals. Furthermore, throughout all ten countries, a reactive approach dominated.
However, different degrees of consensualism were observed, largely corresponding to the
more general national style of decision making in each country. The most conspicuous
differences between our countries could be observed in the structural organization of
environmental policy, namely in the functional characteristics of the national
environment ministry or agency Obviously, a common set of national imperatives (i.e.
the widespread awareness that the environment was being threatened, coupled to
increasing levels of material wealth and the political need to produce a credible suite of
policies for the 1972 Stockholm environment conference, etc.) had already generated a
strikingly similar set of national policy responses across Europe before the EU became
involved. But the way in which these national responses were embedded in national
administrative structures was, to a large degree, still rooted in well-established national
institutions and traditions.
In summary, national environmental policies were already broadly convergent before
the EU’s involvement. This finding jars somewhat with an implicit assumption which
often underpins much mainstream public discourse about the EU, i.e. that national
policies used to be different but are now becoming much more similar because of
‘Brussels’. Crucially, this means that the EU had a head start when it started to harmonize
the content of national policies. In contrast, it had further to go in its Europeanization of
the style and particularly the structure of national policy, as these two aspects started
from much more differentiated beginnings.
We now turn to examine our ten countries. As noted in Chapter 1, each chapter has
been written to fit a common framework. Thus, each deals with the same set of questions,
adopts the same definitions of structure, style and content, and broadly follows the same
format. After briefly introducing national attitudes towards Europe and the environment,
each chapter draws on existing literature sources first to assess the overall degree of
Europeanization of national policy across all policy areas. The bulk of each chapter is
then devoted to a much more detailed examination of the Europeanization of national
environmental policy content, structure and style. The final section of each chapter
attempts to disentangle the ‘EU effect’ from other drivers of national change and offers
some concluding remarks about Europeanization in that country.
Note
1 The data for the ‘early 1970s’ overview have been kindly provided by the respective chapter
authors. The translation of these data into the inevitably crude categories and
characterizations of the tables (3.2–4) are however the sole responsibility of the editors of
this volume.
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4
Austria
Inducing a philosophy of ‘no unnecessary efforts’
Volkmar Lauber1
Overview
Austria joined the EU quite late—in 1995—and with several reservations. Even today, in
Eurobarometer polls, Austrians figure among the sceptics when it comes to assessing the
benefits of European integration, presumably in part because of relatively recent
membership. The Austrian public’s reservations have always extended to EU
environmental policy, which, well before accession, was viewed as being somewhat
inferior to national policy. The impact of EU membership on environmental policy in
Austria is evident with regard to policy structures, as all policy making underwent
substantial modification. It is now estimated that around three-quarters of law making has
been transferred to Brussels. With regard to policy content, the influence of EU
membership is evident only in a very few selected areas where Austria had more stringent
regulations, took a different approach to a particular policy subject or had little or no
legislation in place to meet EU requirements prior to accession. As to policy style, it has
been affected in parallel with policy structures. Thus, the traditional Austrian regulatory
and legislative style used to rely upon the achievement of a broad consensus among
political and social forces (even beyond the so-called ‘social partners’) and generally
implied a leisurely pace of policy making. All this was changed by membership.
Nowadays, many political actors are struggling very hard to regain at least part of the
ground they lost. At the same time, there seems to be a stronger emphasis on strategic
environmental policy planning.
It is difficult to distinguish Austria’s effect on EU environmental policy making,
except in a few highly specific areas such as transit traffic. Austrian governments have
not produced new comprehensive concepts such as the Dutch national planning process
or its voluntary approach to standard setting. Partly this is due to the post-war lack of
self-confidence about exerting Austrian leadership in the EU. The Austrian government
has attempted to upload national approaches in some areas where Austria is well placed
(clean technology, renewable energy) or under particularly strong domestic pressure
(transit traffic, nuclear energy safety standards). But, in general, since EU accession, the
environment has taken a back seat in domestic politics, with concerns about economic
competitiveness and the new budget discipline becoming compara-tively more important.
The government has deliberately downplayed the political importance of the environment
and Austrian positions in the Environment Council are not publicized at home. A new,
neo-liberal philosophy has taken hold in Austria which emphasizes the importance of
making ‘no unnecessary efforts’. Nonetheless, it seems that in the Environment Council
Austria 45
Austria still goes along frequently with the more advanced member states, with a new
emphasis on reducing policy cost. In part this is undoubtedly due to strong public support
for environmental issues, but it is also related to the presence of a strong clean technology
sector in Austria. This sector, which is a significant exporter, developed strongly in the
1980s, when Austria was quite innovative in designing new industrial processes that
employed the very best available technologies.
National attitudes to Europe and the environment
Attitudes to Europe
In the late 1950s, a view prevailed in Austria that joining the European Economic
Community was not compatible with neutrality, which in turn was the foundation of
Austrian independence since 1955. Because most of its foreign trade was with the EEC
even during the decades of EFTA membership, Austria sought—and achieved—a free
trade agreement with the EEC in 1973. For more than a decade this seemed satisfactory,
as the Austrian economy was one of the strongest in Europe. However, slow economic
growth in the 1980s and the fear of being locked out of the emerging internal European
market induced Austria to join the EEA in 1992. For reasons of neutrality—one of the
most basic principles of Austrian foreign policy in the second half of the twentieth
century—full membership was not openly contemplated until 1989. Those with the
deepest reservations were to be found in the business and agricultural sectors (hitherto the
mostly heavily protected sectors), the trade unions and in the two main opposition parties.
The domestic membership debate was dominated by issues such as the impact on
protected economic sectors and on domestic power relations, the democratic deficit in the
EU, and the perceived backwardness of its environmental policies. While the two
government parties—the Social Democrats and the Conservative or People’s Party—
were actively committed to membership, the Freedom Party and the Greens opposed it.
Under Haider, the Freedom Party - which actually supported membership earlier on—
changed to a populist opposition to EU membership and started to attack ‘big
bureaucracy’ in Brussels.The Greens meanwhile portrayed the EU as too exclusively
business-oriented and neglectful of social welfare and the environment.
Attitudes to the environment

In the 1994 referendum campaign environmental concerns played an important role,
especially with regard to transit traffic of heavy trucks through the Alps. But in the end
there was a strong majority (about two-thirds) in favour of EU membership, which settled
the issue. It led the Greens to reverse their position to one of supporting integration while
working inside the EU to reform its structures and priorities (Kramer 1996; Lauber 1997).
The position of the Freedom Party did not change at that time, but it had to accept
European integration when it joined a Freedom Party-Conservative Party government
coalition in 2000. It nonetheless continued its attacks on Brussels and during the
negotiations for Eastern European enlargement repeatedly threatened to veto the whole
process unless Austrian desires were accommodated. In 2000 sanctions were adopted
against Austria by the fourteen other member states in protest against the participation of
the right-wing Freedom Party in national government. But they did not have a lasting
impact on Austrian attitudes to the EU, except among certain leaders of the Freedom
Party. For most Austrians, membership of the EU is now very much a basic fact of life,
mainly because there are no obvious alternatives even remotely in sight. And yet there is
an attitude of comparatively strong public scepticism as to the benefits of EU
membership.
During the post-war boom that lasted until the end of the 1970s, Austria was by no
means a leader in the field of environmental policy. However, it underwent rapid
ecological modernization in the 1980s, particularly in the second half of that decade,
when the influence of the Austrian environmental movement on policy making reached
its apex. This began to change in the early 1990s, partly as a result of the long shadow
cast by upcoming EU membership. Most legislation adopted in the first half of that
decade consisted simply of catching up with the environmental acquis in areas such as
procedural regulation that went against the grain of Austrian legal and political traditions.
Crucially, EMAS I, EIA and access to environmental information all rely on civil society
working together to solve problems, whereas the Austrian tradition is to rely on the state
for this purpose. However, by then Austria had strict regulations in place in several key
areas and was thus expected to strengthen the collective environmental will of the EU
(Lauber 1997).
In retrospect, 1995—the year of Austria’s accession—represented a turning point for
Austrian environmental policy. The government began to argue that in order to achieve
greater economic competitiveness the country must no longer play a pioneering role,
stressing the cost to business of stringent environmental regulations. In 2000 a new
coalition government between the Freedom Party and the People’s Party reformed a
whole series of laws on EIA and permit procedures and greatly curtailed the rights of
stakeholders such as neighbours, local communities and the like (Lauber 2001a). The
phrase ‘no vanguard activities’ was often invoked to justify domestic inaction on issues
where the majority of EU states had already become active (e.g. CO2 taxation). However,
it seems that the new government rhetoric of ‘no unnecessary efforts’ has been slow to
impact on actual policy results and may be felt only at a later date. The most recent
review of Austria’s environmental policy performance in any case is largely positive;
particularly prominent among the exceptions are climate change and traffic policy
(OECD 2003). In the Environment Council Austria still finds itself fairly frequently
voting with the Nordic coalition of environmental pioneers. For the time being, Austria
remains a very environmentally advanced country: a recent international sustainability
index ranked it fifth after Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland (Prescott-Allen 2001).
Occasionally Austria will even transpose a directive into domestic law more strictly than
is legally required, especially in the area of clean air legislation (Ermacora and Krämer
2000:139). However, in these areas Austria has an obvious economic incentive to be
environmentally ambitious. After all, the Austrian environmental technology industry is
exceptionally strong in the European context, particularly in the area of clean technology.
Austria 47
The Europeanization of Austria
The domestic debate on accession assumed that the likely consequences of EU

membership would be quite disruptive. After all, about four decades of European
integration law and policy would have to be absorbed in one step. Few expected this
change to be easy. On the other hand, the alternative—staying out of the EU—was not
that attractive. Nonetheless, EU membership was by no means a foregone conclusion
either. Several publications addressed the problems to be expected with regard to the
redistribution of political power in the domestic arena and in relation to Brussels. Above
all, the debate they created concerned the expected loss of power of parliament, the social
partners and civil society, and to some extent also in the provinces (Falkner 1994; Gerlich
and Neisser 1994). Voters and interest groups were more worried about direct impacts
such as in the areas of agricultural policy, real estate markets, road transit (notably heavy
lorries) and foreign policy (Schaller 1994; Falkner 2001). Only a very few authors
studied the impact on national political structures (Trattnigg 1997; Falkner and Müller
1998; Steiner and Trattnigg 1998; Müller 2000; Falkner 2001; Müller 2001). Essentially,
their predictions were confirmed by later experience.
The Europeanization of Austrian environmental policy
The content of Austrian policy

Examples of the Austrians uploading broad innovative concepts like the Dutch national
plan to the EU level are very rare. This is not only due to the lack of such concepts in the
recent ‘benign neglect’ phase of national environmental policy, but also to Austria’s
position in the EU structure more generally—i.e. relatively isolated, poorly skilled in the
ways and means of ‘Brussels’, and lacking in self-confidence. Serious attempts to upload
new concepts were made only in a few areas in which domestic political pressure was
exceptionally forceful (e.g. transit traffic, nuclear power safety standards). In the area of
transit traffic, Austria clung to the hope that its efforts to put a durable limit on the
regular traffic increases would eventually be successful (e.g. the eco-point scheme). Later
on, it was at least partly successful in shaping a Commission proposal for a road cost
directive so that it contained special provisions for sensitive areas and allowed road tolls
to be used to cross-subsidize rail transport (COM (2001) 370; COM (2003) 448 final). In
some cases, attempts were made to maintain existing instruments (e.g. end-of-life
vehicles—an area in which Austria attempted to keep a voluntary agreement which had
been concluded in the mid-1990s).
The increasing emphasis on competitiveness since the early 1990s meant, on the other
hand, that the government became eager to equalize environmental requirements by
ensuring common European standards. Therefore it was happy enough to support EU
legislation that equalized cost burdens, but not necessarily to advance higher
environmental standards simply for environmental reasons. In some cases, of course,
Austria was forced to download concepts, legal standards and rules, particularly in the
area of procedural instruments (e.g. EMAS, EIA, access to environmental information).

In a few cases this was accompanied by strong resistance. A good example is Austria’s
opposition to the application of the vignette directive to the system of tolls for transit
traffic, which was only dropped after an adverse decision by the ECJ.
The setting of policy instruments

Open conflicts with EU law are practically non-existent in relation to the setting of policy
instruments. In general, Austria already had strict standards when it joined the EU. In a
smaller number of cases, Austrian standards were stricter than those in the EU. In these
cases, a special review clause was introduced in the accession treaty that allowed Austria
to maintain its higher standards for a period of up to three years. During this time, the EU
pledged to examine whether its standards should be upgraded. In most cases, higher
standards were in fact subsequently adopted by the EU (COM (98) 745 final). But in
some areas Austria continues to maintain stricter standards, particularly with regard to air
pollution and the licensing of chemicals (Ermacora and Krämer 2000:139). After
accession, though, the Austrian government—under strong pressure from business and in
the name of competitiveness—was eager to thwart environmentalist demands for
environmental leadership in the EU. One obvious exception was the attempt made during
the Eastern European enlargement process to introduce strict nuclear safety standards at
an EU level. First, however, this is not a question of upgrading existing standards but of
introducing them initially at the European level. Second, if introduced, such standards
would entail no cost to Austrian business. Finally, such a course of action is principally
aimed at deflecting grass-roots opposition to nuclear power from the national to the EU
level.
Policy instruments
With regard to the choice of policy instruments, EU membership has led to several
important innovations, particularly with respect to the use of more procedural instruments
(e.g. EMAS I, EIA, access to environmental information). The prospect of EU
membership may also have been instrumental in spreading voluntary agreements. The
same logic, i.e. making Austrian business as competitive as possible in the new
environment, impeded the introduction of an eco-tax on energy. In general, though,
Austrian environmental regulation was (and still is) chiefly characterized by reliance on
command-and-control regulation. These regulations used to be the result of extensive
negotiations between the social partners, which in turn made them somewhat inflexible.
Reliance on this kind of regulation was reinforced by Austrian bureaucratic culture and
one of the strongest ratios, in the EU, of law graduates in the national civil service. There
was also little belief that soft instruments would really make a difference except to
encourage free riding (as in the case of voluntary agreements). Finally, there was a deep
aversion to giving procedural rights to citizens or environmental organizations as such an
approach did not fit into the prevailing statist, authoritarian policy style (see below).
Before the Maastricht criteria imposed stricter budgetary discipline, subsidies were also
extensively used as an environmental policy instrument.
Austria 49
There was a period in the late 1980s when it seemed that this orientation might change
significantly In particular, the emergence of the concept of sustainable development after
1987 implied that environmental problems could not be handled in isolation from social
welfare and economic stability, and that it was important to take a more long-term,
systematic approach rather than to deal with individual problems (Fischer-Kowalski
2002). Shortly afterwards, the social partners, the environmental movement and even the
Conservative Party increasingly discovered new environmental policy instruments such
as market-based instruments. But in the end this proved to be a brief flirtation. Austria
only made modest use of voluntary agreements, especially after the passage of a new
waste management act in 1990. In 2002 about thirty such agreements were in force,
mostly dating from the 1990s (Wurzel et al. 2003). While this was not directly
encouraged by the EU, it may owe something to EU membership, as industry became
increasingly aware of its competitive status and thus more eager to avoid extra costs.
Only in one case did this create a conflict with the EU, when Austria fought the
Commission to maintain its voluntary agreement on end-of-life vehicles. Eventually, the
Commission prevailed and Austria had to accept an EU directive. In the first half of the
1990s, momentum built up in support of an eco-tax on energy. A political decision
seemed within reach in 1995, but the break-up of the coalition government (over an
entirely different issue) displaced the subject from the national political agenda (Lauber
1997). Today Austria has one of the lowest levels of energy taxation in the EU. At the
same time, the government argues that leadership in this area would be needlessly
expensive—hiding the fact that Austria would in such a case only catch up rather than
become a pioneer (Lauber 2001a; Pesendorfer 2003). This exemplifies the new, neo-
liberal philosophy of making ‘no unnecessary efforts’ (see above). In general, Austria’s
use of new environmental policy instruments is quite limited (Wurzel et al. 2003).
Tradable certificates were introduced just once, in the area of renewable energy, but they
were never actually used before being repealed again. Emission trading is now slowly
being introduced for the first time to implement the EU’s greenhouse gas scheme.
EIA and EMAS are interesting cases, showing apparently different characteristics but
a common underlying logic. An EIA and Citizen Participation Act was adopted in 1993
to implement the acquis, earlier efforts to introduce EIA having failed. While there was
support for such an act after a series of very intense confrontations over major industrial
and energy projects in the 1980s, opponents successfully prevailed, claiming that EIA
would make the situation even worse. The 1993 version of EIA provided for fairly
generous participation rights, which included municipalities, an environmental
ombudsman and citizen initiatives (Fischer-Kowalski 2002). However, many of these
participation rights were severely curtailed in 2000 by the Conservative/Freedom Party
government on the grounds that they exceeded the minimum standards required by the
EU (Lauber 2001a).
EMAS is interesting because it shows that Austria is nonetheless still capable of
making creative use of an instrument which it had reluctantly adopted as part of the
acquis. In the late 1990s, Austrian business led in the use of EMAS, alongside German
business, which had, interestingly, also originally opposed its introduction in the EU.
These two countries subsequently proposed to offer a degree of deregulation to those
firms operating an EMAS. Pressure from these two countries eventually led to the
adoption of EMAS II by the EU in 2001 (Pesendorfer 2003).
Policy goals and concepts

On the level of goals and concepts, Austria promoted concepts which in some cases
affected EU policy (sustainable development, incorporation of environmental
consideration into substantive policy areas). In two specific areas (transit traffic and
nuclear safety) it attempted to upload policy concepts that were quite novel but mostly
served domestic purposes. When this was unsuccessful, it resorted to confrontational
politics (see also the section on policy style below). In a very few areas it managed to
leave a clear mark on the design of an EU proposal, most importantly the road cost
directive proposal of 2003. In some areas, specifically Austrian goals and concepts led to
delays in adapting Austrian legislation to EU directives—delays which were long enough
to provoke Commission infringement proceedings. On the whole, Austria’s very modest
contribution in this area is not particularly surprising.
Austria promoted the formal incorporation of sustainable development into the
Amsterdam Treaty (Article 6). It also considers itself to be a pioneer in propagating the
principle of Environmental Policy Integration (EPI), thus shaping the policy framework
of the Cardiff process. Austria’s strong support for greater EPI is a reflection of its
perceived strengths in areas such as clean technology, renewable energy, rail transport
and the increased efficiency of resource use. In the area of clean technology, Austria
scored a significant success in the late 1980s by developing a method of paper production
that made no use of chlorine (Pesendorfer 2003). In the field of renewable energy, it was
highly successful in developing biomass technologies. In transport, it relies more heavily
on rail for heavy goods transport than any other member state except Sweden.
There are essentially two cases in which Austria attempted to decisively shape an EU
framework: transit traffic and nuclear power. In both cases, uploading policy to the EU
level was attempted. In the field of transit traffic, regional resistance to the rising tide of
heavy lorries in Alpine valleys had been growing steadily since the 1980s. The impacts of
exhaust and noise emissions are, of course, felt more directly in enclosed Alpine valleys
than in flatter areas. A key problem was the area north of the Brenner Pass, as it is the
most important (and hence congested) of a limited number of road routes across the Alps.
After imposing some domestic measures (e.g. speed limits, a ban on night-time driving,
etc.), the Austrian government realized long before accession that it would eventually
have to come to terms with the EU to achieve a durable settlement.
The Austrians at this point had a concept somewhat similar to (but less radical than)
the Swiss: limit the road transport of freight and shift it to rail. It believed that no other
solution would be compatible with the conservation of Alpine areas and with the
principles of sustainable transport. However, Austria met with stiff resistance in the EU,
which insisted on upholding freighters’ right to choose their mode of transportation and
an upper limit on any toll payments. As part of a first agreement, the eco-points system
and commitments to improving rail infrastructure were laid down in order to reduce
emissions. This agreement was subsequently undermined during the accession
negotiations, and its lifespan reduced so as to expire at the end of 2003. In the end, the
only concession that the Commission granted to Austria in the accession treaty was a
promise to propose a directive on sustainable freight transport to replace the former
regulation. Austrian efforts to stem the traffic and shift it to rail (using a somewhat
elevated toll) were criticized by the European road freight industry. They also adversely
Austria 51
affected other member states (namely Italy, Germany and the Netherlands) and the
Commission. Eventually the ECJ held them to be excessive and discriminatory.
Some other Austrian attempts to manage the problem also suffered a similar fate at the
hands of the EU. This led to strong regional protests and much talk of the EU having
somehow betrayed Austria. On the other hand, the Austrian government—which was
handicapped by a strong road freight lobby—was undoubtedly poor at designing EU-
compatible legislation and mustering sufficient political support for its position among
other member states and in the European Parliament.
Finally, in parallel with these developments, Austria attempted to influence the
proposal for a new road cost directive, which was published by the Commission in 2003.
Here Austria had some success, since the proposal allows for some cross-subsidizing of
rail by road, but in such a small way that its impact on the transit situation in Austria is
likely to be very modest. Importantly, a significant shift in traffic from road to rail is only
now occurring in Switzerland, under a scheme that the EU also did its level best to
undermine (Lauber 2001a).
As regards nuclear safety standards, the Austrian attitude goes back to the anti-nuclear
movement which first developed in the 1970s and which led to the closing down of the
only plant completed by then (which never went on stream). The movement took on new
goals afterwards and attempted to persuade the government to plead for a nuclear-free
zone in the whole of central Europe. After 1989 Czechoslovak reactors close to the
border became the primary concern. Half-heartedly the government took steps to prevent
the completion of reactors such as the one in Temelin in Southern Czechia (Lauber
1997). With East European enlargement approaching, some Austrians began to believe
that they might be able to obtain common European nuclear safety standards. These could
then have provided a means of trading Austria’s support for enlargement for
improvements in reactor safety in problem plants (see also the discussion on policy style
below). The Austrians tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to get the EU to mediate
in the Austrian-Czech conflict over Temelin.
Also in the area of policy goals and concepts, Austria has a long-standing preference
for strict emission standards rather than environmental quality objectives (or immission
limits). This preference was successfully maintained after membership and is still part of
Austria’s philosophy in the Environmental Council, akin to its strong support for the
precautionary principle. Because of this reluctance to regulate the environmental quality
side, an act on airborne immissions (to implement an EU directive on the subject) was
adopted, in 1997, with considerable delay and only after a warning of infringement
proceedings from the Commission. A repeat of this took place a few years later with
another directive on this subject (Pesendorfer 2003).
In summary, Austria has only achieved modest success in uploading aspects of its
policy content to the EU. This is hardly surprising, given its relatively recent accession,
the relative decline of the domestic environmental movement and the relatively passive
stance of the national Environment Ministry since 1995. However, the bureaucracy of the
environment department is becoming better at involving itself in the EU policy process,
and also at forging alliances with the Commission and other member states. For this
reason, Austria may eventually adopt a more active role in the future.
The structures of Austrian policy

Accession brought about significant changes to politics and policy making in practically
all areas. After a more general description, this section will focus on the evolution of
environmental policy structures in particular. The biggest change was a general shift of
power to the ministers of the federal government. In this process, the highly consensual
system of government which Austria had developed during the post-war period lost much
of its substance. The social partners, parliament, the nine federal provinces and the local
communities all had to surrender power. In EU politics, individual ministers and
ministerial bureaucracies now play a much greater role than they do in purely domestic
affairs. There is no need for formal co-ordination with other ministers unless jurisdictions
overlap, and so in practice much less coordination occurs (Müller 2000:209). Control by
parliament is a theoretical possibility but fairly limited in practice. Parliament can issue
binding instructions to a minister, but in fact this happens only a few times a year (ibid.:
210–14). The social partners—namely the chambers of business and of labour, the trade
union federation and the association of the chambers of agriculture—are still informed
and consulted early on. They are also members of Austria’s permanent representation in
Brussels, but they have had to surrender their dominant role in economic and social
policy (a role which was further reduced by the new Freedom Party/Conservative Party
coalition of 2000). Moreover, these actors often lack the time and the resources to keep
up with EU affairs (Falkner 2001; Falkner and Müller 1998; Müller 2000:215–16). This
is even more true of the Länder and the local communities (Müller 2000:231; Falkner
2001; Müller 2001:214–15).
These new structural arrangements have exacerbated pre-existing co-ordination
problems. Co-ordination between different ministries normally occurs in regular inter-
ministerial meetings, with central co-ordination exercised by the Foreign Affairs Ministry
and the Federal Chancellor (i.e. the head of government). Part of the need for more co-
ordination arises from the fact that the Austrian ministerial structure is still not congruent
with that of the EU councils. Consequently, the activities of one EU council regularly
affect two or more Austrian ministries. In such cases, a lead ministry co-ordinates the
different ministerial positions. In practice—and given the time pressures associated with
decision making in Brussels—this arrangement increases the leverage of the lead minister
(Steiner and Trattnigg 1998; Müller 2000).
According to one observer, the lack of central co-ordination in Austria handicaps the
government when package deals are made in the Council. When combined with the fact
that Austria is not a member of one of the established alliances in the Council (German—
French, Benelux, cohesion, Nordic, etc.), this is an effective constraint on Austrian policy
making in the EU. On top of this, Austria is also under-represented in the EU
bureaucracy. In fact, Austrians are well represented in precisely those areas of
Commission activity that have little domestic relevance. Thus, while they are well
represented in foreign policy, they are much rarer in the parts of the EU dealing with
competition or tax policy (Müller 2001:250–2).
The change in environmental policy fits this general pattern, albeit with some
exceptions (e.g. the social partners were never particularly important in this area). The
Environment Ministry—as other ministries—became more independent not just from
Austria 53
those groups as well as parliament, but also from the ministerial cabinet (the assembly of
ministers forming the federal government), a collective decision-making body. Due to the
EU’s structure, the role of the Environment Ministry (since 2000 merged with the
Agriculture Ministry to form the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and
Water Management) has been somewhat strengthened. In the EU, the Environmental
Council has much broader powers than the Environment Ministry in Austria. This is due
to the fact that many environment matters are still handled by other ministries. The most
important cases are the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (since the 2000 merger of
agriculture and environment in one ministry this is now obsolete) and the Economic
Affairs Ministry. In all these cases it is the Environment Minister who handles the
interaction at the EU level, after extensive co-ordination with the other ministries.
Implementation decisions at the domestic level are then taken by the line ministries under
the Austrian distribution of powers. In practice, however, this arrangement has tended to
make it easier for the Environment Minister to make on-the-spot decisions regarding
environmental protection (Steiner and Trattnigg 1998).
Each ministry organizes the inter-ministerial co-ordination for its area. All ministries
engage more strongly in strategic planning than they did prior to 1995. This is done by
specific EU sections, the minister’s personal staff and the installation of a jour fixe, i.e.
regular meetings of the ministries and sections most likely to be affected. Still, co-
ordination leaves much to be desired (Müller 2001). The ministry also gives direct
instructions to the permanent representation in Brussels, where it has its own civil
servants stationed, or flies them in as and when necessary. The Foreign Affairs Ministry
is the formal channel for such instructions, but it does not intervene in the contents of
such instructions; as a result there are no frictions unless international treaties or
agreements are at stake (Trattnigg 1997).
The role of parliament has been much reduced as a result of EU accession. To deal
with the problem of controlling government representatives when they are in Brussels, in
1995 the Green Party was able to secure a modification of the constitution that gave
parliament the power to give binding instructions to a minister negotiating in Brussels.
However, quite early on this provision backfired in a case involving animal transport,
where the Austrian parliament had insisted on particularly high standards to protect
animals destined for slaughter (Falkner 2001). In this case, the Austrian minister was
bound so tightly by the domestic parliamentary instruction that he could only support a
position which stood no chance in the Council. The next best position lost out in Council
partly because the Austrian minister could not rally support behind it. Consequently, a
minimalist position—the very one that the Austrian parliament abhorred most—
prevailed. After this episode, parliament’s recourse to binding instructions strongly
declined (Falkner 2001).
The implementation of EU directives has mostly been a rather de-politicized affair in
the years since Austria joined the EU. Parliament played a bigger role in the 1980s when
environmental issues were a top priority and when the political parties tended to
emancipate themselves somewhat from the grip of the social partners on environment and
energy issues. By contrast, since 1995, parliament’s role has been much reduced as the
environment has slipped down the domestic agenda. The environmental movement has
not been able to exert much pressure, and so the government has been able to return to
the period of ‘benign neglect’ that prevailed before the intense conflicts of the 1980s.
The regional (Länder) and local levels of government also lost out in the redistribution
of power and influence after accession. This is a problem in cases in which the legislative
implementation of EU directives is supposed to take place at this level. The Länder do
have their own independent representations in Brussels, but their main concern is to
secure additional funding for regional development. They seem to be all but excluded
from the EU legislative process because they are usually unable to co-ordinate their
position in time (if they did, they would be a serious partner in building the Austrian
position). Also, they seem to be ill equipped to cope with the problems of implementing
EU legislation (information, speed of decision, etc.), as illustrated by the problems with
the habitat directive (see below).
The style of Austrian policy

With the possible exception of environmental policy in the 1980s, the Austrian policy
style has always been highly consensual, weakly proactive and occasionally lacking in
continuity. In areas of central domestic political concern, a special style developed in
relation to the EU when Austria could not achieve its goals: it became confrontational
and polemical. With regard to implementing EU legislation which did not fit Austria’s
approach to particular problems, foot-dragging emerged as yet another feature of the
national style. However, foot-dragging also has other causes, as shall be shown below.
Consensualism—adversarialism
Before EU membership, the Austrian policy style was highly consensual, aiming for
broad support with the help of a rather leisurely process of group involvement. This
politics of accommodation was a reaction to the bitter conflicts of the inter-war period.
This was a time of poverty and de-industrialization in the new republic which culminated
in civil war and prepared the way for the Anschluss. The post-war consensual approach
was dominated by the so-called ‘social partners’ (i.e. the chief producer groups in the
country), who played a key role in shaping legislation, usually outside parliament.
Environmental organizations never enjoyed an equal status to these bodies, although
some form of accommodation with them was usually sought even if a basic antagonism
remained. The environmental movement did of course burst on to the domestic scene in
the 1960s, when it was strongly opposed to economic growth. Therefore all the
established actors treated it with great suspicion. Even in the ‘golden years’ of
consensualism, environmental groups were never really viewed as fully legitimate
partners by the government.
More recently, this policy style has given way to a much more state- and EUdirected
policy style in which the role of the bureaucracy is stronger and only very powerful
interest groups play an active role. To some extent, this break with consensualism would
have happened anyway as the grand coalition broke down in 2000, to be replaced by the
Freedom Party/Conservative Party government. Nowadays most social actors outside the
ministerial bureaucracy cannot really keep up unless they are drawn into the process by
that same bureaucracy. This concerns not only the large corporatist groups of the social
partners, but even more so parliament and the parties, the Länder, local government and
of course environmental organizations (whose main mode of influence was through
Austria 55
parlia-ment). In the case of the Länder, this led to serious problems in those areas where
they were in charge of implementation (including legislation), for example nature
protection and the habitat directive. It is in this policy area that implementation deficits
have probably been greatest (Ermacora and Krämer 2000:156–75).
Proaction/reaction
Austria has little formal long-term policy planning. However, there was great continuity
in the legislative agenda in earlier decades, and the practice of social partnership meant
that legislation was prepared over a long time-span. Again, this did not apply to
environmental policy in the second half of the 1980s (the days when Austria was one of
the pioneers in this area), which took place somewhat outside the scope of corporatist
politics and in response to grass-roots political pressure. Between 1992 and 1995, a
national environmental policy plan (akin to the Dutch model) was drawn up with the help
of 250 civil servants, scientists and other experts to implement sustainable development
(FischerKowalski 2002). However, it was never implemented. Sceptics argued that it
simply tied down the environmental policy community while the real policy decisions
were made elsewhere. The plan was soon ignored even by the environment department
itself. In at least one area, long-term planning was attempted but met with resistance from
the EU. This concerned Austrian plans durably to reduce emissions from truck traffic,
especially from motorways crossing the Alps (see above). Shifting traffic from road to
rail requires extensive rail construction schemes, in particular tunnels, which take half a
century or more to pay for.
Confrontational tational politics

In some areas—usually those in which a strong grass-roots movement had led the
Austrian political leadership to reluctantly adopt an environment-friendly course—the
Austrian government clashed repeatedly with EU institutions (e.g. on transit traffic) or
used heavy-handed political threats (e.g. nuclear safety standards and transit traffic; see
above). The source of these clashes, which are strikingly at odds with the traditional
consensual style, lay in strong national political preferences combined with an acute
awareness of Austrian isolation. This encouraged Austria to count on veto threats in order
to extract EU concessions.
In the case of the Austrian policy to restrict heavy lorry transit traffic, the government
for a long time hoped to achieve a negotiated settlement that would allow it to limit year
on year traffic growth. The lack of agreement led repeatedly to court proceedings that
condemned Austrian policy for violating some of the EU’s basic principles (e.g. free
movement of goods, discrimination against transiting lorries) and directives (e.g. the
vignette directive’s upper limit on road tolls) (Lauber 2001b). Already in 1998, the
Austrian Transport Minister (a social democrat and committed EU supporter) hinted that
a veto threat on related issues might be needed to support the Austrian position, which
indeed looked very diffi-cult. The attitude of some Conservative Party ministers was
similar. While ministers did not flaunt the use of the veto, the Freedom Party—in
government from 2000—sought to attract maximum domestic political attention when
successive Transport Ministers proposed to confront the EU head-on by linking success
on that issue to Austria’s support for enlargement. It adopted a similar course on the issue
of nuclear reactors in Czechia, where Austria hoped to enlist EU support for imposing
strict nuclear safety standards. While the safety problems of nuclear installations are a
matter of genuine concern to many Austrians, the government had not previously been
that strongly committed to supporting this position at the international level (Getzner
2003). Here too the Freedom Party threatened to veto East European enlargement if the
EU did not support the Austrian position. In both cases the Freedom Party hoped to
benefit politically whatever the final outcome. If Austrian interests prevailed, it would
claim credit for the success. If Austria was turned down by the EU, it would prove that
EU membership was indeed contrary to Austrian interests. At the very least it would
reveal the Freedom Party to be the greatest defender of the national interest (and also
confront its coalition partner with a difficult choice). No other party supported this
approach on the national level, not even the Greens, who had the strongest commitment
in this area but who argued that the problem would be more amenable to a negotiated
solution within the EU. In neither case was the veto threat actually used, as the
Conservative Party (which held the Foreign Ministry) managed to out-manoeuvre the
Freedom Party.
Foot-dragging
While the Austrian government is generally quite conscientious at transposing directives
into national law on time, in some cases foot-dragging has been used to delay adjustment
problems or even to exert pressure by mobilizing resistance against implementation. The
first situation can be found in the context of nature protection, bio-diversity and the
habitat directive, where the Länder ignored the central goals of EU legislation. In some
respects it seemed to be challenging the ECJ to hand down an adverse decision
(Ermacora and Krämer 2000:156–75). Of the twenty-one infringement proceedings
which were underway against Austria in August 2000, most concerned animal and nature
protection. Most of the Länder have conservative governors, so that one might have
expected the conservative-freedomite federal government to tolerate their approach.
However, in this case the parties of federal government, in the coalition agreement after
the 2002 elections, announced that they would aim for a reform of the constitution which
would transfer Länder competences to the federal level if the Länder governments failed
to act in time on an EU directive. But foot-dragging was also practised in other areas,
when directives did not fit Austrian ideas or required legislative changes that were bound
to lead to major conflicts. An example of the first case was the regulation of airborne
emissions. Here Austria missed the deadline for implementation by two years and only
became active after the Commission threatened infringement proceedings. In the case of
transit traffic, not only was the vignette directive ignored for years, but an adverse ECJ
judgment dating from 2000 was not implemented for some time because Transport
Ministers from the Freedom Party thought they could improve their chances of achieving
a better outcome by ignoring it (Lauber 2001b). The method might seem questionable
even in terms of efficiency, but can be understood by reference to the domestic context in
which challenging the EU plays well with the national public even if it is futile in the
long run.
Austria 57
Conclusions
Austrians expected EU membership to deliver better economic prospects. With regard to

environmental policy, the expectation was that Austria would need to defend its own high
standards and also help to bring about further environmental improvements at the EU
level. In retrospect, these expectations were only partly fulfilled. Austria lowered its
environmental commitment after accession, not because of EU environmental legislation
and policy but because of increased economic pressure in the internal market and the
ability of business to benefit from new power constellations. As to helping the EU to
strengthen its environmental standards, Austria’s contribution has been very modest.
Europeanization has left its imprint in several areas. In terms of policy structures, the
roles of the different political actors underwent considerable change as a result of EU
membership. In the environmental policy context, this has meant a slightly stronger role
for the Environment Ministry, but a weaker role for those actors which, in the past, had
been most supportive of environmental initiatives (namely environmental NGOs, the
chamber of workers, the parliament, etc.). There was practically no change with regard to
the setting of the instruments, but several new instruments were introduced as a result of
EU membership, especially procedural regulations (e.g. EMAS, EIA, access to
environmental information, etc.). The introduction of voluntary agreements instead of
regulation may be due in part to the perceived need to remain competitive in a larger,
European market. The same logic operated against the introduction of an ecotax on
energy.
As to goals and concepts, there were no great differences or changes. Austria could
upload its emphasis on anchoring sustainable development in the Treaties and pursuing
EPI via the Cardiff process. It has largely failed to upload original concepts for very
special problem areas (of which transit is the most important). But on the whole it is no
longer an ambitious innovator, being more concerned about reducing the cost of
regulation, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises which make up much of
the Austrian economy.
In terms of policy style, EU membership definitely reduced Austrian consensualism in
domestic politics. Austrian environmental policy was never that proactive. Now it is
probably more reactive than prior to 1995. Increasingly it concentrates on keeping up
with EU developments. While it is generally scrupulous about implementing EU
environmental legislation (which is not very demanding as in most cases Austrian
legislation is usually sufficiently strict), it has also, in individual cases, resorted to foot-
dragging and even open confrontation with the EU when other avenues seemed to be
closed. But, on the whole, it is generally a loyal, somewhat passive and only
exceptionally a restive member state in the environmental sphere.
Finally, the counterfactual situation is worth exploring in order to assess the relative
importance of the EU in bringing about these changes. Without membership, a few things
would probably be different: the regulation of transit would be closer to the Swiss
approach; GMO release would be more difficult and very likely prohibited in several
Länder, and, of course, Austria would have felt the intense economic pressures arising
from the internal market. However, business efforts to avoid all ‘unnecessary efforts’
might have proved less successful if the political structure had remained unchanged.
Note
1 This work draws in part on the insights of a research project supported by the research fund of
the Austrian National Bank and the Austrian Fund for Scientific Research, carried out by
Dieter Pesendorfer (for details, see Pesendorfer 2003).
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5
Finland
A realistic pragmatist
Rauno Sairinen and Arto Lindholm
Overview
Finland has been a member state of the EU since 1995. Since then it has taken active
steps to consolidate its position as a full member of the Union. For example, Finland is a
fully fledged member of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and successfully
held the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers in the second half of 1999. In its
general political strategy, Finland has tried to avoid drifting to the periphery of the Union.
In fact, since the late 1990s Finland has supported deeper integration even more
purposively than before.
As a Nordic country with a reputation for environmental activism, many believed that
Finland would act like other environmental forerunners in the EU. After all, the level of
environmental protection enjoyed by the Finns since the 1980s has been high by
European standards. In practice, the Finnish environmental policy style in the EU has not
been simply to imitate that of the other forerunner member states. National characteristics
and history have deeply influenced the shape of Finland’s emerging role as a member
state of the EU. During the first years of membership, the Finnish approach in the EU in
general and in EU environmental policy in particular was cautious and tentative.
Environmental matters, moreover, played only a minor role in the domestic political
debate concerning EU membership. Finland’s weakness as an environmental forerunner
stems from its failure, relative to other Nordic states, to shape EU policy processes by
uploading its own initiatives. More often than not, Finland has actively supported
initiatives taken by other member states. Finland’s strategy of ‘realistic pragmatism’
involves trying to avoid conflicts at every stage of the EU policy process; it aims at
finding compromise solutions suitable to everyone. Finland does not usually try to justify
the need for high levels of environmental protection through moral arguments but rather
through well-justified facts. Finland has generally not attempted to present itself as a
good European; whenever necessary, it has defended its economic and cultural interests
as strongly as other states.
EU membership has changed domestic environmental policy making in many ways.
Membership served to tighten immediately some environmental standards and supported
the development of some new policy instruments. But, on the other hand, the EU’s
involvement has made it more difficult to develop innovative national policies in some
cases (e.g. to introduce stricter environmental taxes). The influence of the EU on national
environmental protection has, however, been mainly indirect, as we will show later.
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Attitudes to Europe
Except for a couple of individual speeches, the possibility of EU membership was not
discussed at all prior to the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe. After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, however, a lively debate on membership emerged. Finland submitted
an application for membership only a couple of months after the Soviet Union had fallen
apart. Finland subsequently joined the EU in 1995 after a referendum in which
membership was supported by a clear majority of 57 per cent. Environmental matters
played only a minor role in the debate preceding the referendum, as distinct from Sweden
and Austria where they were more important. The debate focused rather on Finland’s
security policy and on the deep economic recession at the time, both of which were
linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union (Liefferink and Andersen 1998).
By any measure, Finland is a small player in EU policy and politics, although it enjoys
a disproportionately high representation in EU decision-making structures. Thus in 1998
Finns made up about 1.4 per cent of the population of the EU. However, Finland has one
commissioner, representing 5 per cent of the total number of twenty In the Council
Finland has three votes out of 87 (3.4 per cent; after the Nice Treaty 2.03–2.95 per cent
depending on how many member states will join the EU). Finland’s sixteen Members of
the European Parliament (MEPs) form a 2.5 per cent share of the parliament’s 626
members (after the Nice Treaty thirteen out of a maximum of 732 MEPs).
During the first years of membership, Finnish EU policy was cautious and tentative.
At the same time, Finland tried to avoid drifting to the political periphery of the Union.
From the spring of 1995 until 2002, Finland’s national governments have been based on
an inclusive or so-called ‘rainbow’ coalition. The term ‘rainbow’ refers to the fact that all
the major political parties and ideologies are represented in the government, i.e. the
Conservatives, Social Democrats, Socialists, Greens and Swedish-speaking minority. The
coalition was created because of the perceived need for a political consensus in a difficult
societal situation after the great economic crisis in the early 1990s. The existence of the
‘rainbow’ government has possibly decreased the domestic critique of European
integration. Moreover, the political opposition (formed by the Centre Party and Christian
Democrats) has been quite small, and any potential EU critique from the Socialist-Greens
has been stymied by the need for the government to present a united front.
During the ‘rainbow II’ government (Prime Minister Lipponen, 1999–2003), Finland
supported further integration more purposively, although this particularly broad-based
government holds contradictory views on EU membership. For instance, Finland decided
to be among the first wave of countries to join the EMU. The current government
coalition (Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, 2003–), formed by the Centre, Social
Democrat and Swedish parties, is mainly supporting the same policy line as previous
cabinets.
Finland’s desire to stay within the inner circle of the EU is logical for a country which
has, for security and economic policy reasons, striven to orient its politics towards the
West whenever possible. Thus, Finland has turned out to be a more ‘integrationist’
member state in the EU than its Nordic neighbours, Sweden and Denmark (Stubb et al.
2001). The strategic differences between Finland and Sweden have, if anything, widened
in the wake of Sweden’s decision to say no to the euro in the September 2003
referendum. As a member of the Union, Finland has often been described as a kind,
obedient and ultimately harmless member state (e.g. Raunio and Wiberg 2000).
According to Stubb et al. (2001), in terms of policy making, Finland has sought to be a
constructive policy broker in search of compromises, rather than a shaper or a blocker of
EU initiatives.

Finland has traditionally been described as an active agent in the field of international
environmental policy From the 1970s it has been among those countries that developed
networks of co-operative regional activities to promote sustainable development and
combat transborder pollution. According to a review by the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1997, Finland has actively supported the
development of international environmental laws and agreements (OECD 1997). In
addition, since 1991 Finland has actively supported environmental improvement projects
in north-western Russia, the Baltic states and Poland.
In view of this record, it was widely expected that Finland, together with the other
states that joined the EU in 1995, would give a significant impetus to EU environmental
policy making (Andersen and Liefferink 1997). The Finns have certainly supported an
active role for Finland in EU environmental policy (EVA 1999). The attitude of Finnish
environmentalists towards European integration was rather negative before membership
and in the early stages of membership. The EU was perceived as an undemocratic entity,
fully focused on pursuing economic growth. Environmental issues were believed to be
entirely subordinate to this goal. Subsequently, however, environmentalists have
discovered that there are environmental advantages to be reaped from EU membership.
For instance, today environmental NGOs openly admit that, without EU membership,
new objectives for nature conservation in Finland would have been much more difficult
to implement. Also the Greens have adopted a more positive position towards the EU.
Finland has a Janus-like environmental reputation. On the one hand, its economy is
dependent on the intensive utilization of its natural resources and uses a lot of energy. On
the other hand, Finland enjoys high environmental standards. The popular image is of
evergreen forests and thousands of pristine natural lakes. In the spring of 2001 it received
the highest marks in the World Economic Forum’s Environmental Sustainability Index
(ESI) (Ministry of the Environment 2001:7). Finland ranked particularly high in the
quality of its water, in its responsible social policies, in the availability of environmental
information, science and technology, private-sector initiatives, air quality, strictness of
environmental regulations, and commitment to international agreements. But Finland was
poorly ranked in relation to cumulative environmental emissions and the per capita
consumption of natural resources.
The utilization of both forests (by pulp and paper and other wood-processing
industries) and watercourses (for transport and hydro-power) has always been an
important issue in Finnish environmental policy. As the significance of point pollution
sources has diminished, however, diffuse pollution has become more important (Ministry
of the Environment 2001). This means that agricultural pollution, urban traffic and
consumption are playing an increasing role. During the 1990s, furthermore, the strongest
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growth in Finnish industry took place in the electronics industry (particularly information
and communication technology (ICT), such as mobile phones). This ongoing structural
change in production has had a clear impact on Finnish environmental policy and will
continue to do so in the future. The environmental impact of these new industrial sectors
is smaller and in any case the national economic and political importance of traditional
polluting industries is decreasing.
The Europeanization of Finland
The Europeanization of Finland is most clearly seen in Finland’s foreign policy, which
changed drastically after the end of the Cold War. The change in foreign policy doctrine
did not happen overnight as in the former Warsaw Pact countries. Thus in Finland’s
foreign policy line—including the environmental field—a certain continuity from the era
of the Cold War can be observed. The most significant factor which changed Finnish
foreign policy doctrine was EU membership. Actually, EU membership has
simultaneously been the reason for change and the consequence of change. The two
aspects are not always easy to separate (Forsberg 2000; Raunio and Wiberg 2000). EU
membership has, however, indisputably impacted on Finnish foreign policy in at least
three ways. First, EU co-operation has strengthened Finland’s international position,
which has been a central domestic policy objective. Second, Finland has used the EU as a
channel to extend its influence on international policy making. Finally, EU membership
has inevitably forced Finland to adapt to common decisions.
Two different explanations for this change can be presented. From a realistic point of
view, it is a consequence of the shift from one power centre to another. From an idealistic
point of view, it has meant a shift from realism (which emphasizes geopolitics) to a neo-
normative foreign policy (which emphasizes values). Indeed, Western values, like human
rights and democracy, came to the fore with the Europeanization of Finnish policy. In
addition, Finland’s global policy is now being made in the European context (Forsberg
2000). These changes are also reflected in the area of environmental policy: Finland
makes global environmental policy more and more in the context of the EU, while
environmental co-operation with Russia is more multilateral because of Finland’s EU
membership.
To what extent have the hopes and fears raised during the accession process been
realized? Before the referendum, many Finns were scared that the EU would destroy the
Finnish welfare state. Today the welfare state is still alive, but the model has suffered
many hits. When analysing these shifts, the problem is how to distinguish the impact of
EU membership from other changes in society, such as the national economic crisis, the
structural change in industry and general economic globalization. Critics of the EU have
argued that EMU membership required deep cuts to be made in national social, health
and also environmental spending. On the other hand, Finnish economists have usually
estimated the impacts of the EU on the national economy to be broadly positive, even
though Finland has been a net contributor to the EU budget.
The EU has changed the weight of political institutions in Finland. Generally
speaking, the importance of the government vis-à-vis the president and the parliament has
increased. Furthermore, Europeanization has increased the power of middle-rank civil
servants at the expense of politicians (Raunio and Wiberg 2000; for more details see
below).
What kind of environmental role has Finland played in Brussels? Various answers to
this question have been put forward. After two years of membership, Duncan Liefferink
and Mikael Skou Andersen (1998) saw Finland as belonging to the forerunner countries,
but as being quite passive during the first year of membership. The traditionally green
member countries were slightly disappointed by the Finns’ contribution. On the other
hand, Pamela and Ian Barnes (2000), as well as Andrew Jordan (1998), have emphasized
the importance of Finland in strengthening the wording of the new environmental clauses
of the Amsterdam Treaty. Recently, Finland has been particularly active in developing
the concepts of sustainable production and consumption policies.
According to the most recent study, Finland’s role in EU environmental policy
remains relatively cautious (Lindholm 2002). In general, Finland’s environmental policy
remains predominantly pragmatic and oriented towards consensus building. This pattern
can also be seen in the voting statistics: between 1995 and 1998 Finland never voted
against the (qualified) majority on environmental issues in the Council and only
extremely rarely in other policy sectors. Finland has a reputation for aiming at more
ambitious policy goals, ideas and programmes, but is much less ambitious (and
successful) at pushing specific issues. So, for example, Finland has strongly advocated
EPI, but it is weaker at securing its national interests by shaping specific policy proposals
or uploading its own ideas (Lindholm 2002). Crucially, Finland has not sought to
influence the Commission directly through its national experts or through its civil
servants participating in the Commission’s working groups. The Finnish experts in the
Commission act rather like private persons and rarely bring any message from the
Finnish government to Brussels. Also, Finland’s policy networks and ‘sub-structures’
based on personal contacts within the Commission are weaker than those of many other
countries. Moreover, Finns are under-represented in the Environment Directorate-General
(DG) and Finland rarely sends unofficial delegations to the Environment DG to talk
about issues important to Finland. In general, Finland sticks to official channels of
influence and regards lobbying the European Parliament (EP) or the Commission as
inappropriate for a member state. Although it struggles to project its own influence in
Brussels, Finland does not support every single environmental proposal. Like other
countries, Finland only actively promotes its national environmental interests when they
do not undermine its national economic competitiveness or require significant economic
sacrifices or difficult changes to be made to the domestic administrative and legal
systems.
The Europeanization of Finnish environmental policy
The content of Finnish policy

The process of Europeanization has both strengthened and weakened the level of
environmental protection in Finland. In addition to having a direct influence on
environmental standards, the EU has implicitly changed the scope for practising domestic
environmental policy in the traditional way. Although environmental standards were
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already at a relatively high level prior to accession, the importance of the EU to the
development of Finnish environmental policy is nonetheless enormous. Most of the
pressure for new environmental legislation in Finland comes from the EU.
Several EU directives have had a considerable positive impact on Finnish
environmental legislation. EU directives, for example, have forced Finland to adopt
stricter rules governing issues such as urban waste water treatment, nitrates and habitats
than was previously the case. In addition to stricter standards, new policy tools such as
environmental impact assessment (EIA Act 1994) and voluntary agreements have been
adopted because of the general support from the EU’s side (Sairinen 2000). Voluntary
agreements have been made especially for energy conservation with different energy
users. Generally, the industrial sector has moved increasingly towards voluntary
environmental management systems such as the EU’s Environmental Management and
Auditing System (EMAS) and the standards of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO).
The new Environmental Protection Act (1999) revised the entire, traditionally highly
sectorized, environmental permitting system, to make it correspond to the EU’s
Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive. This change resulted in the
creation of a more integrated national environmental protection system. Special emphasis
is now placed on applying the principle of best available technology (BAT), undertaking
risk management and increasing the efficiency of energy use.
The most problematic area for Finland has been that of nature conservation. Generally
speaking, Finland has maintained its traditional policy instruments in nature conservation.
These include sectoral and centralized planning coupled to the strict protection of natural
areas (Söderman 1999). In the Natura 2000 programme, new ideas of biodiversity policy,
such as a more flexible system of protection, were adopted. In practice, the EU’s nature
protection regulations have lengthened the domestic planning and legal processes
associated with big infrastructure projects. Post-EU membership, there are new
obligations for impact assessment and exemptions are more difficult to obtain. This has
meant a real strengthening of the role of nature protection arguments in Finnish politics.
But in practice the implementation of the Natura 2000 network became a long-lasting
nightmare for Finland’s environmental administration (Sairinen 2000; Söderman 1999).
On the political level, we can even talk about a kind of ‘green backlash’. The first Natura
proposal attracted more than 14,000 complaints and exacerbated the rural population’s
dislike of EU directives and EU bureaucracy. The biggest disagreements centred on the
proposals for the Vuotos (water) reservoir in Lapland and the harbour at Vuosaari in
Helsinki.
Since becoming a member of the EU, Finland has had to adopt more detailed and also
stricter regulations (e.g. 94/67/EC; 2000/76/EG; 94/62/EC; 1999/31/EC) in waste policy
than would have otherwise been the case. Some of the air protection regulations, such as
VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) Stage I and III (94/63/EC and 1999/13/EC), are
even considered to be unrealistically strict. In such cases, the EU has had a direct
influence on Finnish environmental regulation. There was no room for debating the basic
definitions of the problem as the agenda (and the targets) had already been determined at
the EU level.
In addition to this kind of direct impact, the EU has also had a considerable indirect
impact on the level of environmental protection in Finland. For example, Finland has
tried to anticipate forthcoming EU regulations. In 1990 Finland was the first country in
the world to introduce a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In 1993 the level of this
tax was raised, on the assumption that a common, EU-wide carbon tax would be
introduced quite soon. However, as early as 1994 it was clear that the tax proposed by the
Commission would not be introduced. Therefore, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and
the Ministry of Finance as well as Finnish industry began to criticize the national tax
model. In addition, the EU Commission also criticized the Finnish tax for breaching EU
competition rules. After quite strong conflicts at the governmental level, the domestic tax
system for electricity was changed from a carbon-weighted tax to a pure consumption
tax. Simultaneously, the total level of the energy taxes was increased significantly and the
increase was compensated for by way of income tax relief. As a political solution, this
compromise was an example of ecological tax reform (Sairinen 2000).
The EU has had other negative impacts on national regulation, but these have tended
to be relatively rare, generally insignificant and much less direct than the carbon tax
example. According to some Finnish environmental policy makers, the minimum
harmonization of EU regulations is too often seen in Finland as maximal harmonization.
It has also been observed that there are nowadays fewer resources for solving local
problems at the national level because of the central role of EU legislation. In practice,
Finland has not always needed to defend its national environmental practices in Brussels
very intensively. One obvious exception is Finland’s desire to use only cadmium-free
fertilizers. In such cases, Finland has tried to argue that a particular directive is
incompatible with the Finnish administrative system, unsuitable for Finland’s northern
conditions or even in conflict with Finland’s constitution. The latter problem occurred,
for instance, when dealing with the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC). Because
Finland’s water areas are for the most part privately owned, legally binding watershed
plans would have been problematic for the Finnish legal system. Finland has also
frequently requested derogations in order to use peat as an energy source. Another
ongoing source of conflict centres on the research obligations in the Water Framework
and Air Quality Directives (96/60/EC) as well as in the Environmental Noise Directive
(2002/49/EC). Finland considers these to be too bureaucratic and unnecessary in the
domestic context.
When conflicts between EU and national policies occur, Finland hardly ever resorts to
non-implementation. Clearly the largest conflict has been the implementation of the
Natura programme, mentioned above. Since then, Finland has usually striven to avoid
disputes with the Commission over implementation by ensuring that the Council takes
Finland’s peculiar circumstances (i.e. pristine natural conditions, administrative system,
legal system, etc.) into consideration early on in the negotiations. There is some evidence
that the Finns are getting better at domesticating EU policies to achieve a better fit with
national circumstances. For instance, the Finnish government, including a green Minister
of the Environment, took a relatively strict line towards the EP’s amendments to the
Water Framework Directive, on the grounds that it might transmogrify into a ‘new
Natura’. More precisely, some of the EP’s amendments, including the demand for
absolute protection of bodies of water with a high ecological status, would have been
especially difficult for Finland to implement given the large number of such waters and
the fact that most are privately owned.
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To conclude, the process of Europeanization has meant deep changes in the content of
Finnish environmental policy The traditional national standards, important policy
questions and the level of general environmental policy have generally stayed the same,
but at the same time the basic systems and practices have been efficiently adjusted to fit
those prescribed by the EU. The national environmental political agenda (i.e. targets,
policy instruments, emission standards) is now largely determined by the EU agenda. But
important differences between environmental policy sectors are nonetheless still
apparent. In many policy areas, such as nature conservation, agriculture, climate policy
and water management, Finland has been forced to seek changes to EU policy to fit
domestic geographical conditions.
As argued above, Finland’s efforts to shape EU environmental policy are focused on
ideas and concepts (e.g. sector integration), rather than on concrete issues. In other words,
Finland generally seeks structural changes as opposed to specific changes to individual
items of policy. Recently, however, Finland has been very active in developing the notion
of sustainable product and consumer policy, i.e. prior to and since the 2002 Johannesburg
sustainable development conference.
From a critical point of view, Finland’s existing status as an environmental forerunner
should now be questioned because Finland has rarely uploaded its own initiatives in the
area of EU environmental policy Of course, in many cases, Finland has actively
supported initiatives taken by other member states (for instance, Sweden’s initiatives in
acidification policy; see also Annica Kronsell’s chapter in this book), but it has
championed very few of its own. One clear exception occurred in 1997 when Finland put
forward an initiative concerning a new ‘Northern Dimension’ to the EU’s work. In
addition to the EU’s economic self-interests, the aim of this initiative was to enhance
security, stability and sustainable development in the region through positive
interdependency between Russia, the Baltic states and the EU.
The structures of Finnish policy

On joining the EU in 1995, Finland had to create a new institutional system for handling
EU matters. The foundations for this new system had been laid down when Finland
joined the European Economic Area (EEA) in 1992. According to many recent studies
(e.g. Mattila 2000; Stubb et al. 2001; Lampinen 1998), the Finnish system has updated its
position and functions without any serious problems. Generally speaking, the system is
based on consulting widely throughout the national administrative structure (see Figure
5.1). The Finnish Cabinet Committee on European Union Affairs, led by the Prime
Minister (not, interestingly, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), decides on far-reaching
politically important issues as arbitrator when there are inter-ministerial conflicts. This
unit is responsible for the final co-ordination of EU affairs, which makes the system quite
centralized. The main task of the Government Secretariat for EU Affairs is to make sure
that Finland has a united position in the Council of Ministers and its subordinate bodies.
The Secretariat is composed of civil servants from all the ministries. In practice, the
Committee for EU Affairs, which brings together the highest level of civil servants from
all the different ministries, has quite a weak status in the process of policy making. In
Brussels, Finland has a Permanent Representation which is responsible for co-ordination
in the working parties and the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER)

(Rehn 1998:17–24; Lampinen and Uusikylä 1998; Mattila 2000:141).
When Finland begins to define its position on an EU issue, the relevant ministry
formulates Finland’s economic, juridical and political position, thereby defining the
country’s national negotiating position. The ministry presents its position on a particular
proposal to the corresponding EU sub-committee. Environmental issues belong to EU
Sub-committee 23. One of the most important tasks of the various sub-committees is to
achieve greater co-ordination between the different ministries. The sub-committees can
deliberate either in
Figure 5.1 The co-ordination of EU

matters in Finland
large groupings, which include representatives from different interest groups in addition
to civil servants, or in small groupings, which include only the latter. If the sub-
committee has no objection, the ministry draws up a written statement that will be sent to
the Finnish Permanent Representation in Brussels via the EU Secretariat (Lampinen and
Uusikylä 1998.) The Finnish Parliament participates in the national preparation of EU
affairs through its various committees, i.e. environmental matters are prepared in the
Environmental Committee of the Parliament. The position of the parliament does not
bind the government legally, but it has political power arising from the principle of
parliamentary responsibility.
EU membership has directly influenced the balance of power within Finland’s
political structures in many different ways. The political power of central government has
increased in relation to the parliament because in the EU it is the executive (and not
parliaments) that represent member states in the Council. In addition, the position of civil
servants has strengthened in relation to (politically appointed) ministers, because the
technicality and complexity of EU matters normally demands specialized skills that most
politicians lack. Thus, we can say that Europeanization has accelerated the
professionalization and bureaucratization of Finnish politics. This trend can also be seen
in the practice of environmental policy making. In relation to technical environmental
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questions, civil servants in the Ministry of the Environment have a crucial role not only in
relation to the members of parliament but often also to the Minister herself. The
Minister’s role only increases in significance when questions are raised that have a long-
term political importance or provoke intense interministerial disagreement.
It has been said that the Finnish system of preparing and co-ordinating EU matters is
exceptionally open because interest groups are heard in Subcommittee 23 and because of
the parliament’s involvement in processing EU work. In practice, however, neither the
parliament nor interest groups have a significant role in determining the national
negotiating position. The Grand Committee of the Finnish Parliament very rarely adds
anything new to the agreed cross-ministerial position. The reason for this is not only the
technical nature of most environmental matters but also that members of parliament with
an active interest normally use informal contacts to directly influence the lead ministry.
On the other hand, it must be noted that, although parliament tends not to become
involved with individual environmental policy questions, it exerts a more powerful role
in determining Finland’s negotiating position in InterGovernmental Conferences (IGCs),
for example.
The influence of environmental NGOs in national co-ordination is also minimal, at
least via official channels. This does not necessarily mean that the civil servants in the
Environment Ministry do not want to listen to NGOs. Rather, schedules are usually so
tight that interest groups are normally only given pertinent information at the last possible
moment. Accordingly, environmental NGOs tend to rely on more indirect channels of
influence to support the Environment Ministry. Every now and then, the ministry benefits
from NGO support in battles with other ministries. Unlike the environmental NGOs, the
comments made by industrial interests are usually more intense when it comes to new
laws that might cause them additional financial costs.
As can be sensed from the above, unofficial co-ordination is more important than
official co-ordination in Finland. For various interest groups, Sub-committee 23 is mainly
a place for exchanging information rather than a real channel for influencing decisions.
Even though the official co-ordination system is of less importance than personal contacts
between the lower-level civil servants, the official system is by no means unnecessary. It
provides the general framework for the entire system of preparing the national input to
the EU and, moreover, has a crucial role whenever serious disagreement arises between
ministries.
The importance of national co-ordination is defined by such questions as whether the
adoption of a new environmental law or target might lead to sizeable economic costs for
Finland and whether it might entail fundamental changes to the traditional ways of
determining national policy. In specific cases, these questions have a significant effect on
how easily the Ministry of the Environment can determine Finland’s overall negotiating
position. When preparing proposals, such as those on strategic environmental impact
assessment and large combustion plants, in which Finland’s standards were already
higher than those proposed by the Commission and where there was no need for
significant changes to the Finnish administrative system, the Environment Ministry had a
free rein. In contrast, economically important issues are negotiated right across the entire
government.
It can be observed that the relative power of the Environment Ministry has increased
due to EU membership. This is because it now has responsibility for matters that have a
great impact on the national economy and on sectoral practices. Unlike domestic policies,
these cannot easily be delayed or avoided entirely. An illustrative example is the
negotiation of the EU’s CO2 emissions ‘bubble’. In this case, the Minister for the
Environment negotiated at the supranational level about matters that have a major impact
on the national economy Furthermore, the stronger ministries were charged with most of
the responsibilities for implementing the resulting decisions. Another example is the
Water Framework Directive, which caused a lot of administrative work for ‘non’-
environmental ministries. On the other hand, it is still felt in the Environment Ministry
that the other sectoral ministries (and especially those covering trade, industry and
agriculture) have an unreasonably negative attitude towards EU environmental proposals.
In many cases the Environment Ministry has been left to defend Finland’s environmental
reputation in Europe. Nevertheless, the Environment Ministry has, at times, succeeded in
obtaining the support of another ministry, such as the Ministry of Transport and
Communications. When this has occurred, real steps have been taken to integrate
environmental policy into other policy sectors.
In Finland, EU regulations are implemented either by passing a new law or by
changing the existing legislation. Voluntary agreements have not been used for
implementation. Finland has been relatively conscientious and scrupulous in its
implementation of EU environmental directives and even recommendations. One key
reason for this is the fact that Finland’s system of co-ordination for EU matters is
relatively centralized. Interest groups are actively involved at an early stage of
implementation, so potential implementation problems can easily be ironed out.
Furthermore, connecting the parliament to the preparatory system has also eased the
implementation of directives. The relatively high rates of implementation are also partly a
result of Finland’s policy style and its EU policy goals. As mentioned earlier, Finland
tries to avoid open conflict at every stage in its EU policy; it also tries to remain at the
political centre of the EU, pushing for deeper integration. Moreover, a relatively high
level of environmental awareness among the public and officials has undoubtedly made
implementation easier. Other reasons can be found at an even more abstract level. The
Finns are conscientious and sincere, and make it a point of honour to obey even the most
unpleasant laws.
Finally, we may ask how Europeanization has influenced the position of local and
regional governments in Finland. Finland’s twenty Regional Councils operate as regional
development and planning authorities. The regional plan and the land use plan reconcile
the interests of central government with the interests of regional and local governments.
They also try to harmonize the land use objectives with the aims of economic life and
environmental control. The Regional Councils are actively involved in developing EU
regional policy and draw up the programmes required to gain structural funds, which they
also implement. When outlining the new EU regional and environmental policy, the
Councils have continually emphasized the northern dimension, particularly the low
population density and extreme weather conditions in Finland.
In Finland, as in the other Nordic countries, it is typical that the municipalities (some
450 in total) enjoy considerable autonomy and fulfil a large number of statutory tasks.
The implementation of most environmental directives has affected municipal practices.
These changes have included a gradual shift of focus towards quality standards (for air,
noise and water quality, etc.) and technical standards (e.g. specific emissions, noise
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levels, chemical composition) instead of general objectives for total emissions. The most
important task of Finland’s municipalities is to provide their residents with social-welfare
services, including environmental quality. Due to EU membership, the Nordic model
(which emphasizes the importance of local authorities) is caught between the EU’s
demand for harmonization and the traditional model of local tax financing. The present
system enjoys citizens’ broad support, however, and any change towards a central or
southern European model is likely to be some way off.
The style of Finnish policy

The Finnish environmental policy style during the period 1970–86 can best be described
as two-dimensional, the conflictual (adversarial) field of nature conservation contrasting
with the much more consensual field of pollution policies (for details, see Sairinen 2000).
It has always been difficult to integrate nature conservation interests into other sectors of
Finnish policy such as forestry, agriculture and land use planning. The cultural
importance of land ownership and the strong role of rural political parties and interest
groups have generated much conflict over nature conservation issues at the national level.
On the other hand, Finnish pollution policies—especially air and water pollution
policies—have been based on a quest for consensus between different actors, ranging
from industry to environmental organizations. In these fields, governance is by state
regulation, but in the manner of negotiative problem-solving. In practice, this has meant
that problem-solving, conflict resolution and the setting of emission standards have taken
place in large corporatist committees. This consensual policy style has also been called
‘negotiated rule making’ in contrast to ‘command-and-control regulation’. We can argue
that the consensual pollution policy has tried to be active, rather than reactive. There has
been a real appetite among different stakeholders for making innovative and ambitious
environmental policy in the EU.
National neocorporatism in the context of the Nordic welfare states is an obvious
manifestation of this consensual style. On the macro-political level, ensuring the price
competitiveness of the forest and other export industries has been the fundamental
doctrine, which has prevailed over other policy interests. In environmental
administration, the politically most efficient approach is to adopt a negotiative and
consensual mentality. The industrial policy networks are fully aware of the benefits of
‘progressive’ environmental standards in their own international business. On the
political level, there has also been a sufficiently large consensus about the need to ensure
that Finland remains among the environ-mental forerunners in Europe. In many cases,
this consensual style has contributed to the achievement of a relatively high level of
environmental protection.
Post-EU membership, the policy style in relation to national nature conservation issues
has become even more adversarial. We have already noted how the Natura programme
and some infrastructure projects have produced particularly difficult conflicts. At first, in
these policy areas the environmental administration and environmental NGOs gained a
new ally in the form of DG Environment. In the wake of a number of serious disputes,
however, the environmental administration has tried to develop more consensual and
voluntary-based policy instruments (for example when preparing a new national
programme for forest conservation in southern Finland). This has not been easy though,
given the sharply conflicting attitudes of different stakeholders.
But pollution policies have also been affected by EU membership. Here, ‘Brussels’
has helped to bring about a gradual shift from an active policy style to a more reactive
one, as the scope for national autonomy has gradually declined. From the late 1990s, the
mentality and motivation within the broad-based committees (the basic institution of the
consensual policy style) have undergone some major changes. Interest groups, especially
representatives of industry, as well as some ministries, are no longer quite so willing to
develop national programmes. Instead, they tend to wait for the EU to act first, for fear of
committing themselves too early to national regulations or programmes that are more
stringent than those being prepared in the EU.
On the other hand, the selection of policy instruments has diversified as a result of the
EU’s involvement. For example, finding the right mix of instruments to address climate
policy is far more difficult than was the case with sulphur or nitrate pollution during the
1980s. The carbon and energy taxes, energy conservation agreements and national energy
strategies in Finland have had to be designed by three competing ministries, while at the
same time remaining consistent with EU demands. This makes it difficult for the current
committees to make concrete or unanimous proposals on new national regulations or
strategies for the government. Thus, both the complexity of EU environmental policies
and the political tactics of national interest groups have posed a threat to traditional
Finnish consensualism. A good example was the EU’s emissions trading proposal, which
provoked enormous conflict between the main interest groupings and their sponsoring
ministries.
The consensual policy tradition is important also in shaping the Finnish style in
Brussels. Finland’s strategy of realistic pragmatism tries to avoid conflict at every stage
of the EU policy process and aims at finding solutions that suit all. Finland has not
attempted to disrupt this well-developed style in pursuit of environmental goals in
Europe. Finland believes that its national interests are very much congruent with pan-
European interests. This is a conscious choice, which is a product of Finland’s recent
political history. During the Cold War, Finland emerged as an impartial mediator
between East and West. In domestic policy fields, the perception was that what suited the
East and the West would also indirectly serve Finland’s national interests.
This strategy of ‘realistic pragmatism’ has been internalized so deeply that, in some
cases, it borders on political naiveté, i.e. an uncritical acceptance of foreign
developments. In particular, environmental issues tend to be seen as technical questions
rather than as a source of political confrontation. This easy-going policy style has, of
course, been welcomed by the other member states, who regard Finland as a reliable and
suggestible negotiating partner (Lindholm 2002). The crucial question is to what extent
Finland has really benefited from all the political goodwill it has amassed over the years
by acquiescing in the demands of other member states. Acquiring goodwill as such
cannot be the goal of any member state. Another potentially more important aspect of
Finland’s political naiveté is its tendency to target the formal channels of influence. As
discussed above, unofficial contacts and modes of influence are not regarded as a
legitimate part of policy making. The Finns do not seek to lobby the Commission directly
as they prefer to respect its formal right of initiative. Moreover, the Finnish Permanent
Representation does not seek to influence the views of Finnish MEPs, for instance, by
Finland 73
discussing Finland’s national position with them prior to the start of the parliamentary
process.
Conclusions
Finland can still be regarded as an environmental forerunner in the EU because in many

sub-areas its standards are far higher than the EU’s minimum standards. As a forerunner,
Finland has adopted the role of negotiator or mediator between the member states rather
than that of initiator of new ideas. In Council negotiations, Finland remains fairly
flexible, always eager to seek compromises. Finnish environmental policy in the EU is
not at all moralistic or idealistic but, rather, result-oriented. These features make Finland
a popular negotiating partner in the EU. From a critical point of view, it can be said that
Finnish policy has been cautious. Finland’s efforts to direct the Commission’s policy or
to highlight its own initiatives have been limited in number. In addition, the principle of
‘realistic pragmatism’ tends to silence voices that demand more innovative, more
elevated and more ambitious levels of domestic environmental protection.
The effect of EU membership on Finnish domestic politics has been twosided. On the
one hand, it is evident that membership has put Finnish environmental policy under
pressure. It is likely that the adoption of laws on EIA, integrated pollution control, many
aspects of nature protection, agricultural pollution and waste would simply not have been
politically feasible without pressure from the EU. On the other hand, the EU has caused
problems in cases where Finland maintained (or sought to maintain) higher standards,
such as carbon taxation.
EU membership has partly shifted the ‘agenda setting’ and ‘problem definition’ stages
of the policy process from the domestic level to the EU level. Nowadays, the main
impulses to renew and/or revise environmental legislation come from the EU. When
combined with Finland’s apparent unwillingness proactively to shape EU policy, this has
made national environmental policy more reactive than it used to be. Because the agenda
and the targets are determined at the EU level, the importance of national politics has
declined. The politics of implementation also tend to be fairly limited because Finland
tries always to fulfil its EU obligations.
When preparing and co-ordinating EU environmental issues, the Environment
Ministry enjoys quite a lot of leeway when dealing with issues of a highly technical
nature. The agenda of the Environment Council by no means always contains items that
attract the attention of the governmental level. On the other hand, the Finnish Cabinet
Committee on EU Affairs, which is ultimately responsible for the co-ordination of EU
matters, decides on far-reaching and politically important issues as well as on
controversial cases. In these cases, the power of the Environment Ministry is highly
limited, even though it is supposedly the lead ministry.
Finland’s consensual policy style, based on working in committees, has not vanished
because of EU membership. In accordance with the traditional Finnish policy style,
institutionalized interest groups have been integrated into the process of preparing and
implementing EU environmental policies. The consensual policy tradition is also alive
and well in the sense that Finland seeks to avoid conflicts with other EU actors at every
available stage.
Finally, we should perhaps try to formulate an explanation for Finland’s ‘realistic

pragmatist’ approach to EU environmental policy. The explanations can be found at
different policy levels. First, there is no significant domestic opposition to official EU
politics. On the contrary, there is a kind of elite consensus, very much supported by the
fact that a clear majority of the public favours deeper European integration. Thus, Finnish
politicians do not have to secure as many policy victories in the EU as their Swedish or
Danish colleagues. Second, the central target of Finnish foreign policy has been to
strengthen Finland’s international position through the EU. This means that Finland tries
to remain at the core of the integration process. It therefore seeks a flexible and
consensual role in Brussels. Third, the cultural self-awareness of Finland as a small
country between East and West has made Finnish foreign politics quite tentative. This
means that Finland is not used to teaching others how to act. Fourth, Finnish pragmatism
is also partly a result of weak administrative capacities. During the late 1990s, Finland
began to recover slowly from a long economic recession, which had witnessed significant
cuts to public expenditure on a range of issues including environmental protection. As
scarce policy resources (mainly personnel) were used to prepare for EU membership,
there was not much spare capacity for creating new domestic environmental initiatives. In
the future when Finnish policy makers have better learned the habits of Brussels politics
the national environmental policy style may shift in a more active direction.
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6
France
Getting between the vertical
Henry Buller
Overview
Within France and the French political establishment, the environment, as a public policy
domain, and Europe, as a political idea, share a common trait. Although both have
undeniably occupied a central place in the discourses of late twentieth-century French
politics, both have conflicted with the traditional modus operandi of the French
republican state and the sectorization of French policy making. While Mény (1996) might
rightly claim that it is now impossible to study the system of the Fifth Republic without
taking into consideration its integration into the EU, the Gaullist vision of the nation state
within an essentially inter-governmental European framework remains the predominant
model for the French political elite. Similarly, though France has undeniably embraced
the environmental agenda since the 1970s, the environment has posed a series of
problems for France in terms of its conceptualization, political ‘construction’ as a policy
issue and translation into effective policy actions. As the archetypal transversal problem,
the environment sits uneasily in the highly centralized and vertically administered French
system. Meanwhile, the implementation of EU rules continues to raise difficulties. The
situation was so bad in 1998 that the media dubbed France the ‘bad pupil of Europe’
(Zappi 1998:13). Together, therefore, Europe and the environment have been, as De
Gaulle once said of the former, challenges to which France has had to rise.
Attitudes to Europe
France has been a central, perhaps the central, player in the creation of the EU. The
‘Monnet method’, first applied by the Frenchman Jean Monnet in the 1950s, has been the
principal vehicle for advancing European integration. It comprises a gradual, step-by-step
progression from economic to political unity founded upon an essentially technocratic
vision and a neo-liberalist approach to the integration of nation states.
However, despite the roles played by Monnet and Schuman, French political
commitment to the European idea has not been, throughout its history, devoid of
paradoxes and contradictions. De Gaulle saw the integration process as being necessarily
French-driven and legitimate largely in its capacity to further essentially French national
interests (Keeler 1990). And yet De Gaulle was also strongly committed to the need to
France 77
create a ‘European Europe’, very different from the free-market space evoked by
Margaret Thatcher.
Nevertheless, though ‘the imprint of Europe is increasingly strong at the level of
policy formulation’ and, ‘despite all the obstacles, in its implementation’ (Mény
1995:336), Europeanization, if it has been ineluctable, has also been periodic—an
inconstant force. There have been recognized periods of greater and lesser integration in
recent French history. Charles de Gaulle’s ‘Chaise Vide’ policy during 1965 and Jacques
Chirac’s ‘Appel de Cochin’ of 1976 might be regarded by some as low points, when
narrow national interests came to the fore and supra-nationality was strongly resisted.
Alternatively, Mitterrand’s second presidency of France (1988–95), coupled for much of
the time with Jacques Delors’ presidency of the European Commission (1985–95),
constitutes a period of major political advance in the grand project of European
construction. Long before the troubled 2001 Nice summit, France’s own contribution to
the European project had become more complex. This was due partly to the Single
European Act’s implicit challenge to classic inter-governmentalism à la française, but
partly also to the doubled-headed nature of the French body politic, which, under
cohabitation, comprises a president of the Right and a government of the Left.
This has also been revealed in a shift in public opinion. Despite the central role played
by France and by President Mitterrand in preparing the Maastricht Treaty of 1991, French
public opinion was divided at the moment of the referendum; the ‘Yes’ camp, at 50.4 per
cent, beat the ‘No’ side (49.6 per cent) by just 140,000 votes. Successive Eurobarometer
surveys have revealed a highly fluctuating commitment on the part of the French people
to the grand European project. In a 1994 survey, just over half of the respondents
described themselves as ‘not very European’ (quoted in Ambler and Reichert 2001:56).

Textbooks of French environmental law and politics often refer to the fact that
‘environment’ is a word of Anglo-Saxon origin that first made its appearance in France in
the 1960s. The emergence of the ‘environment’ in France thereby largely coincides with
its institutionalization as a public policy issue (Charvolin 1993). The first Minister of the
Environment, Robert Poujade, famously declared that ‘we invented the word without
knowing the thing’.
Three introductory points need to be made about French environmental policy. First,
the emergence of the environment as a public policy domain within France largely
coincided with the emergence of EU policies. So, although France was a founder member
state of the EU, it was as new to EU environmental policy as the other eleven states. This
was something that the French presidency of the EEC sought to address at the Paris
Summit of October 1972, which effectively launched EU environmental policy. Second,
France did not possess a well-established corpus of environmental legislation at this time,
or a powerful environmental lobby. Compared with other EU states, environmental issues
were not high on the domestic political agenda. Finally, the eventual emergence of an
environmental administration in France was seen by many as an alternative to the classic
and, up to that point, dominant forms of public policy making in France.
The Europeanization of France
During the 1980s and 1990s, France had to come to terms with a Union that was
increasingly penetrating the political, administrative and economic structures and
practices of the nation state. While acknowledging the extreme difficulty of identifying
the exact pathways of causality, in his analysis of the impact of European integration on
the politico-administrative life of France, Lequesne (1993:264) demonstrates the
profound changes that have resulted from the ‘permanent process of adaptation’ that has
characterized France’s response to European integration. From being a remit of the
French Foreign Ministry in the early years, European affairs now pervade all levels of the
French state with the vast majority of ministries possessing internal European directorates
or services, staff members at the Permanent Representation in Brussels and at least one
member of the ministerial cabinet dealing specifically with European issues. This
increasing internalization of Europe raises a fundamental issue for the basic division of
responsibilities between the Prime Minister and the President under the constitution of
the Fifth Republic. Are European affairs an aspect of foreign or domestic policy? The
former lies firmly within the presidential responsibility, the latter within the domain of
government. Partly as a consequence of cohabitation, coupled with the dual
representation of France at inter-governmental conferences, the growing politicization of
French representative structures over the last fifteen years has revealed how persistently
significant this division of responsibilities is. An equally fundamental issue is the role of
the French Parliament. Traditionally a relatively minor player in the essentially technical
and negotiative style of French inter-ministerial responses to EU policy initiatives, the
parliament has been even more marginalized by the Europeanization of policy making
(Petot 1993).
The great challenge for France has been accepting and adapting to the shift in its
European role. Having sought to create a European Union largely in its image, while at
the same time insisting upon its own exceptionalism, France was quick to establish the
structures necessary both for its representation in Brussels (the Représentation
permanente de la France auprès de l’Union Européenne, set up in 1958) and for the co-
ordination of national responses to Community policy making (the Sécrétariat général du
Comité interministériel pour les questions de coopération économique européene or
SGCI). Both structures have been remarkably successful in their respective goals of
representing French interests in the European forum and in achieving a relative consensus
in ministerial responses to EU initiatives and proposals (Menon 2000a). However, as
Lequesne’s (1993) research shows, while the SGCI has proved to be an effective
instrument for the uploading of French ideas to the Commission and Council, it has been
far less effective in assuring the successful downloading and implementation of EU
legislation. France has fought hard to place its representatives within key strategic
positions at Brussels, ignoring at the same time the lower European civil service posts, at
which level it is under-represented (Menon 2000b). Nonetheless, as the pace and
geography of European integration have changed, so too has the French position.
Ultimately, European integration, as it penetrates deeper into the edifice of the French
state, challenges the former unity and purpose of the French position as well as its self-
proclaimed exceptionalism. The SGCI finds it increasingly difficult to oversee and
achieve consensus when dealings with Europe are the everyday currency of government
France 79
(Lequesne 1993). Increasing ministerial autonomy with regard to European lobbying (the
Ministry of Agriculture has perfected its own representational structures virtually
independently of the PR and the SGCI) and the use of public/private networks of interests
have led, according to some observers, to a breakdown in strategic thinking (Menon
2000a) ill suited to the reforms that the EU is currently making.
The Europeanization of French environmental policy
The content of French policy

The content of French environmental policy has unquestionably been influenced by the
integration of EU environmental rules and policy More profoundly, the very
conceptualization of the environment and, with it, the aims of environmental policy as a
whole within France have shifted in response to the EU.
The heterogeneity of physical environmental contexts within France has not been
conducive to the emergence, as Theys (1999) points out, of a consensus over
environmental policy priorities at the national level. As a result, the French notion of the
environment as a public policy includes a strongly territorial flavour, linking
environmental management not only to spatial planning or aménagement du territoire but
also to the different forms of human occupation of land. In this territorial and essentially
humanist focus, the French conceptualization of the environment and its protection
differs strongly from that enshrined in EU environmental policy, with its emphasis on
undifferentiated scientific and normative criteria. Marrying the two, particularly during
the early phases of EU environmental policy, proved to be one of the most difficult tasks
for the early French environmental administration (Chabason 1993). Significantly, it is in
those areas where EU policies appear most inflexible in the face of divergent local
territorial circumstances that public opposition to the EU’s regulatory approach has been
especially virulent. A very good example has been the problematic implementation of the
Habitats and Birds Directives (Legrand 1997; Rémy et al. 1999).

French environmental policy, the institutions erected to frame it and the instruments
designed to achieve it, derive chiefly from two very distinct administrative and
intellectual traditions which came together in serendipitous fashion at the end of the
1960s. Their ultimate fusion has, however, proved to be continually problematic. On the
one hand, growing out of the development of public utility services at the local level,
there has emerged a technocratic and bureaucratic conceptualization of environmental
policy making and pollution control (Lascoumes 1994). This has given rise to a set of
specific actors personified in the different engineering corps of the state (but particularly
the corps emanating from the Grande Ecole des Mines), which emphasize technical
solutions to specific management problems. The 1964 Water Act that set up the Agences
financières de bassin, the six regional Water Agencies, was for a time the flagship of
French environmental legislation. This innovative approach to water management
enshrined, in principle at least, the polluter pays principle a full decade before it became
one of the core principles of EU environmental policy However, critics maintain (with
some justification) that its application constitutes, for many, a de facto right to pollute.
During the 1960s the state Planning Agency, the Délégation d’aménagement du territoire
et á l’action régionale (DATAR), also characterized by its technocratic approach, was
charged with defining nascent French environmental policy goals through the drawing up
of a list of 100 priorities (DATAR 1970). Although the engineers saw the creation of the
Ministry of the Environment in 1971 as the unwelcome politicization of their domain
(Barraqué 1999:103), their influence remains strong, endowed with the neo-corporatist
role of technocratic actors (Brénac 1988), and occasionally becomes the subject of lively
political debate (Commissariat general du Plan 1997).
On the other hand, representing a very different approach have been the ecologists and
environmentalists. Though never a political force on the scale of the German Grünen for
reasons well explored by various authors (Boy et al 1995), the Verts have played a
critical role in defining the environment as a domain of public policy. Born out of a
variety of concerns, from nature protection to post-1968 political activism (including,
most notably, opposition to Gaullist state dirigisme and French nuclear policy), the
political ecology movement played a critical role in institutionalizing environmental
protection. Largely as a result of the progressive coalition of these various elements, the
French Environment Ministry created in 1971 was in fact originally called the Ministry of
Nature Protection and the Environment. Under the tutelage of Pompidou’s appointed
Minister Poujade (Charvolin 1997), its central preoccupation was the search for an
effective response to the post-1968 demands of ecologists and naturalists.

French environmental policy content has grown and expanded over the last thirty years.
What began as an essentially three-point policy, focused on nature protection, water
pollution management and nuisance control, each drawing upon different administrative
traditions and conceptualizations, has gradually moved into a more inclusive and holistic
domain. Here, Europeanization has played a central role (Lavoux 1992). Larrue (1999)
maintains that the ‘EU effect’ is most evident in the setting of environmental objectives
and in the reinforcement of policy instruments. She points to the generally positive effect
of EU environmental legislation (Larrue and Chabason 1998) in reinforcing
environmental objectives within France (for example with respect to car engine emissions
and air-quality policy in general (Larrue 1999)), in taking forward preexisting domestic
legislation into a wider European framework, and in introducing new domains of state
intervention.
France has also contributed to the setting of EU environmental policy instruments. In
relation to bathing water and EIA in particular, France has been in many ways a pioneer
state, at least within Europe. The French ‘uploaded’ their bathing water policy to the EU,
giving rise to Directive 76/160, ultimately transposed into French law in 1981 (Bodiguel
and Buller 1996). Similarly, France originally introduced legislation on EIA in 1977, well
before most other EU states. As a result, it was not thought necessary to transpose into
French domestic legislation the EIA Directive, as much uploaded from the French
experience as inspired by the US.
France 81
Policy instruments
Although France, like all other member states, adopts and implements the full range of
environmental policy instruments associated with EU legislation, the policy and
institutional contexts operating in France, coupled with traditions of state-led negotiation
in certain domains, notably the industrial sector, impact heavily upon the use of specific
policy instruments. Since the 1976 French Environment Act introducing mandatory
impact studies, industrial pollution control policy has been founded upon the principle of
BATNEEC. Although there is agreement over the ultimate goals, according to Larrue
(1999) the process of introducing normative emission standards in air pollution control
(e.g. through Directives 82/884, 85/203 and 97/72) misfitted with the French tradition of
relying upon locally negotiated pollution levels and of gently cajoling (often with
financial help) the industrial sector into meeting new emission standards. Setting fixed
concentration limits in areas where existing emissions fell below these levels was often
seen by French policy makers as simply an encouragement to pollute.
The later and more controversial introduction of EU Directive 91/271 concerning
urban waste waters indirectly raised the profile of beach and bathing water pollution as an
environmental issue in France some ten years after the introduction of the Bathing Waters
Directive. In so doing, it highlighted the considerable problems associated with the
effective implementation of bathing water quality policy at the local level, despite the fact
that the impetus for the directive came largely from France (Kaczmarek 1997; Jordan et
al. 1998).
Similarly, the construction during the late 1980s of a motorway tunnel at Somport in
the Pyrénées National Park revealed inconsistencies between French and European EIA
legislation and forced France to revise its own 1977 Decree. Similar difficulties have
been encountered with respect to installations classées (controlled installations), a
historic area of French state intervention dating from 1917 (and reinforced in 1976),
which have been the source of a long-standing dispute with the European Commission
over both the juridical status of certain rules and the modalities of their application.
The impact of the 1980 Drinking Water Directive has been explored by a number of
authors (Bodiguel and Buller 1996; Ward et al. 1997). It served to explode the myth of
French agriculture’s role in protecting and sustaining the rural environment by
identifying agriculture as a major source of groundwater and surface water pollution in
certain areas. Furthermore, the directive—and its implementation—revealed that, while
both regulatory procedures and negotiated permits might be suitably applied to the
control of point sources of pollution, diffuse pollution produced by an activity that many
accepted as implicitly ‘environmental’ demanded a whole new toolbox of interventionist
mechanisms (Buller and Hoggart 1998).
The Habitats Directive has also posed a raft of problems in France. Like other EU
directives, it was also founded upon a scientific conception of the environment, typified
by the notion of species biodiversity and a scientific and technical approach to the
designation of appropriate sites through species inventories. More than any other EU law,
this directive has sought to apply this rationale and methodology to the management of
rural areas (Alphandéry and Fortier 2001), strongly misfitting with the traditional French
approach to territo rial management. As such, its implementation, suspended for three
years in the early 1990s by the Prime Minister, has become a focus for rural anti-
Europeanism and has prompted the establishment of a new rural political party, the
CPNT (Chasse, Pêche, Nature, Tradition).
France has embraced the philosophy of EU policy content, as contained within the
Fifth Action Plan (Wagenbauer 1998). This is demonstrated in the use of environmental
taxation. Around fifty environmental taxes currently exist in France, particularly in the
domains of air, water, waste, energy and transport. Although the latest of these, the
TGAP (see below), has fallen foul of the Ministry of Finance, the principle of eco-
taxation is widely supported across the French political spectrum.
Finally, we need to acknowledge the increasing importance of contractual forms of
environmental management. Although the earliest contracts pre-date the onset of
European environmental policy per se, their multiplication during the 1970s was seen, in
part, as a means of bringing public and private interests together in a collective response
to the regulatory exigencies of the Commission. The instruments employed have been
multiple: from contracts (contrats de branche, contrats de bassin, contrats de rivière.,
contrats de baie, contrats de Plan) and schema (schéma de mise en valeur de la mer,
schéma d’aménagement et de gestion de l’eau) to grants, loans and taxable permits
(rédevances). Some of these have proved controversial. The system of rédevances, under
which polluters pay a tax according to the amount of pollution they create under the
polluter pays principle, has become, for certain observers, a licence to pollute and, for
still others, a differentially applied constraint to industrial health. The contrats de
branche (grant monies paid in exchange for environmental improvement works) were
introduced in 1972 by a ministry staffed by civil servants drawn heavily from the Ecole
des Mines. They were eventually stopped by the European Commission, which adjudged
them to be a distortion to free trade (Lascoumes et al. 1990). However, the EU’s Fifth
Environmental Action Programme later acknowledged the need for an approach of this
kind (Lavoux 1999).
The structures of French policy

The process of European integration has had a major effect upon the structures of French
environmental policy making. However, as those structures largely came into being at the
same time as EU environmental policy (and indeed evolved with it), the Europeanization
effect has been less immediately distinguishable than it has been for the older policy
structures associated with more traditional domains such as foreign affairs, the economy
or agriculture (Lequesne 1993). Indeed, while the Europeanization of these other
structures has been well documented, little analysis has been made of a sector that many
consider to be virtually synonymous with European integration.
Certainly, the Permanent Representation in Brussels contains a representative of the
French Environment Ministry, though its portfolio is shared with other policy domains.
The SGCI also co-ordinates Environment Ministry responses, as it does those of other
ministries. What distinguish the environmental policy structures from others are, first, the
particular structure and organization of the Ministry of the Environment and, second, its
ability to adapt to shifting EU and domestic priorities.
Five years after its establishment, the French Environment Ministry was famously
described, by its first Minister, as the ‘lmpossible Ministry’ (Poujade 1975). Indeed, the
Ministère de l’Environnement has long been something of a ministerial hybrid, highly
France 83
centralized yet lacking the full administrative apparel (or the budget) of the more
traditional state sectors. It was initially established as a ministère de mission (Autexier
and Heppenheimer 1971), an internal ministerial pressure group whose primary function
was to influence the ‘grand’ hegemonic ministries (e.g. industry, agriculture, etc.) in
pursuing environmental objectives and to prompt and co-ordinate inter-ministerial
actions. Having few direct legislative powers of its own, the ministry, armed with strong
scientific and technical support, sought to promote the environmental agenda within
wider government and administration rather than being itself responsible for the
environment as a distinct sector. During its first five years (1971 to 1975), it drew its
legal powers largely from four pieces of domestic legislation (i.e. the 1930 Nature
Protection Act, the 1960 National Parks Act, the 1964 Water Act and the 1961 Dangerous
Activities Law), in addition to a suite of decrees and other laws relating to hunting, parks,
pollution control and so on. The mid–1970s saw a number of significant changes. First,
the ministry was given specific powers with respect to water pollution control and
management, powers that had previously been held by the Infrastructure and Agriculture
Ministries. Second, the 1976 Nature Protection Act was adopted, giving a far more
unified legislative framework to French nature protection policy. Third, the ministry
embarked on a journey of ministerial musical chairs (see Table 6.1), characterized by an
enduring ‘badness-of-fit’ with the rest of the French administrative and political structure.
Its journey only really ended in the mid–1980s under the Socialist government of Pierre
Mauroy and the presidency of François Mitterrand.
The eventual coming of age of the Ministry of the Environment was largely due to a
new legitimacy foisted upon it by the growing corpus of EU environmental legislation
(Lavoux 1999). That legitimacy had three forms: legitimacy with respect to other state
administrations; legitimacy with respect to industrial lobbies and interests; and, finally,
legitimacy with respect to civil society and, notably, the nature protection lobby. The
considerable strengthening of the ministry in the late 1980s and early 1990s, following
the publication and adoption of the 1990 Plan national pour l’environnement (PNE), was
essentially justified on the grounds that the environment had become a key area of
European, and hence national, public policy and, as such, required a properly endowed
ministerial structure.
The piecemeal strengthening of the ministry and the environmental administration as a
whole has produced an atypical and, in a number of ways,
Table 6.1 The institutional history of the French
Environment Ministry
Date Title of Ministry
1971 Ministère de la Protection de la Nature et
de l’Environnement
1973 Ministère de l’Environnement
1974 Ministère des Affaires culturelles et de
l’Environnement
1976 Ministère de la Culture et de
l’Environnement
1976 Ministère de la Qualité de Vie
1977 Ministère de la Qualité de Vie et de
l’Environnement
1978 Ministère de l’Environnement et du
Cadre de Vie (fusion with the
Infrastructure Ministry)
1981– Ministère de l’Environnement *
97
1997 Ministère de l’Aménagement du
Territoire et de 1’Environnement
2002 Ministère de l’Ecologie et du
Développement durable
Note * During this period the status of the
Minister of the Environment varied considerably,
from Minister to Delegated Minister to Secretary
of State. From 1991 the Ministry has been run by
a full Minister, the highest rank of the three.
ideologically heterogeneous structure: one that seeks to be both technocratic and regalien
in its centrism and verticalism as well as in its dependence upon a juridical modus
operandi. Added to this is a militancy and a transversality in its contacts with civil
society, with other ministries and state agencies, and with local environmental actors and
experts. The process of Europeanization has not resolved this duality. Indeed, both
aspects have been influenced by it. Brice Lalonde (Minister of the Environment from
1988 to 1992) and Dominique Voynet (nominated Minister from 1999 to 2002), both
drawn from the ranks of the political ecologist movement, proved highly adept at using
European environmental policy and its necessary integration as a means of strengthening
the Ministry of the Environment and its political agenda within the French political
establishment (notably, by forcing through major pieces of legislation such as the 1992
Water Act). Yet, that very political integration has also contributed to the transformation
of the Environment Ministry away from its visionary interministerial status towards that
of an institutionalized (and thereby verticalized) and sectoral state edifice closer to the
classic French model (which, according to Müller (1998), draws expertise, legitimacy and
ultimately identity from its very sectorization).
To what extent has the Europeanization process directly affected the structures of
environmental policy making and administration in France within and beyond the
Ministry of the Environment? As before, while it is difficult to establish any direct and
linear trajectories of causation, we might identify a number of areas of institutional and
structural change and innovation which form part of a broad process of structural
adaptation to the demands of a largely Europedriven environmental policy agenda. The
increasing recourse to agencies (such as the Agences d’eau, the Agence nationale pour la
gestion des déchets radioactifs, and the Agence de l’enviwnnement et de la maîtrise de
l’énergie or ADEME) as intermediary and transversal levels between the central state and
its conservative administrative structures and varied communities of interests reflects an
institutional adaptation to the growing plurality of actors implicated in EU environmental
policy. The evolution of the Ministry of the Environment’s own internal structure reflects
the dominance of particular policy domains. The Direction de l’eau, for example, has
been a central unit within the ministry, drawing particular strength from its role in
France 85
applying European legislation. The recent establishment of an Evaluation Direction can

also be seen as a response to the shifting thrust of EU environmental policy.
The emergence of new negotiative fora for the elaboration of implementation
strategies relating to EU environmental policies (for example the Comités
départementaux agri-environnement, which were set up following EU Regulation
2078/92 to bring farmers, ecologists and local political leaders together in the setting of
local objectives and means) as well as the creation of inter-ministerial structures (such as
the Conseil national de l’air and the Comité interministériel des parcs nationaux) are
both illustrative of the cross-sectoral response to environmental rules and the growing
role of the Ministry of the Environment in co-ordinating these structures.
Other institutional and structural changes include the establishment of, and
participation in, new trans-European networks such as, most notably, the IMPEL network
(which the French have consistently sought to prevent becoming an EU enforcement
agency) and the increasing involvement, or ‘internalization’ (Duclos 1992), of the French
scientific community in national and EU policy making.
Nevertheless, the two most significant structural changes in environmental policy
administration over the last fifteen years were arguably as much to do with responding to
domestic concerns (albeit within a context of Europeanization) as a direct response to an
increasingly EU-driven domestic policy agenda. Hence, the creation in 1991 of the
Directions régionales de l’environnement (DIREN) was largely a reaction to internal
issues raised by forces of political decentralization and the growing problems of
environmental policy implementation, indeed visibility and legitimacy, at the sub-
national level (Bodiguel and Buller 1994). The DIREN also believe that the EU has
motivated more legal challenges from environmental lobbies and local NGOs. More often
than not, the DIREN find themselves defending the position taken by these bodies against
other institutions of French administration. The reluctance of the French courts to engage
in the interpretation of non-French (i.e. EU) environmental law (Prieur 1998) also
occasionally places the DIREN in a difficult position.
The second recent change was the fusion of the Ministère de l’Environnement with
that of Spatial Planning (Aménagement du Territoire) in 1999. While this is, in part, a
retour aux sources, in that it mirrors the links established between environmental
protection and the DATAR in the 1960s (see above), the drivers of this unification have
been: the desire to establish a more holistic and all-embracing, stronger, richer
Environment Ministry (almost along the lines of the British model (Buller 1999)); the
paradigm of sustainable development; and the need to integrate sustainable development
into the process of French territorial reorganization (which has brought the Environment
Ministry into conflict with the Ministry of the Interior). The appointment, by the 1997–
2002 Jospin government, of a Green Party member as Environment Minister made the
ministry even more confrontational, as have recent ECJ rulings. Since the return of the
Gaullist government in 2002, the ministry has moved back from the confrontational
stance it frequently adopted under the previous administration. However, the bringing
together of environmental policy, spatial planning and sustainable development has
remained a feature of the new structure, now entitied the Ministry of Ecology and
Sustainable Development.
While some observers see the French Ministry of the Environment’s use of European
policy principally as a strategy for greater domestic empowerment (Larrue 1999), the
irony is that, in its structure, its policies and its style, the French ministry is arguably far
closer to the emerging European policy-making model than many of the other traditional
sectoral ministries within France.
The style of French policy
Activism-reactivism
The Fifth Republic has had to come to terms with the necessities of European integration
(Mény 1996). France is hard to place on the active-reactive dimension of Richardson’s
notion of policy style. Indeed, some argue that it defies simple categorization (Hayward
1982). In classic terms, France is characterized by: a dirigiste central state authority
whose historical, territorial and political roots go back to the 1789 Revolution and
beyond; the strength of its corporatist relations; and the nature of its central-local
relations, which combine, in an almost unique manner, top-down state republicanism
with the more bottom-up necessities of a nation divided into 36,000 politico-
administrative units (Muller 1992).
Has this aspect of style been affected by the EU? At one level, the response is obvious.
European rules and law now take precedence over national rules and law and are, in the
words of Prime Minister Rocard’s 1988 circular ‘une exigence constitutionelle’ (Prime
Minister’s circular of 22 September 1988). Many of the policies France implements
originate from Brussels and as such reflect a European rather than solely domestic policy
agenda (see, for example, Le Theule and Litvan 1993), while much of the policy
negotiating takes place within a European forum (Lequesne 1993).
France has unquestionably been a central and pro-active driving force in the process of
European construction and integration. Yet, if there has been one policy domain in which
French participation in the European project has been less consistently pioneering, it has
been that of the environment. We might characterize much of the French position, albeit
simplistically, as an attempt to domesticate EU environmental policy, rather than
allowing an across-the-board Europeanization of national policy. For many
environmental directives, France has been either a partial implementer (Lavoux 1992) or
has sought, through juridical means, such as the reliance upon ministerial arrêtés and
circulaires, to carve up EU law into discreet sub-units that fit more easily into existing
French legislative frameworks (Prieur 1998). This adds considerably to the confusion and
to the problems of coherent implementation. France’s reluctance to embrace and
implement the Community Environmental Action Programmes, from the first in 1973 to
the most recent, also demonstrates the difficulty it has both with addressing the ‘softer’
and less regulatory aspects of Community policy and with committing itself fully to a
forward-looking, EU-led, environmental agenda.
For Lequesne (1993), the reactive rather than active nature of French involvement has
been, in part, a consequence of the SGCI’s standard operating procedure of setting up
organs of inter-ministerial co-ordination only after directives and regulations have been
‘sent down’ from the Council of Ministers. Since the beginning of the 1990s the SGCI
and the Permanent Representation have reformed their procedures to improve France’s
hitherto increasingly reactive involvement in EU policy making (Lequesne 1993).
France 87
The active role of the Environment Ministry as a ‘ministère de mission’ has been
constrained, and sometimes compromised, by its relatively weak position, both within the
broader ministerial landscape of France and with respect to the grand corps of the French
state. As former Environment Minister Lepage illustrates (1998), this structural weakness
has had a considerable effect upon its overall efficacy and style, with areas of
environmental policy (such as nuclear power and waste treatment as well as agricultural
pollution control) being largely sealed off from Environment Ministry interference.
Furthermore, as was the case with the Habitats Directive, GMOs and the initial French
response to EU plans for the implementation of the Kyoto agreement, the French ministry
found itself arguing, both in Paris and Brussels, for a position diametrically opposed to
the official view of the French government.
Adversarialism-consensualism
The second of Richardson’s dimensions opposes an adversarial style to a more
consensual approach with respect to the interaction between public and private actors.
Here again, the picture is complex and, to some extent, the environmental policy domain
differs from the norm of French policy style. One might argue that, at least in its early
days, the very existence of the French Ministère de l’Environnement was confrontational.
Throughout its history, individual environment ministers, particularly those drawn from
the French ecology parties, have not shied away from adopting a confrontational stance
with respect to sectoral and corporatist interests (for example, Berlan-Darqué and Kalaora
1992). However, as befits its mission, the French Ministry of the Environment has, since
the outset, been concerned primarily with advocacy and negotiation.
The emphasis upon negotiated solutions is part of a more profound French political
feature. The weight of political tradition, a fundamental characteristic of the French
policy style, despite the periodic renouvellement set in motion by the passage from one
republic to another (Mény 1996), has ensured that it is often administrative, rather than
political, considerations which dominate processes of European integration, occasionally,
according to Menon (2000a; 2000b), to the detriment of political vision. Theys
concludes: ‘it is all as if the central objective is first and foremost to make the procedures
work and only accessorily to improve environmental quality for the wider public’
(1999:31), a view shared by Lascoumes (1994:99).
Ultimately, from this overarching tension different component styles emerge
(mirroring Hayward’s (1982) ‘dual’ French policy style), which, though not in overt
competition, do represent markedly different approaches to environmental decision
making. On the one hand, there is the regalien and technical style of the national
administration and, in part, its sub-national Directions and, on the other, the negotiative,
meditative (but also heterogeneous) style enshrined in the Agences d’eau (Barraqué
1999), the installations classes inspectors and their policy networks (Lascoumes 1994).
That these two styles operate at essentially different levels—the former in the arena of
European and national policy making; the latter at the regional and local level of policy
implementation—reinforces the notion that Europeanization and environmentalism have
become key ingredients in the multi-scale, multi-level evolution (and complication) of
public policy making and governance (Muller 1998; Swyngedouw 2000).
The emergence of a European policy style (see Chapter 2) is increasingly influencing

French praxis, leading some to claim that the traditional characteristics of the French
policy style are being eroded (Ladrech 1994). Ironically perhaps, having been a leading
player in the original process of European construction, seeking a broad and progressive
convergence towards a Frenchinspired model of European economic and political
organization, France is now concerned, first, by the apparent divergence between its own
political trajectory and aspirations and those of the expanding Union and, second, by the
influence of a European political style upon its own. The gradual shift away from
corporatist to more plural forms of interest organization, the emergence of transversal
networks replacing vertical policy communities, and the bypassing of formal republican
forms of political representation to gain access to EU fora are viewed as a
‘contamination’ of the French policy style (Muller 1995). More telling perhaps is the fact
that members of the French Permanent Representation are increasingly perceived less as
Gaullist advocates of French self-interest and more as genuine proselytizers of a
European model. They have become what Lequesne calls ‘two-way actors’ (1993:200) in
the process of European integration.
Conclusions
A recent observer from the French Planning Ministry claims that ‘[t]he Ministry of the
Environment has the tendency to reason systematically in terms of regulation…we
traditionally reason first in terms of accompaniment, incitation and suggestion’ (quoted in
Jodelet and Scipion 1999:51). If this is the case, then in twenty-five years the ministry
has come a long way from that early structure which, according to its first Minister,
explicitly sought to avoid normative, authoritarian and unilateral forms of intervention
(Poujade 1975; quoted in Lavoux 1999). Undoubtedly, Europeanization and the European
regulatory environmental regime are in part the cause of this shift (Buller et al. 1993).
We may ask whether such an approach is wholly appropriate for unitary states such as
France and Great Britain (Buller 1998; Theys 1999), for whom negotiation with local and
private-sector actors, acceptance of the varied capacity of different milieux to
accommodate environmental stress, a pragmatic desire to seek procedural outcomes and,
indeed, a highly territorialized sense of the environment itself are long-standing policy
traditions.
The construction of EU environmental policy, its coincidence with the parallel
edification of France’s own environmental public policy, and the crossfertilization of the
two, represent the establishment of an environmental obligation within France (Romi
1997). This establishment has progressed via a series of incremental and, at times,
occasionally more sudden shifts (notably the creation of the Environment Ministry in
1971 and the reforming Plan national pour l’environnement in 1990 (Lascoumes 1999)).
In 2001, during a major speech on the environment, President Jacques Chirac called for a
new ‘humanist ecology’ and for the formal attachment of a Charter of the Environment to
the French constitution, something environmental jurists have been seeking for some
time. However, while in environmental terms the results have been generally positive
(OECD 1997; IFEN 1997), the modalities and the tensions inherent in environmental
policy and decision making have exposed the wider crisis in the institutions of the French
state. Paradoxically because of Europeanization, the construction of an environmental
France 89
policy domain in France has offered a potential alternative to the traditional model of
public policy, though not always in the manner that its original architects intended.
Has this taken place beyond the impact of Europeanization? From a counterfactual
perspective, it is clear that societal and domestic demands within France, from the formal
political agenda of the Ecology Party to growing popular concern over such issues as
industrial and agricultural pollution, have constituted a social movement which, while it
has been aided by Europeanization, has clearly not always been driven by it. The relative
weakness of the environmental policy institutions and, as Lascoumes and Le Bourhis
(1997) acknowledge, the relatively late arrival of the state into the environmental policy
domain have meant that European policy and legislation have vied for influence in what
has been a curiously pluralistic, yet unformed, political arena for France.
Over the last twenty or so years, a considerable tension has emerged between the
strong political verticality of the French state and its administrative sectors and the
territorial horizontality of French society and its organization. Although the transition
from the horizontal to the vertical is often held as one of the necessary rites of passage of
modernism, leading to corporatist sectoralism and the social divisions of labour (Muller
1990), France has never fully come to terms with this tension. Indeed, in recent years, the
rise of localism, political decentralization, subsidiarity and regional autonomy have
combined to engender what is, for many, a crisis of the central unitary state model
(Muller 1992). As this chapter has shown, internal considerations continue to drive the
environmental policy agenda and structural and institutional adaptations to it. Accounts
of the political development of the environment within France still pay scant attention to
the direct or indirect influence of the EU, though this tendency is not limited to the
environmental policy domain.
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prémices du réseau Natura 2000, Ministère de l’Environnement, DGAD/SRAE.
Romi, R. (1997) Droit et administration de l’environnement, second edition, Paris: Montchrestien.
Swyngedouw, E. (2000) ‘Authoritarian governance, power and the politics of rescaling’,
Environment and Planning D, 18:63–76.
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Octobre 1998, 13.
7
Germany
From environmental leadership to partial mismatch
Rüdiger K.W.Wurzel1
Overview
In Germany2 the Europeanization of environmental and other policies has long been
taken for granted. Germany has traditionally been regarded as one of the most pro-
integrationist member states and an environmental pioneer (Andersen and Liefferink
1997). For much of the 1980s German policy makers saw themselves as a major driving
force behind EU environmental policy. Germany often took the lead by uploading to the
EU level ambitious domestic environmental standards and regulatory principles or by
adopting nationally more stringent measures where this was permitted by the EU Treaty
However, post-unification Germany has lost some of its environmental credentials and
come under pressure from the EU to reform its environmental policy system.
National attitudes to Europe

After the Second World War Germany consciously adopted ‘a policy of self-restraint’
(Bulmer et al. 2000:1). It was a founding member of the EU and has consistently
supported deeper integration. Successive German Chancellors have favoured a federal
EU with a powerful European Parliament (EP). The high dependence on an export-driven
industrial base since the economic miracle of the 1950s also made Germany a strong
advocate of the Single European Market (SEM).
Realist theories of international relations argue that Germany’s reasons for supporting
deeper European integration will wane over time. Gerhard Schröder
(Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD), who in 1998 succeeded the strongly
pro-integrationist Helmut Kohl (Christlich Demokratische Union, CDU), is the first
German Chancellor to be born after the Second World War. Schröder ‘purposefully
introduced a new discourse of national interest into German European policy debate’
(Hyde-Price and Jeffery 2001:698) when he stated that ‘my generation and those
following are European because we want to be not because we have to be.… I am sure
that our European partners want to have a German partner which is more calculable than
a German partner with an inferiority complex’ (cited in Bulmer et al. 2000:109).
Schröder lived up to his promise when he intervened on behalf of the domestic
automobile industry during the 1999 German EU presidency (Bulmer et al. 2000:26;
Germany 93
Müller 2002; Wurzel 2000). During the national election campaign in 2002, he refused to
accept the Commission’s warning letter regarding Germany’s breach of the EU’s stability
pact and accused the Commission of disregarding German interests while explicitly
referring to environmental policy. However, Schröder also called for a deepening of
European integration and backed down from his demands that Germany’s budgetary
contribution be significantly reduced (Wurzel 2000). Despite the growing national-
interest rhetoric, post-unification Germany remains the only large member state which
simultaneously supports both a deepening and a widening of the EU (Bulmer et al. 2000).
Euroscepticism remains a taboo subject within mainstream German politics. However,
senior state politicians have frequently been critical of the federal government’s readiness
to transfer to the EU level powers which, under the German constitution, are state
(Länder) competences. Bavaria has been particularly outspoken in this regard. Its Prime
Minister, Edmund Stoiber (Christlich Soziale Union, CSU), nicknamed ‘Edmund
Thatcher’ (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2 November 1993), has criticized the federal
government and ‘Brussels’ for breaching the principle of subsidiarity, which enjoyed
quasi-constitutional status in Germany long before it was formalized in the EU Treaties.
However, Stoiber toned down his ‘Euro-assertiveness’ (Bulmer et al. 2000:80) when he
became the Chancellor candidate for the Conservative opposition (CDU/CSU) in 2002.
In recent years the gap between Germany’s political elite, which has remained broadly
sympathetic towards deeper European integration, and the general public, which has been
less convinced about the benefits of EU membership, has widened. Public support for the
EU in Germany fell below the EU average at the beginning of the twenty-first century,
although this has not led to an erosion of the overwhelming cross-party support for
deeper European integration.
National attitudes to the environment

Constrained by its past, Europe’s economic giant and political dwarf ‘deliberately
punched below its weight’ (Paterson 1996:170). Germany was reluctant to take on a
leader role and instead relied heavily on joint initiatives—and close co-operation with
France in particular—to foster deeper European integration. The environmental policy
field, in which the Franco-German axis was of little importance due to different problem
perceptions and policy preferences (Héritier et al. 1996; Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet
1996), remained the most important exception. In 1982 Germany took on an
environmental leader role on the EU (and international) level (Müller 1986; Weale 1992).
It was largely triggered by concerns about dying forests (Waldsterberi). Scientific
studies, which concluded that air pollutants were the main causes of Waldsterben,
attracted huge media attention in Germany and considerable environmental interest-group
action, which led to a surge in public environmental awareness. The environment became
a salient political issue also because the Green Party entered the national parliament in
1983. Unusually for a pro-integrationist member state, Germany threatened to ‘go it
alone’ if the EU refused to accept its demands for the introduction of the best available
technology (BAT) to reduce car emissions (Arp 1995; Holzinger 1994; Wurzel 2002).
For many Germans, the protracted saga of trying to regulate car emissions at the EU level
confirmed the already widely held view that Brussels acted primarily as a brake on
domestic environmental policy.
In 1978 the German Environmental Expert Council (Sachverständigenrat für

Umweltfragen, SRU) pointed out that some EU environmental policy measures were in
fact more stringent than existing German policy (SRU 1978). Moreover, the SRU
(1978:514) argued that the EU could one day become an innovating force for German
environmental policy. However, it was only from the 1990s onwards that policy makers
realized that they had greatly underestimated the (long-term) effects of the
Europeanization process on domestic environmental policy (Baacke 2000).
The German public has traditionally been one of the most environmentally aware
amongst member states (CEC 1999). However, while in 1988 there was a difference of
ten percentage points between the EU and German averages regarding the number of
people who thought that environmental problems were ‘an urgent and immediate
problem’, the differences had declined to just one percentage point by 1999 (Wurzel
2002:15).
The Europeanization of Germany
Germany’s post-war division into East and West goes a long way to explain why German
politicians have often found it difficult to defend the national interest. Crucially,
Germany has only rarely invoked the national veto within the EU. Britain and France, in
particular, which have centrally co-ordinated EU policies, have expressed frustration at
what they perceive as Germany’s frequent inability to arrive at a clear national position
prior to Council negotiations.
Important institutional constraints militate against the co-ordination of a coherent
national EU position. Unified Germany has remained a ‘semi-sovereign state’, because
‘the power of state officials is both severely circumscribed and widely diffused’
(Katzenstein 1987:xxiii). The federal system, relatively high ministerial independence
and coalition government make it difficult to come up with a clear national position
(Wurzel 2000:24). Moreover, German governments have to take into account powerful
‘parapolitical institutions’ (Katzenstein 1987) such as the Constitutional Court.
Germany’s EU policy has been described as ‘sectorally disaggregated, weakly co-
ordinated and, at times, highly disorganised’ (Hyde-Price and Jeffery 2001:707). Derlien
(2000:75) has argued that the German fire brigade approach…[and] its reactive style and
management by exception may be well suited to the kind of incremental decision making
in a multi-level game’ such as EU policy making. However, recent efforts to streamline
Germany’s EU policy co-ordination machinery suggest otherwise.
There is a burgeoning foreign policy literature on unified Germany’s role in the new
Europe. It portrays Germany largely as a ‘civilian’ (Maull 1990) or ‘tamed’ (Katzenstein
1997) power which remains committed to deeper European integration (Bulmer et al.
2000). However, there are dissenting voices which suggest that Germany will reassess its
EU and foreign policy options (Mearsheimer 1990). Chancellor Schröder’s insistence on
a ‘German way’ in the build-up to the Iraq war could be construed as evidence for the
latter school of thought. However, Schröder’s increasingly populist rhetoric became
particularly acute during the tightly fought national election campaign in 2002. It has not
resulted in significant changes to Germany’s EU and foreign policy objectives under the
Red—Green coalition government which came to power in 1999.
Germany 95
The public policy literature on the Europeanization of Germany is still very

underdeveloped (Dyson and Goetz 2003; Sturm and Pehle 2001). A study by Sturm and
Pehle (2001) concludes that Europeanization has had a significant but highly variable
impact on ‘the new German governance system’. Out of five policy fields analysed,
agriculture and monetary policies are seen as having been most affected. They are closely
followed by environmental and regional policies, while justice and home affairs were
least, although still significantly, affected. The content of these policies was judged to
have been more affected than institutions, although the Constitutional Court, the Länder
and interest groups in particular were all seen as having been significantly affected.
Policy content appears to change more easily as compared with domestic political
structures and styles.
The Europeanization of German environmental policy
Until the 1990s the Europeanization of German environmental policy attracted little
attention. For much of the 1980s Germany acted as an environmental leader state.
Therefore the public and many domestic policy makers simply assumed that German
environmental policy had only been very marginally affected by the EU. The dominant
flow of influence was from Germany to the rest of the EU. However, during the 1990s
this consensus began to break down. Just like other EU states, Germany is now widely
seen as experiencing difficulties in adapting to certain EU policy demands (Börzel 2002;
Demmke 1999; Héritier et al. 1996; Knill 2001; Kraack et al. 2001).
The content of German policy
Policy goals and paradigms

Germany is the archetypal ‘high regulatory state’ (Héritier et al. 1996) which has adopted
a dense body of environmental legislation (Kloepfer 1998). This view fits the claim that
German politics is characterized by a high degree of juridification (Dyson 1982; 1992).
German environmental policy has certainly made relatively wide use of traditional
(‘command-and-control’) regulation (Ordnungsrecht) which stipulates emission limits at
the source of pollution or environmental quality objectives (EQOs) for particular parts of
the environment. Overall, Germany has relied more heavily on emission limits often
derived from the BAT principle, which can be traced to nineteenth-century Prussian trade
ordinances (Hartkopf and Bohne 1983; Müller 1986). The BAT principle led to the
proliferation of detailed environmental laws which focus on different environmental
media (air, water and soil) instead of a more holistic cross-media approach.
The wide use of the BAT principle in German environmental policy was encouraged
by the adoption of the precautionary principle (Vorsorgeprinzip), which legitimizes
pollution abatement measures in the absence of scientific proof where there is a
significant risk that (irreversible) environmental damage would otherwise occur.
However, a balance has to be struck between the precautionary principle and the
principles of proportionality (Verhältnismäβigkeitsprinzip) and co-operation
(Kooperationsprinzip) which were all stipulated in the 1971 national Environmental
Programme (Hartkopf and Bohne 1983). Some of the latter’s guiding principles found
their way into the EU’s 1973 First Environmental Action Programme (EAP). Germany
later also successfully uploaded the precautionary principle into the EU Treaty.
The concept of ecological modernization gained considerable support in Germany
during the 1980s. Its advocates claimed that stringent domestic environmental standards
would be beneficial to both the environment and the economy (Töpfer 1989; Schröder
1989). The emergence of a successful export-oriented German pollution control
technology industry seemed to confirm these claims (UBA 1997). However, BAT-
derived environmental legislation imposed short-term economic costs on domestic
industries which, for competitive reasons, were keen to see an uploading of German
standards to the EU. Many environmental NGOs also supported strict EU-wide standards
in order to prevent ecological dumping. The ambition to export German standards and
policy approaches to the EU level therefore received considerable domestic support.
However, member states such as the UK that had adopted a different regulatory
philosophy or attributed a lower priority to environmental issues (see Chapter 3) were
resolutely opposed to BAT-derived emission limits. It was especially during the adoption
of the Directive on the Discharge of Dangerous Substances into Water (74/464/EEC)
when serious Anglo-German disputes erupted. Germany’s demand for BAT-derived
emission limits was supported by most other continental member states, but especially
Denmark and the Netherlands, with whom Germany often formed a ‘green trio’ prior to
the 1995 enlargement of the EU. However, Britain and Ireland insisted on a more flexible
EQO-centred approach on the grounds that their domestic environments had a much
higher carrying capacity (Bungarten 1978:197–210). Because unanimity was required for
the adoption of EU environmental legislation until 1987, a compromise had to be found
which allowed for a ‘parallel approach’ (i.e. emission limits or EQOs). However,
occasionally the political deadlock could not be resolved, as was the case for a
Commission proposal regulating aquatic discharges of the pulp and paper industry. It was
never adopted due to the deep paradigmatic conflict.
In 1988 Germany used its EU presidency to organize a ministerial seminar in
Frankfurt on water policy, the sector where Anglo-German differences were initially
most pronounced (Wurzel 2002:26). The seminar seemed to resolve the dispute by
suggesting a combined approach (i.e. the adoption of emission limits and EQOs in an
accumulative manner), although it resurfaced during the protracted negotiation of the
Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).
In the 1970s EU environmental policy drew heavily on EQOs. In the 1980s the
Commission’s Directorate-General for the Environment (DG Environment) became more
receptive to the BAT principle. This was partly due to German lobbying and partly out of
necessity, as there was only insufficient data for adopting an EQO-centred approach
(Wurzel 2002:69–70). However, in the 1990s the Commission returned to its preference
for an EQO-centred approach. Since the 1990s the Commission has placed considerably
more emphasis on cost-effectiveness, framework directives and procedural measures,
while the publication of proposals for detailed regulations has slowed down. This shift
has been variously attributed to ‘British’ (Héritier et al. 1996; Knill 2001; Pehle
1998:235), ‘Anglo-American’ (Kloepfer 1998:614) or ‘Anglo-Scandinavian’ (Baacke
2000) influence. However, economic recession, the debate about the principle of
Germany 97
subsidiarity and the maturity of the common environmental policy are also important
factors (Wurzel 2002:68–70).
Policy instruments
Traditional (‘command-and-control’) regulation is the most widely used tool in German
and EU environmental policy. However, since the early 1990s the EU has made
increasing use of procedural measures, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
(85/337/EEC), Freedom of Access to Environmental Information (90/313/EEC) and
Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) (96/61/EC). These measures have
triggered considerable adaptation pressures on Germany’s domestic structures (i.e. the
institutional ‘fit’ or ‘misfit’) and policy style (i.e. the relationship between the
government and societal actors) (Börzel 2002; Demmke 1999; Héritier et al. 1996;
Kraack et al. 2001; Knill 2001; Knill and Lenschow 2000). However, the EU’s shift
towards procedural measures has also affected the content of domestic policy. Many
German policy makers view the EU’s procedural measures as alien to the German
approach and a danger to the BAT principle.
The German government has therefore sought either to alter some of the procedural
measures during the adoption phase or to divert the adaptation pressures during the
implementation phase. In the case of the IPPC Directive, Germany used its 1994 EU
presidency to push for the insertion of the BAT principle (Wurzel 1996:285), while the
EIA Directive was implemented only incorrectly. Ironically, Germany had been one of
the pioneers in Europe when it adopted national EIA legislation in 1975 (Hartkopf and
Bohne 1983:98–9; Kloepfer 1998:237–8). However, its effectiveness was severely
curtailed due to the effect of more sectoralized national laws which prescribed the BAT.
Voluntary agreements (VAs) have played an important role in German environmental
policy. They are non-binding although they are often adopted ‘in the shadow of the law’
(UBA 1999). Industry frequently puts forward VAs in order to pre-empt government
legislation. German VAs can be traced to the beginnings of domestic environmental
policy, although their importance increased significantly when a Centre-Right
(CDU/CSU/FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei)) government adopted a coalition
agreement in 1994 which stated a general preference for voluntary agreements (UBA
1999). Germany’s first ever Red—Green (SPD/Greens) coalition government, which
came to power in 1998, was initially sceptical of VAs but later accepted that they might
usefully reduce greenhouse gases. The EU has only sparingly applied VAs due to
legitimacy concerns. Some German voluntary agreements have actually been overwritten
by EU legislation, as occurred in the case of the End-of-life Vehicles (ELV) Directive
(2000/53/EC).
In 1978 Germany was the first country to adopt a national eco-label scheme. It
influenced the EU eco-label scheme only set up in 1992 (Wurzel et al. 2003). On the
other hand, the German government was initially highly sceptical about other EU
voluntary informational devices such as the Environmental Management and Auditing
System (EMAS). German companies nevertheless made up about two-thirds of all EMAS
applications in the EU during the first few years.
Germany has also made moderate use of market instruments. In the 1970s it adopted a
levy on industrial waste water and in the 1980s tax incentives for cars equipped with
catalytic converters (Wurzel et al. 2003). A full-scale ecological tax reform was
introduced by the Red—Green coalition government in 1999. Its adoption had to be
postponed by three months in order to take into account objections raised by the
Commission. The previous Centre-Right government had refrained from unilaterally
adopting a national eco-tax in view of fears about Germany’s economic competitiveness.
Instead the Centre-Right government pushed for the adoption of an EU-wide carbon
dioxide/energy tax (Wurzel et al. 2003). However, it has not been adopted due to the
unanimity voting requirement for EU taxes. The Commission’s proposal for an EU-wide
emissions trading system to cut climate-change gases was the main driving force behind
the German government’s decision to set up a national emissions trading working group
in early 2001. In the 1990s officials from the Ministry of the Environment
(Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit, BMU) had made
three earlier attempts to create small-scale pilot schemes which came to nothing due to
industry opposition (Wurzel et al. 2003).

The bulk of early EU environmental legislation dealt with harmonization measures which
were designed to prevent barriers to trade. Due to its relatively high ecological
vulnerability (as a highly industrialized and densely populated country in the centre of
Europe) and export-driven industry, Germany had a strong ecological and economic
interest in pushing for EU harmonization measures. Germany certainly made wide use of
the EU’s information and standstill agreement, which stipulates that the Commission
should be informed about draft national legislation with a potential impact on the SEM in
order to allow for the adoption of common legislation instead (Wurzel 2002:75–8).
However, early on the EU also adopted environmental laws which were only very
tenuously linked to the single market. Some of these measures (such as the Bathing
Water Directive (76/160/EC)) had no base in German environmental law. EU
environmental laws therefore influenced the content of German environmental standards
from the 1970s onwards, although initially only to a moderate degree, because Germany
found it easier to agree to EU policy measures than to implement them on the ground.
However, from the 1980s onwards the Commission increasingly adopted a pro-active
approach to taking member states to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failing to
implement EU environmental laws (Krämer 1988). Germany subsequently lost several
infringement cases in the ECJ. This triggered a gradual adaptation of some domestic
environmental standards.
Broadly speaking, the Europeanization of German environmental standards can be
grouped into three major categories. First, there are the relatively progressive German
standards that were uploaded to the EU level. Examples include the Waste Oils Directive,
the Large Combustion Plants Directive and many car emission and fuel directives.
Usually, German initiatives were adopted by the EU only after a time lag (which, in the
case of the Large Combustion Plants Directive and the introduction of the three-way
catalytic converter, amounted to almost ten years). Moreover, the standards uploaded by
Germany were subject to modifications which took into account the demands of ‘veto
actors’ such as the UK (Weale 1996). Often this resulted in a dilution of the original
German proposals, through the widespread use of exemptions, phasein deadlines and
Germany 99
vague compromises (Weale et al. 2000; Wurzel 2002). Nonetheless, the resulting EU
legislation also usually contained additional requirements inspired by demands from
other environmental leader states and the environmentally minded European Parliament.
Significantly, sometimes these went beyond the original German proposals. There are,
therefore, very few, if any, EU environmental laws which are solely based on German
(draft) legislation, even if Germany provided the impetus for the EU to act in the first
place. This explains why the implementation of uploaded standards has not always been
without problems.
Second, there are EU standards which Germany passively downloaded from the EU to
the national level. Examples include bathing water standards, conservation measures for
birds and habitats, and EIA. Overall, the implementation of these standards has caused
greater problems at the national level in comparison to uploaded standards. This was the
case especially for downloaded standards which required institutional and procedural
changes during the implementation process, such as the EIA Directive (which
necessitated the adoption of procedures that took into account pollution prevention in the
round).
Finally, there is an intermediate category which includes those EU policy measures
which the BMU would like to have adopted at the national level but failed to due to
resistance from powerful national actors such as the Economics Ministry and the
Chancellor. Examples here would include EU laws on dangerous chemicals and scrapped
cars.
To conclude, the EU has acted as a ‘brake and a facilitator’ for national environmental
standards (Hartkopf and Bohne 1983:169). The same can be said about the use of policy
instruments. During the 1970s and especially the 1980s, Germany was very successful in
uploading guiding principles, policy instruments and standards to the EU level. However,
since the 1990s there has been ‘a growing mismatch between EU and German
environmental policy preferences’ (BMU interview 1999).
The structures of German policy
The machinery of German government

Some observers have argued that the German (environmental) administrative system is
characterized by a ‘static core’ (Knill 2001:135–63) which has favoured interventionist
approaches and ‘regulatory rules [that] are highly specified and leave comparatively little
flexibility and discretion for the administration’ (Knill 2001:137). The EU’s recent
procedural measures (such as EIA and EMAS) and informational devices (such as Access
to Environmental Information) are characterized by a relatively high degree of flexibility
and/or are based on a non-interventionist self-regulatory philosophy. They are therefore
often seen as incompatible with traditional domestic administrative structures and
procedures (Héritier et al. 1996; Knill 2001; Knill and Lenschow 1998). However, this
argument downplays domestic reform efforts and the fact that the EU has occasionally
forced Germany to adopt a more legalistic approach. As was mentioned above, some
German VAs have been overwritten by EU legislation and the ECJ has, on occasions,
forced Germany to abandon internal administrative circulars (Verwaltungsanweisungen)
and technical instructions (technische Anleitungen) in favour of formal laws, because

they provide greater legal certainty and transparency (Knill 2001:140; Krämer 1988:208).
The core institutional structures of the German environmental policy system were set
up by the Centre—Left (SPD/FDP) coalition government which came to power in 1969,
as part of a much wider reform process (Hartkopf and Bohne 1983; Müller 1986). It
created new environmental administrative capacities, adopted an ambitious
environmental programme, introduced new policy instruments (such as the 1976 waste
water levy) and even flirted with highly novel procedural approaches (such as EIA and
integrated pollution control) (Hartkopf and Bohne 1983). However, this euphoric period
of reform ground to a halt in the 1973 oil crisis. However, as implementation failures
stacked up and the chancellorship switched from the reform-minded Willy Brandt (SPD)
to the crisis manager Helmut Schmidt (SPD), German environmental policy entered a
much more ‘defensive phase’ (Müller 1986). The new administration again relied more
heavily on traditional approaches, instruments and administrative procedures.
The core environmental administrative structures have remained remarkably stable
since the early 1970s despite the creation of a separate Environment Ministry (the BMU)
in 1986 (Pehle 1998). The strong reliance of German environmental policy on traditional
regulatory instruments and legal principles has been partly attributed to the fact that the
Interior Ministry (Bundesministerium des Inneren, BMI), which was staffed primarily
with legally trained officials, was responsible for environmental policy between 1969 and
1986 (BMU interviews 2001). For scientific advice the BMU/BMI relied heavily on the
Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA), which was set up in 1974,
and, to a lesser degree, the SRU, which was created in 1972. Importantly, the Länder also
have environment ministries and agencies.
Over time, the federal and Länder structures were adapted incrementally in order to
cope with the EU’s increasing involvement in environmental policy A small EU unit was
set up in the BMU during the 1980s. However, its ability to co-ordinate Germany’s input
into the Environment Council (and other EU institutions) has remained limited because
much EU business—apart from the co-ordination role of the German EU presidency—is
left to technical units which act relatively independently (Demmke and Unfried 2001;
Schout and Jordan forthcoming). For a long time the BMU co-ordinated EU
environmental issues along similar lines to domestic issues. However, a moderate
streamlining of Germany’s EU policy co-ordination machinery took place in 2000. The
BMU has long been ‘one of the most Europeanized ministries’ with EU dossiers
amounting to about ‘90 per cent’ of some units’ work (BMU interview 1992). However,
it is difficult to gauge whether the BMU has been strengthened or weakened overall by
Europeanization. On the one hand, the BMU has been strengthened (vis-à-vis other
ministries and/or the Länder) because it is usually the lead department for all EU dossiers
negotiated within the Environment Council. However, this must be contrasted with a
survey by Heinrich Pehle (1998:248) which found that 42 per cent of BMU officials think
that the EU hinders German environmental policy.
The EU’s efforts to integrate environmental requirements into other policy sectors (via
the so-called Cardiff process; Schout and Jordan forthcoming) has re-opened an old
domestic debate about the best inter-departmental co-ordination mechanisms (Hartkopf
and Bohne 1983:144–50). However, the BMU has remained a relatively isolated ministry
with weak inter-ministerial links (Pehle 1998), which is in line with the German
Germany 101
administrative tradition of relatively strong ministerial independence (Dyson and Goetz

2003).
The EU’s efforts to tackle pollution in the round have caused adaptation pressures on
the domestic level for two reasons. First, the BMU’s internal organization is still largely
geared towards the implementation of the BAT principle in individual environmental
sectors (e.g. air, water or land), although the UBA’s organizational structure was
reformed in the 1990s to take better account of cross-sectoral pollution control
approaches. Second, the federal system has allocated asymmetrical competences to the
federal government and the Länder.
Sub-national structures: the federal system

Germany has a long federal tradition. In environmental policy, the Länder have tried to
guard their constitutional competences by insisting on the application of the principle of
subsidiarity. In the 1970s, the Länder successfully defended their competences for water
management and nature protection by blocking a constitutional amendment which would
have given the federal government powers similar to those which it had acquired for air
pollution, waste management and noise pollution control.
Prior to the 1987 Single European Act, which first introduced explicit environmental
provisions into the European Community (EC) Treaty, the Länder frequently claimed that
the EU had insufficient Treaty competences for dealing with environmental issues
(Bungarten 1978). However, the federal government, which holds the foreign policy
competences, often ignored the Länder, which accused the government of seeking to
extend its competences by agreeing to EU environmental legislation. This has often led to
a lack of co-operation from the Länder during the subsequent implementation phases,
especially of EU environmental policy measures that fell within their domestic
competences.
The (non) implementation of EU (and domestic) environmental laws is generally more
complex in federal states then in centralized states. However, the ECJ has refused to
accept domestic co-ordination difficulties as an excuse for incorrectly implementing EU
environmental laws. The federal government will be taken to the ECJ if the Länder fail
correctly to implement EU environmental laws. Up until the Amsterdam Treaty, which
introduced the possibility of fines for member states failing to implement ECJ decisions,
it could do little apart from put political pressure on the Länder. However, since then it
has threatened to pass on to the Länder any fines imposed. The Commission’s insistence
on the correct implementation of EU environmental legislation has even led to unfounded
accusations that it wants to set up an ‘occupational regime’ (Besatzungsregime)
(Salzwedel 1989:49).
The politically controversial Maastricht Treaty had to be ratified by the German
Parliament (Bundestag) and the Bundesrat, which represents the Länder. The Länder
cunningly used this opportunity to insist upon a much closer involvement in EU policy
making. In 1992 this triggered a constitutional amendment which obliges the federal
government to keep the Länder better informed. Moreover, they have been granted the
right to represent Germany in the Council on issues which fall within their exclusive
competences (Bundesrat 2001; Demmke and Unfried 2001). The Länder are represented
in the Committee of Regions and have offices in Brussels. Since the 1990s the Länder
have become more pro-active and competent (europafähig) on EU matters. Unlike the
national parliament, which has been one of the main losers of the Europeanization
process, the Länder have managed to claw back some of the competences from the
national executive (see also Dyson and Goetz 2003).
EU policy co-ordination at the federal level and in the EU

The co-ordination of German EU policy takes place largely horizontally (i.e. between
different ministries), although the Chancellor, who determines the policy guidelines,
occasionally intervenes. EU policy issues are discussed frequently in cabinet meetings
although the Cabinet Committee for European Affairs plays only a minor role. German
EU policy co-ordination occurs via both standard diplomatic and more specialist tracks
(Derlien 2000). Its main features have changed only incrementally since the 1950s.
Overall, the expert track has become more important, resulting in an increased number of
direct contacts between German and EU/member state officials. Within technical (‘low
politics’) sectors such as the environment, it is usually the respective functional ministry
that acts as the lead department. The Chancellor and Foreign Minister usually take charge
of ‘high politics’ issues such as Treaty amendments negotiated through inter-
governmental conferences (IGCs).
The Permanent Representation is the interface between Brussels and Bonn/Berlin,
although for some dossiers it has been given considerable freedom of manoeuvre in order
to be able to exploit its intimate knowledge of the often very fast-moving Brussels scene.
The Foreign Office and Economics Ministry, the latter widely seen as the BMU’s main
opponent on the domestic level, have long been well represented in the Brussels-based
German Permanent Representation. The BMU has only had its own official within the
Permanent Representation since 1993. By 2003 there were three BMU officials within
the Permanent Representation.
In autumn 2000 a moderate streamlining of Germany’s EU policy co-ordination
machinery took place (BMU interviews 2001). One of the main reasons for this reform
was an embarrassing episode that occurred during the negotiation of the ELV Directive,
although calls for more effective co-ordination had been mounting for some time (Derlien
2000). During the 1999 German EU presidency Chancellor Schröder instructed his
Environment Minister, Jürgen Trittin of the Greens (who personally favoured the
proposal), to keep the ELV dossier off the Environment Council’s agenda for fear that
Germany might be outvoted. Germany had already agreed in principle to the ELV
Directive under the 1998 Austrian presidency. However, the automobile industry, which
was concerned about the cost implications of the proposed directive, frantically lobbied
the Chancellor, who subsequently overruled Trittin and persuaded the British and Spanish
Prime Ministers to help Germany form a blocking minority (Wurzel 2000).
Co-ordination is made considerably more difficult because German EU delegations
sometimes reach the size of football teams, such is the lack of trust between ministries
(Wurzel 2002:61). There have even been occasions when German delegations quite
literally spoke with different voices. One of the most spectacular examples took place
during the Commission’s launch of the Auto-Oil II Programme in 1997. The
Commission’s aim was to complete the Auto-Oil I Programme by arriving at cost-
effective car emission and fuel standards derived from ambient urban air quality. The
Germany 103
BMU official who was heading the German delegation strongly condemned the
Commission’s approach and walked out of the meeting, threatening a German boycott. At
the same time, one of his colleagues from the Economics Ministry actually praised the
Commission’s approach (Wurzel 2002:160)!
The recent streamlining of Germany’s policy co-ordination machinery seems to have
prevented more inter-ministerial wrangles from breaking out into the open. The
Commission’s proposal for an EU-wide emissions trading scheme to reduce greenhouse
gases was favoured in principle by the BMU, while the Economics Ministry was
concerned about the cost implications for the chemical industry in particular. After
considerable lobbying by the chemical industry and the unions within this industrial
sector, Chancellor Schröder seemed to side with the Economics Ministry. Permanent
Representation officials alerted the relevant ministries and the Chancellory that a
qualified majority threatened to outvote Germany within the Environment Council. The
German government subsequently undertook strenuous efforts to come up with a clearer
national position while trying to buy time to recruit allies amongst member governments,
which collectively put pressure on the Danish EU presidency to postpone the Council’s
decision by a few months in 2002. The German government now broadly favours a
tradable permit scheme (although it is no secret that the BMU and Economics Ministry
still disagree about important details).
The style of German policy

In trying to solve public policy problems, German governments usually adopt a
moderately active stance based heavily on consensus and consultation (Dyson 1982;
1992). The traditional German policy style certainly featured many ‘corporatist’ elements
but was not uniformly corporatist. Thus, government consultation was extended to
employers and trade unions, but environmental groups remained outside the framework
of discussions (Katzenstein 1987; Kitschelt 1986).
The government’s active and consensus-seeking stance towards the resolution of
public policy problems is compatible with Germany’s social market economy (soziale
Marktwirtschaft), which allows state actors to set the framework conditions
(Ordnungspolitik) for private actors. The social market economy doctrine became widely
accepted as a macro-political action guiding norm for German policy makers after the
economic miracle of the 1950s (Dyson 1992). In the late 1980s there was wide cross-
party support for developing the social market economy further into a ‘social and
ecological market economy’ (Töpfer 1989; Schröder 1989). However, this move was
largely abandoned in the 1990s when German policy makers had to come to terms with
the impact of unification and an increasingly fierce debate about the Standort
Deutschland (i.e. Germany’s future as a production and investment location) (Harding
and Paterson 2000). The Standort Deutschland debate has raised questions about the
future of the ‘German model’ (Modell Deutschland), which was long seen as an
alternative to Anglo-Saxon capitalism (Harding and Paterson 2000; Hodges and
Woolcock 1993). The recent lacklustre economic performance of the ‘German model’
has arguably led to a marked decline in Germany’s influence in the EU (Dyson and Goetz
2003).
In Germany the Commission’s preference for soft and self-regulatory environmental

policy instruments is connected to a deeper national debate about the future of the
‘German model’. Some policy actors in Germany (such as the Economics Ministry) have
welcomed a less interventionist approach to environmental policy However, the BMU
remains largely unconvinced about the effectiveness of so-called ‘new approaches’,
which it fears could lead to a roll-back of hard-won domestic (and EU) environmental
policy achievements.
Klaus von Beyme (1985:5) has warned that broad generalizations about ‘a national
style of policy making tend to obscure historical changes over time, variations between
fields of policy and the differences between the role of various parties’. This assessment
holds true for Germany’s environmental and EU policy styles, which have evolved over
time due to indigenous domestic changes as well as Europeanization and globalization
pressures. These changes have taken place only incrementally due to ‘structural’
constraints (i.e. institutional and constitutional constraints) as well as ‘cultural’
constraints (i.e. widely accepted and deeply embedded norms about the role of state
actors within a social market economy and Germany’s place in Europe and the world).
In the late 1960s the newly elected Centre-Left government briefly adopted a pro-
active stance on many issues, including environmental protection (see above). In the early
1970s it set up administrative capacities and financed the creation of new environmental
groups, while encouraging greater consultation (Hartkopf and Bohne 1983). However,
when the recession set in after 1973 (see above), domestic environmental policy returned
to a more reactive style (Müller 1986). By the late 1970s domestic environmental policy
started to recover (Müller 1986) and Germany once again adopted an environmental
leader role. The change in Germany’s EU and international role was instigated by the
outgoing Centre—Left government but then greatly accelerated by the Centre—Right
government, which came to power in late 1982. However, it was only in the late 1990s
that a Red-Green government again placed more emphasis on wider consultation, while
actively trying to include environmental groups (Jänicke and Weidner 1997:140–1).
Therefore, Herbert Kitschelt’s (1986) assessment that the German environmental
policy-making process is characterized by ‘closed opportunity structures’ only really
applies to particular periods of time and certain sub-sectors (e.g. nuclear power but not
eco-labels). It explains why German environmental groups relied heavily on the courts
during the ‘post-decisional phase’ in a political system which is characterized by a high
degree of juridification due to a strong state law (Rechtsstaat) tradition. However, it fails
to account for why German environmental groups have largely failed to lobby Brussels to
the same extent as their British counterparts. Christian Hey and Uwe Brendle (1994) have
argued that German environmental groups hold strong principled beliefs that they are
unwilling to compromise in EU policy bargaining. Importantly, many have never seen the
need to lobby Brussels—German environmental groups generally perceive the EU mainly
as a free trade area which acts as a brake on domestic environmental policy. However,
since the 1990s German environmental groups have become more active on the EU level,
as can be seen, for example, from the German Nature Circle’s (Deutscher
Naturschutzring, DNR) monthly EU newsletter. This change is more a reflection of the
EU’s growing importance for environmental policy and the fact that Germany has lost
some of its environmental credentials since the 1990s, than proof of the continued
existence of closed national opportunity structures. However, the EU’s Access to
Germany 105
Environmental Information Directive has granted environmental groups greater access to

national information.
Germany has generally been very active on the EU level in the environmental policy
field. However, its EU environmental policy style has ranged from pro-active (e.g. car
emission regulation and climate change) to reactive (e.g. EIA). Overall, Germany has
concentrated mainly on uploading domestic guiding principles and standards, while
neglecting both the ‘politics of staffing’ in Brussels and the presentation of a coherent
national position. Considering that Germany was a driving force behind EU
environmental policy, it is surprising that Karl-Heinz Narjes (1982–5) has so far been the
only German national to hold the post of Environment Commissioner (and only then
jointly with the Industry portfolio).
Germany has been much more active in sending representatives to Commission and
Council working groups. German officials are well known for their high technical
competence, although their diplomatic skills are not always held in such high esteem.
Crucially, however, no German nationals have ever held the politically important posts of
Director-General or Deputy Director-General within DG Environment. The alleged
under-representation of German nationals within DG Environment has been discussed at
the highest political levels in Germany (Wurzel 2002:65–6).
Conclusions
Until the late 1980s Germany was relatively successful at uploading some of its core
environmental regulatory principles, policy instruments and standards to the EU. During
this period German environmental policy was only moderately affected by
Europeanization, which was therefore largely taken for granted. Since the early 1990s
German and EU environmental policy have begun to diverge. The resulting partial
mismatch has forced Germany to readjust its (environmental and EU policy) structures
and ‘national’ policy style. Overall, the Europeanization process has affected the policy
content to a larger degree than the structures and style. The impact on domestic structures
became most evident with regard to the federal system, with the Länder insisting on a
constitutional amendment that gave them greater involvement in EU decision making. In
the late 1990s a moderate centralization of the German EU policy co-ordination
machinery took place in order to ensure better representation of national interests.
Until now the ‘national’ policy style has arguably been least affected by the EU.
However, there are signs that this may be about to change. The ‘German model’ has lost
some of its attractiveness due to the lacklustre performance of the domestic economy.
The Standort Deutschland debate suggests that the German model is also coming under
increased pressure from Europeanization and globalization. The German environmental
policy style has remained moderately pro-active while emphasizing consensus and
consultation. However, the ecological modernization doctrine, which is based on the
assumption that stringent environmental standards can be beneficial for both the
environment and the economy, has been questioned by influential domestic and EU
policy actors. The EU’s emphasis on procedural measures and self-regulation poses a
challenge to the more formalistic German environmental policy style, which still relies
heavily on detailed substantive regulation. However, there is also a German tradition of

self-regulation, although this often takes place ‘in the shadow of the law’.
Overall the Europeanization of German environmental policy has been an incremental
and relatively subtie process. The realization of the partial mismatch between domestic
and EU approaches in the 1990s has, however, been a relatively sudden one. However,
when compared to the counterfactual, the EU effect is probably not that great, as
domestic pressures would probably have pulled Germany in much the same direction,
although EU environmental policy has made much greater use of detailed legal standards
than would otherwise have been the case.
Notes
1 The author would like to thank the editors for their extremely valuable comments as well as
all the interviewees. The writing of this chapter was co-funded by grants from the Anglo-
German Foundation (1043 and 1258) and the ESRC (L216252013).
2 The term Germany refers to the Federal Republic of Germany both before and after
unification.
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8
Ireland
The triumph of policy style over substance
Brendan Flynn
Overview
Irish environmental policy has unquestionably been altered through its engagement with
over three decades of EU environmental policy making. Whereas before entry into the
then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, Ireland had a somewhat minimalist
and British-influenced corpus of environmental regulation, Ireland can now point to a
much larger, more diverse and more Europeanized body of national environmental
policy. On balance, Europeanization has certainly increased and modernized the content
of Irish environmental policy. Yet the style and the structures of Irish environmental
policy have been much less influenced by the EU.
Ireland’s enthusiasm for a more proactive type of relationship with EU environmental
policy has not grown to the same levels seen in some of the ‘greener’ small member
states. It is significant that Irish pollution abatement expenditure is still very low in
comparative terms, at about 0.6 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (OECD
2000:21). The EU, therefore, appears to have had a fairly limited impact when measured
in terms of altering national cultural mindsets and attitudes towards environmental
protection. Moreover, as Ireland has experienced record levels of economic growth in the
last decade, the ability of the EU to encourage a shift towards sustainable development
appears especially limited. Measures of Irish environmental decline continue to show
worrying trends, and Ireland’s implementation of EU environmental laws is still
relatively poor. This is pushing Ireland into a growing number of legal conflicts with the
European Commission and Irish environmentalists.
It is also important to note that Irish environmental policy developments are not
exclusively influenced by EU agendas and debates, even if EU policy leadership has been
extensive. This chapter paints a more nuanced picture of the Europeanization of Irish
environmental policy. This portrays Ireland as an essentially pragmatic ‘taker’ of
environmental policy within the EU process, although national environmental policy has
certainly been strengthened as a result. Yet deep-seated environmental attitudes and
preferences, as well as domestic policy structures and style, arguably continue to hold
Ireland back from engaging more proactively with the environmental acquis.
When Ireland joined the EEC in 1973, it was a relatively poor, peripheral state, with a
national GDP per capita one third less than the average of the original six member states.
Moreover, the Irish economy was still dominated by traditional agriculture. Thanks to
large-scale inward investment by trans-national capital and considerable quantities of EU
regional assistance funding since the mid-1980s (Pereira 1999), Ireland has experienced
soaring growth rates of circa 9 per cent per annum since 1994. It now boasts a much
wider industrial base, comprising high-tech computing, chemicals and pharmaceutical
manufacturing (Breathnach 1998; OECD 2000:19).
While the period between 1973 and 2000 enjoyed a dominant political consensus
strongly supportive of further European integration, a realization has evolved that there
exists a growing range and depth of structural environmental problems related to
Ireland’s newfound prosperity. Equally, the recent Irish voters’ rejection of the Nice
Treaty, in a referendum of June 2001, albeit on a small turnout,1 suggests that Irish
support for further European integration is no longer as unqualified as it once was.
Irish environmental problems at the time of accession in 1973 were mostly small in
scale, and the environmental consciousness of the Irish public was limited. Indeed some
‘heritage’ movements of the pre–1973 period focused mainly on the preservation of
historic buildings, rather than environmental issues such as nature conservation
(Mawhinney 1989; Tovey 1993).
Specialized state environmental administration was also relatively underdeveloped
before 1973. While it is true that Ireland did not have a blank page as regards
environmental policy prior to joining the EU, its environmental policies were relatively
few in number. Moreover, they were also strongly influenced by early British pollution
and planning legislation. In a few cases, they were modelled on nineteenth-century
British legislation, as was the case for some water pollution laws2 (Blackwell and
Convery 1983; Scannell 1982:62; Taylor and Horan 2001:371). In other words, Ireland
was a passive ‘taker’ of environmental policy content long before the EU became a
factor. Finally, the Irish civil service/administration at this time (and still even today) had
an institutional identity and mindset which also followed the mould of British practice,
being relatively small in size, centralized, hierarchic and dominated by generalists as
opposed to specialists.
By the end of the 1970s domestic environmental protest began to emerge over a series
of proposed (and later abandoned) nuclear energy initiatives and some urban heritage
issues. There were also a few cases of rural community-based opposition to industrial and
mining developments (Tovey 1993). Yet this limited environmental ‘protest’ politics of
the late 1970s was not a by-product of the growing corpus of EU environmental policy
coming from Brussels. Instead its origins were much more diffuse and predominantly
indigenous. It is important to emphasize that many contemporary environmental issues in
Ireland are still relatively parochial. Irish opposition to British nuclear waste disposal in
the Irish Sea remains a peculiarly salient national issue for the environmental body
politic, insofar as one exists. This continuing controversy also reveals that the Irish are
quite capable of pursuing their environmental policy goals by way of diplomacy within
Ireland 111
the frameworks of non-EU regimes (in this case the Oslo/Paris Conventions, OSPAR)3 as
much as within the substantive EU legal order (O’Donnell 1991:121–2; ENDS 2000).
The Europeanization of Ireland
There is a broad academic consensus that Ireland as a polity has been profoundly affected
by membership of the EU since 1973, not only in terms of economic development but
also in terms of a wider process of social modernization (Keatinge et al. 1991; Laffan and
Tannam 1998). One general observation that can be made is that there has been a quite
mixed picture of both continuity and change. European integration then has involved a
dynamic two-way political process: domestic policy trends and the preferences of key
domestic actors are often both confirmed and challenged by EU interactions (Laffan and
Tannam 1998).
For example, in certain policy sectors, such as those of women’s rights, consumer
protection and health and safety policy, the EU’s influence has been so central as to be at
times almost dominant. Certainly participation in the EU has comprehensively shaped
and moulded domestic Irish policy responses in these areas (Keatinge et al. 1991).
However, there are obvious limits to the reach of Brussels-based policy leadership in
Ireland, given the difficult and often opaque politics of implementation in Ireland
(Keatinge 1996:235). National and sub-national policy networks have retained their
capacity to steer policy outcomes and even to influence Irish negotiation tactics in
Brussels.
Traditionally, the greatest diplomatic and administrative effort has been expended on
the core areas of national interest relating to EU negotiations, such as the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP), cohesion funding and regional policy. There have been a few
attempts to upload domestic ideas on policy innovation, as regards social policy and
poverty alleviation, but this is not typically a strong feature of Irish participation in the
EU.
In summary, the general Irish experience of Europeanization is perhaps best
understood as a complex and dynamic process involving multiple actors, who have
focused on a core set of policy areas of paramount interest. For the most part, the
environment has not been one of those areas.
The Europeanization of Irish environmental policy
These words of qualification notwithstanding, Ireland’s environmental policy was one

domestic sector that was especially ripe for Europeanization. While Ireland has not
featured strongly in most Environment Council meetings (and most certainly not as a
‘lead’ state), it has also avoided joining any supposedly ‘laggard’ camp.4 Moreover,
while Irish negotiators have seldom tried to ‘export’ domestic environmental policy
initiatives, they have been pragmatic ‘takers’ of policy ideas and instruments at the
Brussels level.
Irish negotiators appear to see the EU’s role as one of providing ready-made policy
solutions, ‘off the shelf’ as it were. This can be rationalized as quite functional for any
small state that cannot possibly have the level of expertise to engage in indigenous
environmental policy development. Such an approach is also consistent with the view,
shared by many Irish elites, that the EU has a benign and almost modernizing influence
on Irish society.
One other reason why the Irish have been ready to accept much of the environmental
acquis must be due to the level of transfers and side payments offered by the EU. This
was most notable with respect to the Directive on Urban Waste Water, which involves
spending of circa 130 billion euros (at 1994 prices) between 1993 and 2005 (CEC
1999:24). This directive was framed as a giant step forwards in terms of technical
modernization of the state’s waste water infrastructure. However, Europeanization has
only weakly promoted the paradigm of ecological modernization in Ireland. Ecological
modernist ideas are rarely expressed in coherent terms by the main policy actors as part
of any general account of environmental regulation.
To conclude, a stronger focus on pollution control in particular and a vague
acceptance of ecological modernization more generally characterize the main changes
that EU leadership has engendered. More specifically, the exact drafting of Irish
environmental laws is now much more directly influenced by EU legislation, whereas
before British legislation would have been the dominant external force.
The content of Irish policy
Policy objectives and paradigms

One puzzle about Ireland’s participation in EU environmental policy relates to its
surprisingly willing acceptance of high EU environmental standards. After all, one would
expect a relatively poor industrializing state to prefer more growth and lower
environmental standards. Yet in Ireland there is a pragmatic consensus on the need for
higher standards. This is rationalized on the grounds that it produces greater regulatory
certainty and, ultimately, more manageable costs.
However, this has not entirely stymied occasionally fierce debates over the cost of
some higher standards. Indeed, in at least one case Irish officials pleaded the very British
defence of an Atlantic maritime climate to justify their preference for ambient
environmental quality standards (i.e. EQS), rather than the more German-influenced
emission-and-technology-driven path (A Campo 1991:116–17). With regard to this long
overplayed conflict between these two approaches, Ireland appears, on balance, to favour
the British view, but has been willing to accept the continental position for pragmatic
reasons. For example, the compromise whereby both approaches are accepted as part of
the recent Water Framework Directive closely approximates to Irish preferences.
It is vital to note that not all Irish efforts in the area of pollution control have been
motivated by the EU. For example, in the 1980s the Irish authorities developed their own
integrated permitting regime, largely to facilitate a then rapidly emerging high-tech
chemicals and. pharmaceutical sector that badly needed modern regulation. At the same
time, new EU emission standards for air and water agreed in the late 1970s and early
1980s needed to be implemented. These two trends dovetailed neatly in the early 1990s
to produce legislation establishing an Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
whose job is now primarily the licensing and supervision of integrated emission permits.
Ireland 113
Crucially this predates the EU IPPC Directive of 1996 by several years, although Irish
officials learned from European Commission research conducted in the mid-1980s
(interview with senior official from the Department of Environment and Local
Government).
This intriguingly suggests that, apart from Europeanization, Irish industrial
development strategies have acted as a driver of indigenous regulatory innovation, which
then accommodates itself within EU norms and policy debates. Indeed, it could be argued
that the creation of the EPA and the shift to integrated permitting borrowed much from
policy developments in the UK via a process of indigenous policy learning (Taylor and
Horan 2001). Consequently, we should be wary of ascribing every domestic development
to the EU’s influence.
Policy instruments
Because the EU has, in comparative terms, failed to develop a wide range of policy
instruments, the downloading of directives and regulations has tended to confirm
Ireland’s already strong bias towards legal tools. Comparatively few experiments with
non-legislative instruments have been tried, although some experimentation with small-
scale fiscal instruments has recently (2002) emerged in the guise of taxes on plastic
shopping bags and on landfill sites. Indeed, the one leading example where the Irish did
experiment with voluntary instruments (see below) has emerged as a consequence of
implementing the EU Directive on Packaging Waste, which actually indirectly
encouraged such approaches.
Generally, waste policy is a good example of an area where substantial change in Irish
policy content has occurred as a direct result of the EU. In the case of packaging waste,
domestic Irish industry, led by the highly professional environmental affairs bureau of the
Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC), copied the German technical
approach and negotiated a similar scheme with the Irish state. A not-for-profit company,
REPAK, has emerged to tackle the issue, but so far with mixed success. Indeed this
particular voluntary agreement has encountered a number of setbacks (Brennan 2001;
O’Brien 1999).
As regards municipal waste, Ireland lags far behind continental EU states in terms of
the sophistication and vigour of its response. In particular, over the last two years the
Irish state has encountered much political controversy in belatedly developing a national
waste strategy which emphasizes a shift away from the often poorly managed landfills of
the past, towards recycling and waste-energy recovery approaches (Barrett and Lawlor
1996; Brassil 1996). One particularly serious failure was in regard to illegal waste
dumping and hazardous waste, with as much as 20 per cent of such waste remaining
unaccounted for (OECD 2000:25).
Overall, the waste sector, as defined by Irish policy ‘insiders’, appears to be moving in
step with Brussels-led policy thinking in terms of instruments. But there is domestic
resistance to paying increased waste charges, which are often presented to local residents
in a given municipality on the grounds that they are justified by the ‘EU polluter-pays
principle’. There is local environmentalist opposition to thermal waste-energy recovery
technology as well. As regards other sectors, the EU influence in policy content has been
much less encompassing. For example, air pollution policy in the 1980s was focused on
municipal smog and agreeing localized ‘coal bans’5 rather than on implementing EU-
wide norms (McDonald 1988; OECD 2000:107).
The calibration of policy instruments

Perhaps because of its semi-colonial history, but also the fragmented and small-scale
nature of the environmental movement that emerged in the 1970s, the calibration of Irish
environmental policy instruments after 1973 has sometimes been agreed and
implemented in a less than consensual way. In particular, EU directives on nature
conservation, habitats and birds have become bogged down in debates about
compensation levels or lists of sites designated for protection. Irish experiences with the
Habitats and Birds Directives are characterized by serious domestic conflict and
resistance, as revealed in impending legal actions by the Commission over poor
implementation. Implementation has been much less of a problem in the air, water and
waste sectors, but difficulties have nonetheless emerged. For example, the Irish
authorities have downplayed nitrates in groundwater, in favour of focusing on the
problems of phosphates in surface water. The Irish have thus until recently been unable to
designate any nitrate management zones, in part because agreement on which areas were
most at risk was limited (Coffey 2002).
Weaknesses in implementation are what continue to undermine the instrument setting
process. For example, while Ireland has legally designated nature sites for protection in
accordance with the Birds and Habitats Directives, environmentalists and the
Commission have alleged that not enough of these have been selected, and they have
raised questions about the adequacy of the relevant Irish legal regulations to prevent loss
of such protected sites through development. Moreover, in order to smooth the political
resistance to legal designations of land under these directives, the Irish authorities have
proposed various compensation schemes for landowners, relying on national funding.
However, this has led to further disagreement, with farming lobbies claiming such
compensation is inadequate (Grist 1997). The result is that the implementation of these
directives through properly designated and legally protected sites has been delayed,
contested and become politically fraught.
Even where regulations in the nature conservation area have been quickly agreed and
passed into law, they have often been ineffectual. One set even earned the dubious
nickname of ‘orange peel’ regulations, because they merely prohibited littering rather
than more polluting activities! Indeed, it is highly revealing that, in practice, the laws
which Irish environmentalists typically rely upon to protect vital bird or habitat sites are
often domestic Irish planning acts, rather than the provisions of EU directives, which take
time to be implemented properly (Galligan 1996:185).
Conclusion
Finally, it is worth examining policy sub-sectors that are perhaps representative of a more
balanced and mixed experience of Europeanization, which show examples of both
conflict and consensual adaptation. Irish air pollution policy in this regard has been
thoroughly Europeanized both through new national legislation adopted in 1987 to
implement several EU directives, and through the EPA’s cross-media permitting
Ireland 115
approach post-1993. The Irish now focus on meeting EU norms or following EU thematic
concerns. Ireland’s pre-existing focus on domestic traffic pollution and coal-related
pollution has arguably been encompassed within a much more general, EU-inspired focus
on a wider variety of types of air pollution.
As regards water policy, the battery of distinctive water use directives of the late
1970s, for example on bathing, shellfish and drinking water, appears to have been
accepted fairly uncritically by the relevant Irish authorities at the time. As many of these
have since been reworked into the recent Framework Directive on Water, the Irish
response to that directive was broadly positive. The reconciliation between EQS and
emission standards was welcomed, as were river-basin management structures, which
should be relatively easy for the Irish to implement as they first experimented with
catchment planning in the early 1990s. The one major aspect to which Ireland objected,
however, was water pricing. In the end it secured a derogation allowing it to avoid any
domestic water charges for conservation purposes (OECD 2000:22).
Summing up, one can say that the Europeanization of policy content reveals that
instruments, rather than paradigms, policy objectives or settings, have been the most
Europeanized. However, even here EU directives and regulations have partly confirmed
Ireland’s traditional preference for legal instruments, even if their calibration is now
much altered anyway.
The structures of Irish policy

To what extent have Irish environmental policy structures been Europeanized? Irish
policy structures have indeed been challenged and prodded into changing, but many
features of institutional continuity persist. The policy-making structure today is
essentially small in scale, conservative by nature, and enjoys low levels of political and
popular support. Institutional power relations between different levels of governance
have not been decisively altered by Europeanization; centralization at the national level
remains a strong feature. One major change, however, is that interest groups
(environmentalists and industry lobbies) have been empowered and are now more
influential policy players than they were before 1973.
Legal structures
Irish legal structures have had to be updated to implement EU laws. During the 1980s the
implementation of several directives was attempted merely by communication through
administrative notifications to local governments, rather than using secondary or primary
legislation passed by the Irish Parliament (Laffan 1989). After successive complaints by
the Commission, there has been a trend in the 1990s for the more important directives to
be implemented by substantive primary legislation. An example of this is the Waste Act
of 1996, which gave effect to the Packaging Waste Directive. While these changes have
improved the legal structures of policy implementation, further regulations made by
ministerial order are often required (Fitzsimons 1999a: 66–7). Yet these are frequently
delayed, and the Irish still often scramble to meet implementation deadlines. In several
cases, such as access to environmental information, the Commission has only abandoned
infringement proceedings at the very last minute after the Irish had enacted some
implementing regulations (CEC 2000a:61; CEC 2000b:66–77).
Such problems have fuelled an increasingly heated public debate about
implementation. Indeed domestic environmentalists almost continually complain to the
Commission about implementation failures in Ireland. Ireland accounts for 1 per cent of
the EU’s population but 10 per cent of all the environmental complaints submitted to the
Commission (Coffey 2002). Currently, Ireland faces numerous infringement proceedings
and investigations over a wide array of EU environmental laws.6
Such a woeful implementation record is also of course a function of the problems that
are now arising from the dynamic patterns of consumption in the new Irish ‘Celtic Tiger’
economy (OECD 2000:20). For historical reasons, Ireland lacks a mature utilities and
physical services infrastructure. This exacerbates car dependency and traffic-related
pollution and, in the case of rural drinking water, means that consumers are sometimes
exposed to serious water quality risks (OECD 2000:22).
Government institutions
What has changed in Irish government environmental policy institutions as a result of
Europeanization? In fact, it is intriguing just how limited the change has been. For
example, the national ministry with responsibility for EU environmental policy, the
Department of Environment and Local Government (DoELG), has unquestionably
developed a greater role in environmental affairs, yet it still remains a small institution.
Prior to 1973 environmental issues were left very much to the ‘fringes’ of this department
(Taylor and Horan 2001:378). While it is clear that the focus on environmental issues has
been upgraded as a direct result of EU participation, the total number of staff working on
environmental policy issues remains very small at around 10 per cent (DoF 2000:174–7).
This leaves the majority of the department’s staff to deal with local government issues
such as roads and housing. This small administration must be often overloaded by the
sheer scale of the environmental acquis. On the positive side, this arrangement provides
an opportunity for environmental policy integration. It also strengthens the hand of
environmental policy officials in internal Cabinet politics, as the department has a
relatively large budget (interview with senior DoELG official).
The work of the environmental policy staff within DoELG has arguably been made
harder by the fragmentation of the environmental portfolio since responsibility for the
Habitats and Birds Directives was assigned to the Department of Arts, Culture and
Gaeltacht.7 This department, which mainly deals with heritage and cultural policy, has
about 250 staff working in its National Parks and Wildlife Service (OECD 2000:39).
As regards Brussels representation, a full-time official of first secretary rank from
DoELG is seconded to Ireland’s COREPER working groups. She regularly keeps in
touch with other departments’ staffers as well as with the DoELG back home in Dublin
(Laffan 2001:281–2). In general terms, Ireland maintains one of the smallest diplomatic
teams in Brussels, but it is far larger than most other Irish diplomatic representations.
Moreover, it prides itself on the way in which it uses the opaque circuit of ‘corridor
chats’ inside COREPER to advance Irish interests (Laffan 2001:295).
Ireland 117
The national parliament

Other than the occasional bout of legislative vigour, Europeanization has not decisively
altered the Irish Parliament’s traditionally limited role in environmental policy making.
With both a lower and a much weaker upper chamber, it is not generally regarded as a
decisive ‘working parliament’. Hence, it has only had a limited impact on the
implementation of EU environmental policy (Coakely and Gallagher 1999:201–3). The
committee system in particular has long languished in a somewhat ineffectual state.8
Central-local relations
Ireland is a highly centralized state and the eighty-eight local governments (mostly either
city or county councils) remain heavily controlled from the political centre in Dublin. For
example, non-political professional city and county administrative managers are
appointed by the Minister for the Environment. These enjoy considerable status, a
powerful agenda-setting role and some discretionary powers.
There is also a widespread permeation between the central and local level (cumul des
mandates),9 which tends to ensure that central and local government share key decision
makers. These further reinforce the centralized structures. Regional authorities were
created in 1994 (after years of Commission prodding), but these have very small budgets,
few specific competences, and their representatives are not directly elected. All of this
rather limits the scope for local elected representatives to shape environmental affairs. In
any event, the sheer volume of EU work has swamped local governments over the last
three decades. Consequently, local governments are likely to regard new directives more
as a burden than an opportunity—unless, that is, additional EU funding comes attached.
This is especially so given that the general form of local implementation is, in practice,
normally decided nationally by the DoELG. The Irish EPA Act (1992) has encroached
upon some of local governments’ environmental policy duties as regards the permitting
and licensing of installations. Local governments have limited technical expertise, and
there was also a fear that they might be captured by local economic interests fighting for
inward investment at any environmental cost. Indeed the EPA has grown significantly as
an institution throughout the 1990s and now commands a budget of €15 million and a
staff of circa 189 (OECD 2000:39).
To conclude, local governments are not normally proactive in Irish environment
policy They have not been greatly empowered by Europeanization. In general, central
government continues to hold the upper hand. There are some signs that a few county
councils are developing expertise to cope with concentrations of environmental problems,
for example in Cork, where much of Ireland’s chemical industry is located. Yet this
seems driven more by local concerns than pressures arising from EU membership.
Generally, then, Irish local governments remain ‘takers’ of policy not merely from
Brussels, but also from their administrative and political masters in Dublin.
Policy co-ordination structures

Europeanization has meant that greater efforts have had to be expended on improving
policy co-ordination, which has not been a strong point of Irish administration. In
particular, such co-ordination is often ad hoc and centralizing in its style. In practice, co-
ordination is provided by the powerful and fiscally cautious mandarins of the Department
of Finance and the somewhat conservative Irish cabinet system (Coakely and Gallagher
1999:256–7). Ryall, for example, describes how the Department of Finance even kept a
close eye on the implementation of EU legislation on access to environmental
information (Ryall 1999:141). While some studies have been carried out between DoELG
and the Department of Finance on ‘greening the budget’, these have produced only
minimalist fiscal incentives to date. Moreover, the large Departments of Agriculture and
Foreign Affairs dominate Irish diplomatic affairs in Brussels. In fact, the CAP and
cohesion funding represent the two central priorities for most Irish governments in EU
affairs, with environmental matters trailing some way behind.
A new interministerial committee on environmental affairs was created in 1994. It is
termed the Environmental Network of Government Departments, but it is hard to discern
how much extra co-ordination it delivers. Indeed, such interdepartmental co-ordination
seems to enjoy only periodic influence, with, for example, another steering group set up
between departments to examine sustainable development indicators in 1998 (OECD
2000:27, 41). In fact, Ireland has a tradition of extensive use of ad hoc interdepartmental
groupings to address specific environmental issues, but these often fail to achieve much
(Keatinge 1996:241; Mullally 1983:407–9).
Interest group participation

Interest groups have generally been empowered by the Europeanization process,
especially in the agricultural sector (Adshead 1996). Irish industry has developed a strong
profile on environmental affairs through its national confederation, IBEC. For example,
IBEC played an influential role in shaping the Irish response to the Commission’s 1992
carbon tax proposal and to various waste sector policies. Environmentalists generally
remain a much weaker force in Ireland, which can be illustrated by the fact that Irish
Greenpeace actually dissolved in the late 1990s. Two groups stand out for their
formidable European contacts and track record of long-standing activism. These are An
Taisce (The Irish National Trust) and Birdwatch Ireland (which often works closely with
the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Birdlife International in
Brussels). In contrast, some well-known Brussels-based environmental NGOs of
standing, for example Transport and Environment (T&E), have no direct link with any
Irish environmental organization.
Yet Irish environmentalist NGOs have played an important role in providing the
Commission with detailed information about the exact status of implementation on the
ground in Ireland. This feature of environmental activism in Ireland has been thoroughly
Europeanized. Irish environmentalists are eager to complain to the Commission, petition
the European Parliament, and use Irish courts as springboards to attempt to score
Ireland 119
environmental victories based on some point of European environmental law (Galligan

2000). These represent much more powerful points of leverage than existed before.
To conclude, while the sheer scale of the environmental acquis has provoked some
institutional readjustment within the main governing authorities in Ireland, it is striking
how many domestic policy structures remain confirmed or only slightly changed by the
EU’s influence.
The style of Irish policy

This section describes the Irish policy style and assesses how far it has changed through
the process of Europeanization. Before summarizing the findings along the two-
dimensional scheme of Richardson et al. (1982) (see Chapter 3), the relevant changes
will first be explored using the much more sophisticated scheme developed by Van
Waarden (1995). It will appear that participation in EU environmental policy has mostly
confirmed pre-existing aspects of the Irish policy style.
The first dimension described by Van Waarden is the extent to which a given policy
style is either market focused, state led or associational in direction. In this regard the
Irish experience has seen the state-led style dominate perhaps for most of the period
between 1970 and 2000. A comparative lack of market-based instruments is a particularly
distinctive feature of Irish environmental policy. IBEC, representing Irish industry, has
been especially successful at resisting the imposition of fiscal measures (IBEC 1997:7.1–
7.5). Some experiments with voluntary instruments have begun, notably the REPAK
scheme described above.
The second dimension examined here relates to whether the Irish problem-solving
style is either active or reactive. In this case, most Irish environmental policy was and
remains reactive. For example, Irish negotiators seldom attempt to export their own
environmental policy proposals to Brussels, preferring instead to seek amendments to
Commission proposals. That said, Ireland does form part of a sub-group of small states,
also comprising Austria and Denmark, which have attempted to upload domestic
concerns regarding nuclear energy and radiation pollution to the EU (interview with
senior DoELG official).
Generally speaking, Irish negotiators have a very strong regard for Commission
leadership. The Commission is seen by the Irish as a protector of small states’ interests.
This factor notwithstanding, Ireland does not in general appear to routinely align itself
with a stable coalition of states in Environment Council meetings, instead preferring the
more cautious and pragmatic approach of taking care when and where to make an
intervention (interview with senior DoELG official).
The third dimension of policy style discussed here addresses the scope of policy
discourses and decisions. In short, are they comprehensive or more fragmented and
incremental? Irish experiences of EU environmental policy clearly fall into the latter
category. Symbolic of this is the fact that Ireland has failed to develop a credible and
comprehensive national environmental policy plan to implement the principle of EPI. It is
true that Ireland has produced a National Sustainable Development Plan (DoELG 1997),
but this document is mostly devoid of ambitious administrative measures. Moreover,
Irish commitments made on greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Kyoto process are
already being breached (Coloe 2000). Additionally, environmental policy at the national
and local level in Ireland remains poorly integrated with cognate policy sectors such as
transport, energy and agriculture.
The fourth dimension of policy style explored in Van Waarden’s typology relates to
whether the relationship between public and private actors is adversarial, consensual or
paternalistic. For the most part, Irish state interactions with industry have been
consensual. However, by way of contrast, relationships with environmentalists have often
been adversarial in style. Indeed, environmentalists frequently use the Directive on
Environmental Impact Assessment (85/337) to threaten legal action against state
authorities and developers (Fitzsimons 1999b). Conflict and suspicion between state,
industry and a weak and diffuse environmental movement have therefore continued.
The fifth dimension of policy style in Van Waarden’s typology can be expressed in the
contrast between legalistic versus pragmatic approaches to environmental regulation.
Both aspects have traditionally been a significant feature of the Irish experience before
and after 1970. For example, civil administration is deeply pragmatic when it comes to
internal policy evaluation, and there may be much less emphasis on using abstract policy
models to inform such administrative reflexivity. A discourse of administrative ‘common
sense’ continues to dominate, while at the same time a strong belief in conventional
legislative instruments remains.
Finally, one aspect of policy style worth considering is whether policy networks have
a largely formal or informal character. Irish experiences with the EU tend heavily
towards extensive informal networking, although there has been a recent attempt to create
a more formal partnership structure to bring together diverse stakeholders around the
issue of sustainable development in a national forum, called Comhar. Yet, the small scale
of Irish society and the cultural premium placed on strong interpersonal communication
both drive the Irish policy style towards informal networking between politicians,
administrators and industry or environmental lobbyists. Rather than challenge this trend,
which was anyway evident before 1973, participation in EU policy making has tended to
strengthen and, in some respects, make a virtue of it.
In conclusion, it does not appear that very many features of a pre-1973 Irish
environmental policy style have been significantly altered by Europeanization. This can
be seen most clearly if we utilize the more condensed and simpler features of
Richardson’s concept of policy style, which is summarized in Chapter 3.
Before 1973 the Irish policy-making style in the environmental field can be safely
described as consensual and reactive, as environmental issues were underdeveloped and
not a priority. Since entry into the EU, the reactive style as regards problem solving has
been retained. One can see this most clearly displayed in the waste sector, where policy
has recently taken on something of an ‘emergency’ style. Here central government is now
using legal means to compel local governments to adopt a mix of recycling and thermal
treatment instead of landfilling. The Irish also continue to expend a great deal of political
energy on trying to win a series of fights with the Commission on poor implementation.
These are not necessarily always successful. Recently, for example, Ireland planned to
designate its entire territory as a nitrates-sensitive zone in response to Commission threats
of legal action.
The consensual style of policy making that existed before 1973 has, however, been
seriously challenged, in particular by environmentalists, who have pursued litigious
strategies, including attempts to rely on EU environmental laws, to provoke a more
Ireland 121
comprehensive environmental regulatory response. This development, however, owes as

much to domestic features of environmentalist mobilization and legal culture as it does to
the influence of EU environmental policies. Crucially, these trends were evident well
before entry in 1973. In fact, the stress on informality, the fragmented nature of policy
interventions, the state leadership role and the adversarial legalism were already in
evidence—at least in embryonic form—prior to membership in 1973.
Conclusions
In summary, Ireland has been willing to go along with much of the EU’s environmental
policy, if not out of a genuine ecological concern then at least out of a belief in the
functional benefits of the centralized policy leadership which Brussels appears to offer
small, peripheral states. Irish elite expectations, moreover, appear to have accepted a
dominant EU role in environmental policy as part and parcel of a comprehensive process
of state and societal modernization. These expectations have surely been confirmed by
the subsequent development of a more sophisticated and comprehensive corpus of
environmental policies than existed prior to accession.
However, it has obviously not been all plain sailing for the Irish. While the focus on
detailed legal instruments—notably EU directives and regulations—has fitted well into
the Irish regulatory mindset, the more recent interest in novel regulatory approaches,
voluntary agreements and market-based tools takes Ireland into comparatively uncharted
waters. Market-based instruments, which have to date only attracted academic support in
Ireland (Barrett et al. 1997), will have to overcome opposition from industrial lobbies and
the traditional caution of the powerful Department of Finance. Thus deeply rooted Irish
policy features and style reduce the scope for a more dynamic interaction with the EU
and more environmentally ambitious member states. Here there has been something of a
triumph of policy style over a fuller engagement with the substance of the environmental
acquis.
Ireland’s participation in EU environmental policy now faces a much sterner test as
economic growth continues to produce ever more serious environmental externalities
(OECD 2000:20). Viewed in this way, Ireland presents itself as something of a test case
as to whether the EU can indeed offer an integrated platform for the transmission of
sustainable development models. The Irish experience suggests that such an aspiration
remains quite far away. Indeed many environmental trends continue to worsen in Ireland.
In this sense, the totality of EU policies (environmental and non-environmental) appears
to have made only a very partial difference to the underlying capacity and willingness of
Irish state and society to more effectively address domestic environmental problems.
There has been some ecological modernization, but frantic economic (as opposed to
sustainable) growth has accelerated many unsustainable trends in Ireland. For example,
Irish emissions per capita of some air pollutants10 and greenhouse gases remain amongst
the highest in the EU (McGettigan and Duffy 2000:1–2; OECD 2000:22, 29). Arguably,
Ireland stands amongst those member states who have conspicuously failed to develop a
credible national CO2 policy. Indeed, almost no significant fiscal measures have been
implemented (DoELG 2000a/b). As a result, rather than stabilizing at the agreed EU level
of a 13 per cent increase on the 1990 base year, Ireland’s CO2 emissions are projected to
rise by as much as 34 per cent (McGettigan and Duffy 2000:1–2).
As regards these and other policy outcomes, Ireland appears to be a poor
environmental performer in the EU. Even measures of Irish public awareness of
environmental matters, or willingness to pay or vote for advanced environmental
measures, still remain low after three decades of EU environmental policy leadership
(DoELG 2000a; Faughnan and McCabe 1998). In this way, the Irish case serves to
remind us that Europeanization may well be an appropriate description of developments
in policy content, and to a much lesser extent of changes in structures and policy style.
The Irish case also emphasizes the fact that Europeanization does not necessarily reflect a
deeper and more substantive convergence of long-term policy outcomes or political
preferences.
However, it would be an exaggeration to say that EU environmental policy has not
achieved many positive results. It is useful here to speculate upon what the counterfactual
might have been. It could be plausibly argued that, without the EU, Ireland would have
continued to copy British regulatory fashions, perhaps at an even slower rate than before.
It is likely that some aspects of current policy would not have existed today without the
EU (e.g. German-influenced emission control standards), but others would (e.g.
integrated pollution control). Irish policy towards nature conservation would almost
certainly not have focused on designating areas of land, given the political sensitivity of
rural activities.
EU membership has offered Ireland an impressive ‘off the shelf’ environmental policy
regime, which it could not possibly have developed itself. However, the implementation
of these policies remains patchy at best. Indeed, the Irish state appears to be entering a
phase of greater legal conflict with the Commission, as several important directives
languish, poorly implemented. Moreover, while the content of national policy has been
extensively Europeanized, domestic drivers have, on occasions, been influential.
Important domestic developments, notably the vital EPA Act of 1992, were driven as
much by domestic political concerns as by the desire to provide legal structures to
implement EU environmental policies. Subjectively, Irish environmental policy actors
strongly feel the effects of Europeanization in terms of the increased workloads that EU
policy creates. Nonetheless, national policy structures and policy style retain many of the
core features which were characteristic of Irish public policy long before EU
membership.
Finally, Ireland’s newfound prosperity has not gone unnoticed in Brussels. Whereas
before Ireland could (as in the Kyoto negotiations) legitimately frame her position as that
of the poor western ‘cohesion state’, this tactic may no longer be as acceptable in the
future. Other member states may justifiably feel that Ireland must accept more self-
responsibility for her growing environmental problems (OECD 2000:29). Crucially, with
eastern enlargement looming, the Irish may well find themselves having to depend
increasingly on their own, indigenous finance and political will-power to achieve national
environmental goals. For the most part, these two resources are still in relatively short
supply in Ireland.
Ireland 123
Notes
1 The turnout was about 34.79 per cent of the electorate, with 53.87 per cent voting against and
46.13 per cent voting for. For source, see the results table produced in the Irish Times,
Saturday, 9 June 2001, p. 6. A second referendum was held on 19 October 2002, after
clarifications had been made regarding Irish constitutional law and government policy. This
was endorsed by a majority of circa 63 per cent on an increased turnout of 48.45 per cent.
2 It is true that by the end of the 1970s new legislation on water pollution and wildlife had been
passed, which was given a certain impetus by the growth of EU legislative activity at this
time. However, these new laws were also part of a long overdue modernization of the entire
legal corpus. Indeed the new water legislation of 1977 had been agreed as early as 1973,
through a process of indigenous self-reflection (Fenlon 1983:7; Taylor and Horan 2001:371).
3 OSPAR is an acronym used to describe the legal and diplomatic regimes established by the
Oslo and Paris conventions of 1972 and 1974, which addressed the dumping of pollution
into the North Atlantic and especially the North Sea.
4 For a general overview of the leader/laggard debate see Boerzel (2000) or Weale et al.
(2000:466–87).
5 In September 1990 a ban was declared on the use of bituminous coal, which has a long history
of use and ecological harm in Dublin. See McDonald (1988).
6 There have been failures to implement the directives on habitats and birds, on drinking water
and dangerous substances in water. Ireland suffered a major blow when the ECJ ruled that
Irish implementation of the EIA directive was seriously defective (Fitzsimons 1999b). In
January 2002 Irish media sources suggested that Ireland was facing a total of 111 alleged
infringement proceedings under EU environmental laws (McDonald 2002).
7 Gaeltacht (pr. Gayle-toct) is the Irish word for districts where Gaelic is still widely spoken.
They receive special government subsidies.
8 Between 1999 and 2001 the lower house (Dáil) committees became much more assertive,
although not as regards environmental policy issues. A Committee on Environment and
Local Government Affairs was created in 1995, but it has not been very influential.
9 As of September 2003, legislation has emerged which aims to prevent such cumul des
mandates by forcing national parliamentarians to give up their representative seats at the
local council level. This has been bitterly resisted internally by factions within some of the
political parties.
10 The OECD’s 2000 evaluation reveals that per capita emissions are well above the OECD
average for SO2, NOx and CO2 (at 62 per cent, 20 per cent and 30 per cent higher
respectively). Equally, the energy intensity of the Irish economy exceeds the OECD
European average by a significant margin (OECD 2000:23).
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9
The Netherlands
The advantages of being ‘Mr Average’
Duncan Liefferink and Mariëlle van der Zouwen
Overview
The Netherlands has always perceived its EU membership as positive and has generally
been in favour of deeper European integration. The EU has certainly had a clearly
identifiable impact on the structure of Dutch environmental policy, most notably the
mechanisms used to co-ordinate the Dutch input into EU environmental policy and those
governing the transposition and implementation of EU policy in the Netherlands. The
impact of the EU on both the content and style of Dutch environmental policy is less
apparent. Though in some cases Dutch policy instruments have had to adapt to EU
requirements, Brussels seldom affects other substantive aspects of the policy content,
such as goals, concepts and settings. This is mainly because many aspects of Dutch
environmental policy successfully anticipate EU-level developments. In fact, the
Netherlands does not, like some other countries, simply sit back and wait for the EU to
act on a given issue, but instead tries to upload general policy concepts and strategies to
the EU level. The most notable difference between the Netherlands and the EU occurs in
relation to their respective policy styles. The traditional Dutch preference for
consensualism and long-term planning appears to be very robust. To some extent, these
characteristic features contrast with the EU style, which is more legalistic and ad hoc.
The difference in style has been the breeding ground for most of the recent conflicts that
have emerged between Dutch and European environmental policy.
The Netherlands was one of the six founding members of the EEC in 1957. Until
recently, it used to be one of the most committed advocates of deeper integration. Being a
trading nation and exporting a significant proportion of its products to other EU member
states, the Netherlands has always regarded the integration process as intrinsically
beneficial to domestic economic development (Soetendorp and Hanf 1998). Nevertheless,
the failure to find any support for an ambitious reform of the European institutions in the
context of the negotiations for the Maastricht Treaty in 1991 heralded a shift to a more
pragmatic orienta— tion towards European integration (Liefferink 1997:242–3). An even
more important factor behind this change was economic, namely the realization that the
Netherlands was about to lose its status as a net recipient of EU funding. Since 1995 the
country’s contributions have increased so much that the Netherlands is now one of the
The Netherlands 127
largest net contributors to the EU. With its open economy, the export orientation of large
parts of its industry and agriculture, and its considerable stake in international goods
transport, however, the Netherlands retains a strong self-interest in achieving a well-
functioning and effective political union. For that reason, the Dutch position in the EU
can still be characterized as positive and constructive. Unlike more reluctant member
states such as Sweden and the UK, membership is a foregone conclusion. The EU is
rarely discussed critically in the Netherlands. In general, the attitude can be regarded as
positive, which is also reflected in successive Eurobarometer polls. In 2001 63 per cent of
the Dutch supported EU membership and believed that the country benefited from it
(European Commission 2001a), although more recent data show a decreasing trend
(NRC-Handelsblad, 9 December 2003). There is also a broad consensus among Dutch
politicians and policy makers that EU membership is (economically) beneficial.
In the environmental field, the Netherlands has a reputation as one of the European
‘pioneers’ (e.g. Weale 1992; Sbragia 1996; Liefferink 1997). It has a particularly well-
developed system of long-term environmental policy planning and its environmental
policies tend to be relatively strict. As a result, the Netherlands is often among the
countries that push for stronger policies and stricter standards in the EU. This is not to
say, however, that Dutch support for EU rules is unqualified or that national policy is
entirely untouched by the EU. As we shall show below, some important aspects of Dutch
policy have been Europeanized. Specifically, problems in coping with EU policies are not
limited to practical difficulties in complying with specific standards or requirements, but
have raised questions about the institutional set-up in the Netherlands as well as
differences in policy culture.
The Europeanization of the Netherlands
By contrast with member states (e.g. the UK) which entered the EU relatively recently, or
which hestitated greatly before doing so (e.g. Sweden), Europeanization in the
Netherlands has proceeded gradually and almost noiselessly. Policy makers and
interested parties seemed to take Europeanization for granted and rarely problematize or
question it. Only recently has the Dutch government started to desert this traditional
position (see above). Consequently, very few publications address the general process of
Europeanization. Crucially, the academic and political debate on Europeanization is not
nearly as well developed as it is in younger and more Eurosceptic member states.
In the academic field, the more structural aspects of Europeanization are only
occasionally addressed. In recent studies by Soetendorp and Hanf (1998) and Soetendorp
and Andeweg (2001), for instance, it was concluded that European policy making in the
Netherlands is basically still organized as it used to be in the 1950s. Over the years only
incremental adjustments have been made. The principle of departmental autonomy
remains a key obstacle to a fully integrated input into day-to-day policy processes in
Brussels. In the formal preparation of the Dutch strategy both in the Netherlands and at
the Permanent Representation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs plays a role as primus
inter pares. In practice, much co-ordination takes place informally between those directly
involved in the negotiations in Brussels (Van den Bos 1991).
The Europeanization of Dutch environmental policy
The content of Dutch policy

Undoubtedly the item of Dutch environmental policy that is best known abroad is the
1989 National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP 1989). It sets out an encompassing
strategy for the development of a more sustainable economy by controlling substance
flows through the entire cycle of production and consumption. This presupposes a full
integration of environmental considerations into other policy areas and close co-operation
with target groups in society, such as industry and consumers. The plan served as a
source of inspiration for similar plans in several other countries as well as for the EU’s
Fifth Environmental Action Programme (European Commission 1993; cf. Kronsell 1997;
Liefferink 1999).
The fact that this plan is widely known abroad is no coincidence. In its self-assumed
role of an environmental ‘pusher’—the second NEPP even uses the term ‘active
environmental diplomacy’ (NEPP 2 1993)—the Dutch government puts great emphasis
on uploading basic concepts and strategies. This is deemed necessary to achieve more
effective environmental problem solving. The energetic international ‘marketing’ of the
NEPP is just one example. Others are the efforts to stimulate the development of a more
coherent European nature conservation policy in the 1980s (Van der Zouwen and Van
Tatenhove 2002) and the active role that the Dutch played in shaping the Water
Framework Directive (Van As 1995).
So, is the Netherlands the EU’s environmental impresario? The answer is no.
Following Hall’s (1993) three-fold distinction, the next section discusses specific
instances where Dutch and European environmental policy converge or conflict, and to
what extent this has led to Europeanization.

Considering the breadth and complexity of Dutch environmental policy, serious conflicts
between the Dutch government and the EU about the material content of the policy occur
remarkably infrequently. As in the other environmentally more progressive member
states, national policies are often already in place when new EU measures are adopted.
Sometimes, following the logic of ‘regula— tory competition’ (Héritier et al. 1996),
Dutch domestic policies inspire EU legislation, as happened for instance with the
Environmental Impact Assessment (De Valk 1995) and Strategic Environmental Impact
Assessment Directives (together with Finland, among others; see Lindholm 2002). In
other cases, EU standards and existing or intended Dutch standards are not far apart and
do not cause problems. Furthermore, as long as no tradable products are involved, EU
directives often allow for stricter national measures to be maintained, which suits Dutch
preferences.
There have been very few direct conflicts between European and Dutch domestic
environmental standards. However, the Dutch government has, in a number of cases,
chosen to enter into an open fight with Brussels. Such incidents can trigger considerable
public attention. Examples are the Dutch insistence upon encouraging lower emissions
from small cars with fiscal measures in the 1980s (Liefferink 1996:104–6), the unilateral
The Netherlands 129
ban, together with Germany, on the wood preservative pentachlorophenol (PCP) in the
early 1990s (Liefferink and Andersen 1998:257), the Dutch refusal to select areas smaller
than 250 ha under the Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), and most recently the struggle
around the implementation of the Nitrates Directive (91/676/EEC). In the first two cases,
the Netherlands was ahead of current EU policy. As regards the Habitats Directive, the
Netherlands refused to select areas which it considered too small for a European
ecological network. In the last case, the standards for the application of nitrogen were
considered too strict, taking into account both natural conditions in the Netherlands and
their likely socio-economic consequences. The recent judgement of the ECJ (C-322/00)
concerning the Dutch non-compliance with the EU Nitrates Directive will probably
negatively affect both the standards and the instruments used in domestic manure policy
Policy instruments
Until the mid–1980s Dutch environmental policy relied quite heavily on direct state
intervention. At the same time, the Dutch tradition of consultation and co-operation—the
‘politics of accommodation’ described by Arend Lijphart (1968)—remained strong. The
result was a pattern of policy making that can be characterized as negotiated rule making.
The core of the policy field consisted of direct ‘command-and-control’ regulation, which
was itself the outcome of intensive consultation and negotiation with polluters. This
added an extra dimension of inflexibility. Not only was environmental regulation, once in
place, difficult to change in view of the required legal procedures, but also the negotiation
process was in any case very time consuming. Consequently, regulatory instruments were
difficult to recalibrate to reflect altered circumstances. Already in the 1980s this led to
conflicts with EU legislation, for instance in the case of standards for the emission of
sulphur dioxide from refineries. At the expense of some of its credibility, the Dutch
eventually succeeded in having their original domestic solution accepted as an alternative
option in the Directive on Air Pollution from Large Combustion Plants (88/609/EEC)
(Liefferink 1996:125–7).
Conflicts with the EU became even more common in the 1990s as the NEPP approach
of target group management gradually matured. An important aspect of this approach was
the negotiation of various kinds of agreement between the government and target sectors.
Although in line with the philosophy of the Fifth Action Programme, the use of such
agreements to implement EU policy was not always accepted by the Commission. The
most conspicuous example occurred in relation to the EU’s Packaging Directive
(94/62/EC). A voluntary agreement between the Dutch government and the packaging
sector in 1991, although generally more strict than the directive, was rejected by the
Commission. The Commission claimed that the agreement provided an insufficient
means of implementation because it was essentially non-binding. To the dismay of both
the government and industry, the Dutch were forced to replace it with a formal
regulation. In fact, the regulation was followed by a second covenant (Haverland
1998:227–40; Lauber and Ingram 2000:132–7). A similar clash could be observed in
relation to both the Birds (79/409/EEC) and the Habitats Directives. The designation of
areas to be protected under these two directives was significantly delayed, not least
because of the Dutch wish to involve a broad range of interested parties (Van den Top
and Van der Zouwen 2000). At the moment, the Dutch government consistently seeks to
have an explicit allowance included in the text of individual directives to implement EU

requirements by using voluntary agreements and the like. This appears to be even more
urgent in view of the partial return to more ‘traditional’, non-voluntary types of policies
in the Sixth Action Programme (European Commission 2001b).

It was mentioned that the Dutch NEPP was well received both in other countries and at
EU level. Other relative success stories include recent efforts to introduce a general
‘environmental check’ on all new EU legislation to implement EPI and Dutch efforts
(together mainly with the UK) to strengthen the role of the network for the
Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL). Dutch attempts in the
mid-1990s to make the environmental acquis more coherent, however, did not generate
much support among other states. But they did contribute to the formulation of more
framework directives, for example in the areas of water (2000/60/EC), air (96/62/EC) and
possibly—in the longer term—soil protection. As Héritier has argued, highly regulated
states are in a permanent ‘regulatory competition’ in Brussels, trying to upload their own
domestic solutions to the European level (Héritier et al. 1996). In this context, the
Netherlands is at a distinct advantage as its basic approach to environmental policy
making can be located somewhere in the middle between the two extremes of the law-
based, standard-oriented approach of the Germans and the more discretionary, quality-
oriented approach of the British (Héritier et al. 1996). In fact, Dutch environmental
policy contains elements of both, hence the phrase ‘Mr Average’ in the title of this
chapter. This makes the Netherlands relatively flexible. As a consequence, it is seldom
confronted with as fundamental a misfit between the domestic and the European design
of policy measures as occurred for instance in Germany during the last decade, due to the
gradual shift in Brussels away from setting standards to specifying processes (e.g.
environmental management, environmental impact assessment) (Pehle 1997).
Dutch goals and concepts are obviously not always as well received in other parts of
the EU as the NEPP. And what is more, even if the ‘export’ of policy concepts has been
successful at first, their life in the more competitive outside world may be shorter than at
home. This appears to be the case with the ‘Dutch’ concepts of ‘shared responsibility’
between public actors and ‘target groups’ endorsed in the EU’s Fifth Environmental
Action Programme (European Commission 1993). The official assessment of the
programme, issued in 1999, is rather sceptical as regards the actual commitment to this
approach on the part of both member states and the stakeholders themselves (European
Commission 2000). The draft of the Sixth Programme seeks a more equal balance
between voluntary and non-voluntary instruments. Legislation is considered ‘central to
meeting environmental challenges’ and full and correct implementation is considered a
‘priority’ (European Commission 2001b:70).
Also the reverse may happen: concepts successfully uploaded to the European level
may start to lead lives of their own and eventually backfire on the domestic level. A case
in point is the promotion by the Dutch government of the Dutch National Ecological
Network at the European level. This network consists of nature areas, connected through
so-called ecological corridors. Indeed, this concept is fimly embedded in the Habitats and
Birds Directives. However, by the time this approach had been established at the EU
The Netherlands 131
level, the Dutch domestic approach had moved on from what had been originally
uploaded to Brussels. Apart from scientific criteria, a whole range of social and
integrative factors was gradually introduced into the process of designating protected
areas in the Netherlands. This misfit eventually gave rise to serious complications in
implementing the Habitats Directive (Van den Top and Van der Zouwen 2000). In this
particular case, the Netherlands did in fact hold the chair during the final, crucial stages
of the negotiation. Clearly, the desire to be a ‘good’ European by securing a successful
conclusion to the negotiation outweighed the possible risks of creating a misfit with
domestic concepts. Similar problems are now anticipated with the Water Framework
Directive. This directive was also pushed by the Netherlands but implementation is likely
to cause serious problems over the next few years.
Cynics may regard Dutch efforts to export environmental policy concepts as an
attempt merely to create a good appearance on the international stage. The case of nature
conservation policy shows that it is not always easy to behave in this way; it may even
lead to quite unexpected results. In any case, as we saw above, it does not entirely
preclude the appearance of more ‘down-to-earth’ problems, such as the choice of
instruments and the setting of specific standards.
Conflicts and the quest for formal solutions

If conflicts between Dutch and EU environmental policy emerge, the most common
Dutch response is to settle the matter in a formal way. In some cases, particularly those
regarding formal aspects of implementation, it has to behave formally, as illustrated, for
instance, by the misfit between the Packaging Directive and the Dutch covenant. Here
national policy simply had to bend to fit EU requirements. If more room for manoeuvre
exists, selective implementation or shirking is still not preferred. A case in point is the
1999 Directive on Air Quality Standards (1999/30/EC). While several member states will
have a hard time implementing the requirements of this directive (particularly for
nitrogen dioxide in the proximity of busy roads), the Netherlands has so far been about
the only country carefully to map the problem and report it to the Commission. This
strategy could be interpreted as a naive way to awaken sleeping dogs. However, the
Dutch government, by contrast, emphasizes that an honest approach allows for early and
substantive discussion with the Commission to take place. This generally provides much
greater regulatory certainty than protracted squabbling with the Commission, followed,
perhaps, by all the risks (and costs) associated with an appearance at the ECJ.
The Dutch preference for open and frank discussion also extends to the process of
formulating new policies. So, rather than relying on an uncertain loophole to temporarily
evade its commitments, the Dutch government generally prefers the certainty that comes
with openly admitting its problems ‘up front’ to the Commission. The refinery regime in
the Directive on Air Pollution from Large Combustion Plants (88/609/EEC), especially
designed for the Dutch, is one example. The Nitrates Directive is another, where Dutch
efforts, among others, led to the formalization of the practice through which states can
deviate from the limits set for the application of nitrate to the land if they can prove that
the quality objectives that lie at the heart of the directive are achieved (Annex III, 2(b)).
This clause was formulated with an eye on the Dutch system of mineral registration (cf.
Liefferink 1995:145) and forms the basis for the formal request for derogation submitted
by the Netherlands in 2000. Also, the Dutch desire to include in every relevant directive
the explicit allowance to use voluntary agreements for implementation (mentioned above)
can be regarded as an expression of the preference for formal solutions.
Summing up
The Netherlands is particularly good at uploading general policy concepts and strategies
to the EU level. It has a certain reputation in this field and its efforts have often had a
notable impact on the design of EU policy. This strategy is in line with the prevalent idea,
also apparent in domestic environmental policy, that general targets and long-term
strategic approaches provide the most effective basis for determining specific policies
and standards (cf. Liefferink 1999). Considering the relative success of this approach in
Brussels and the Netherlands’ reputation for being the EU’s ‘Mr Average’, the
appearance of misfits at the level of standard setting and implementation generally comes
as a great surprise for Dutch policy makers. The most common response to such a
situation is either formally to adapt national policy to EU requirements as part of an often
long and complicated process (see below), or, in pressing cases, to seek a formal
derogation from the Commission.
As can be concluded from the above, Brussels seldom affects goals, concepts and
settings in Dutch environmental policy. Of the three aspects of content, instruments seem
to be most affected. More than once, as we have seen, the Netherlands has had to bend
over backwards to meet the Commission’s demand for more formal instruments.
The structures of Dutch policy1

This section deals with the institutional structures of Dutch EU environmental policy
making and implementation. In particular, it describes and analyses how a succession of
incremental changes has resulted in the strengthening of these structures since 1970.
The Dutch input into EU environmental policy making

Formal responsibility for the Dutch input into the policy-making process in Brussels lies
with two high-level interdepartmental bodies, which are chaired by the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (see further Liefferink 1997). Both bodies tend to focus on preparation
for meetings of the Council of Ministers. However, this formal structure was increasingly
perceived to be ineffective at developing and sustaining coherent national positions
throughout the entire process of an EU negotiation. A key problem was that a limited
number of more technical ministries tended to dominate the early, but in practice often
crucial, negotiations in the Council’s subordinate bodies. In this context, it should be
noted that environmental policy competences were (and still are) relatively fragmented in
the Netherlands. While pollution and spatial planning issues come under the Ministry of
Housing, Physical Planning and Environment (Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening en
Milieu, VROM), nature conservation is dealt with by the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature
and Food Quality (Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit, LNV), energy by Economic
Affairs, and water pollution as well as transport policy by Transport and Public Works. In
the final, more politicized stages of the EU decision-making process, a shift from these
The Netherlands 133
specialized ministries to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs used to take place. This led to
co-ordination problems. The Dutch position would change suddenly, upsetting the entire
negotiation, or it would change too slowly to seize political opportunities in Brussels.
For these reasons, a new interdepartmental Committee for dealing with new proposals
from the European Commission was established in 1998 (Commissie Behandeling
Nïeuwe Commissievoorstellen, BNC). The Ministry of VROM was one of the strongest
champions of this new co-ordination mechanism, not least because it offered an
opportunity for timely involvement in environmentally relevant issues occurring in other
policy fields (i.e. it permitted greater EPI). By contrast, a number of other ministries
feared that their own room for manoeuvre would be limited by formal interdepartmental
co-ordination in the early phases. According to the Ministry of VROM, the BNC has
contributed to a more professional and coherent approach to negotiations in Brussels. It
should be added, however, that the political will of individual ministers and ministries to
co-ordinate and co-operate remains crucial throughout the process. Good working
relations exist between the Ministry of VROM and the divisions directly responsible for
nature conservation, energy and water pollution in the other ministries. But this is not
always the case for more cross-sectoral issues, when other ministries have to be involved.
The Ministry of VROM has also itself improved the way it handles the earlier stages
of the EU policy process. Commission proposals are usually published only after
extensive consultation with experts from the member states—in most cases specialized,
middle-rank civil servants. These meetings are highly important in defining the
boundaries of the playing field for later formal negotiations. Until recently, Dutch
delegates to experts’ meetings in the environmental field tended to ‘run their own shops’
in Brussels. Sometimes the Directorate for International Environmental Affairs within the
Ministry of VROM was not even aware of such meetings taking place. Recently, experts
from the Ministry of VROM have been under a formal obligation to co-ordinate the
positions they intend to take beforehand and to report back afterwards.
While the improved control over expert activities and the establishment of the BNC
Committee have contributed to better intra—and interministerial co-ordination of the
Dutch input in Brussels, the role of actors outside the central bureaucracy remains
limited. The parliament is better and much earlier informed about EU work than a decade
ago. BNC files and annotated agendas of Council meetings are now sent to Dutch MPs on
a routine basis. Dutch MEPs also regularly visit the Dutch Parliament in order to answer
questions on EU-related matters. In addition, political parties have been trained in a
number of technical areas of EU policy by assigning civil servants to their parliamentary
offices. Interestingly, these civil servants originate from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
rather than the ministries directly involved, illustrating the continuing importance of the
Foreign Office in the more political aspects of EU policy making. In spite of these
opportunities, the actual influence of the national parliament continues to be limited.
National MPs struggle to follow the highly technical nature of most EU negotiations and
little attention is paid to BNC files or visits from MEPs.
The same goes for lower levels of government. Relevant information is only rarely
channelled to them. Their active involvement in policy preparation is often thwarted by a
lack of interest and tight deadlines. Particularly if the implementation of EU legislation
brings with it significant tasks for regional or local government—for instance in terms of
planning or licensing—this situation may cause problems. In the case of the Birds and
Habitats Directives, regional and local authorities appear to be unfamiliar with the
relevant EU requirements and are now facing the consequences of inadequate
communication between national and regional authorities (Algemene Rekenkamer 1999;
Van den Top and Van der Zouwen 2000). Furthermore, Dutch nature conservation
movements are now successfully exploiting this situation by formally appealing to the
Commission over the implementation of the Habitats Directive. Some regional authorities
have tried to address the lack of communication between national and lower levels by
establishing offices in Brussels. So far, however, these offices have mostly focused on
acquiring new EU funding for regional and interregional development, and
environmental policy has tended to take a back seat. In general, regional and local
authorities do not benefit from the Europeanization of environmental policy as far as the
balance of power between the different levels of government is concerned. The
implementation of EU policies is generally perceived to be a central government
responsibility, even when the active involvement of lower levels is necessary.
Environmental and business organizations are regularly informed about relevant EU
developments. But these organizations have found that they have a better grasp of
activities in the earlier, Commission phases of EU policy making when they work
directly in Brussels, for instance through the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) or
the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Associations (UNICE).
Finally, the working procedures of the Dutch government in the environmental policy-
making process in Brussels show a gradual shift of power from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to that of VROM. For many years, the Netherlands was represented in the
Council Working Group on Environment by a diplomat from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Since the Maastricht Treaty, (s)he has been assisted by one official—more
recently two officials—from the Ministry of VROM. The presence of the Environment
Ministry in the Dutch Permanent Representation occurred relatively late in comparison
with other member states (cf. Pellegrom 1994; 1997). The relationship between civil
servants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of VROM was reported in
interviews to be a rather good one. This can probably be traced back to the clear and strict
co-ordination exercised by the BNC Committee and the high-level co-ordination bodies
and to the non-hierarchic organization of the Dutch Permanent Representation (cf.
Soetendorp and Andeweg 2001).
The shift of power at the Permanent Representation from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to the Ministry of VROM in 1993 did not change the indirect—as it were ‘second
hand’—representation of nature conservation issues at the EU level. It is now the
Ministry of VROM, rather than of LNV, which is responsible for raising these issues in
Brussels. Only in cases of the highest political importance do civil servants from the
Ministry of LNV actually attend meetings of the relevant Council Working Group. Even
then they often lack formal power.
Implementation structures
Within the Ministry of VROM the Law Directorate is responsible for the co-ordination
and control of the implementation of EU environmental policy. In the Directorate for
International Environmental Affairs only one lawyer keeps an eye on these processes. As
with the expert meetings in the preparatory phase of EU legislation, the Ministry of
The Netherlands 135
VROM tries—more than before—to keep track of the various implementation

committees in Brussels and to co-ordinate the Dutch input into them.
In the Ministry of LNV the Nature Directorate (and within it the Department of Policy
Instruments) takes care of implementation issues. In the case of the Birds and Habitats
Directives, co-operation with regional and local authorities comes to the fore in relation
to the designation of areas. As noted before, communication and co-operation with these
authorities have been neglected ever since the directives were adopted. It seems that the
ministry is now becoming much more aware of the problem (LNV 2000).
The Dutch government tries fully and faithfully to transpose new EU rules into
national law and policy. Copying the text of directives and regulations directly into the
national law books has never been common practice. On the contrary, in the past the
implementation of new EU policy was sometimes taken as an opportunity to revise the
entire existing legislation in the field. This can take several years and cause an enormous
delay in implementation, as occurred for instance in the case of the first Seveso Directive
on Industrial Hazards (82/501/EEC) (cf. Bennett 1993). Therefore, this practice was
intentionally abandoned during the 1990s. Delays in implementing EU environmental
law are now usually connected to serious substantive or administrative problems.
Examples of such problems include the Habitats Directive, the Nitrates Directive and the
Air Quality Directive, all discussed above. The Dutch tendency to report relatively
conscientiously on such problems helps to bring them relatively rapidly to the attention of
the Commission.
Summing up
A considerable professionalization of Dutch EU environmental policy making has taken
place over the last decade. Procedures have been improved, leading to a better
substantive co-ordination of the Dutch input and to a strengthening of the role of
‘technical’ ministries such as VROM and LNV vis-à-vis the diplomatic service. The latter
is also reflected in the Dutch Permanent Representation’s decision to appoint two
environmental attaches from the Ministry of VROM. At the same time, implementation
has been streamlined to the extent that purely procedural complications are now avoided
as far as possible. This has left fewer, but undoubtedly more persistent, problems.
Although significant as such, one may ask why these improvements were not made
earlier. Despite the rhetoric, in subsequent National Environmental Policy Plans, the
answer can probably be found in the relatively limited impact of EU environmental
policy on the Netherlands, at least until recently. At the working level, moreover, EU
policies in this field tended to be seen ‘primarily as a potential burden on domestic policy
goals and processes’ (Liefferink 1997:244; Van den Top and Van der Zouwen 2000). In
other words, as long as serious conflicts between EU and national policies could be
diverted at the design stage, existing procedures were normally considered to be
sufficient. Generally speaking, this was the case until the early 1990s. Until then a limited
group of environmentally progressive member states, often consisting of Germany (see
Wurzel in this volume), the Netherlands and Denmark, to a large extent determined the
course of EU environmental policy in such a way that it left their previously established
national policies largely untouched (Liefferink 1996). During the last decade the
‘regulatory competition’ in the environmental field has greatly increased as other member
states have become more active, notably the UK (cf. Héritier et al. 1996) and the new
Nordic member states, e.g. Sweden and Finland (Liefferink and Andersen 1998; Kronsell
in this volume; Sairinen and Lindholm in this volume). This diminished the control
exerted on EU development by the old environmental ‘troika’. At the same time, but only
partly related to this, a number of serious problems around the implementation of EU
environmental directives occurred in the Netherlands. The possible consequences of the
Nitrates Directive for livestock farming are without precedence and could perhaps have
been smaller if the relevant Dutch policy community—LNV VROM, but also agricultural
organizations—had realized much earlier that such seemingly mundane activities as
Dutch manure production would eventually fall within the ambit of EU policy (cf.
Liefferink 1996: ch. 8). The combination of these developments has probably instigated
most of the structural changes that have occurred during the last decade.
The style of Dutch policy

The most distinctive features of the Dutch policy style are the close and pragmatic
relations between public and private actors, the perpetual quest for consensus and a
strong preference for long-term policy planning. The EU, by contrast, is characterized by
a relatively formal, legalistic and, at the same time, more ad hoc mode of policy making.
Conflicts between these two styles of policy making may help to explain some of the
shifts in environmental policy content and structure described so far.
Consensualism
As noted before, the ‘politics of accommodation’ has a long tradition in the Netherlands
(Lijphart 1968). This tradition has led to a clear division of particularly well-organized
private interests along functional lines (Visser and Hemerijck 1997). A wide variety of
private associations have a say in the design of policies that directly or indirectly affect
them and, in exchange, actively engage in the implementation of those policies. Van
Waarden (1992) traces the origins of present-day Dutch corporatism back to the
eighteenth century, when private actors began to play a key role in the organization of,
for instance, economic life and water management.
Environmental policy in the Netherlands started in the 1970s with a small avalanche of
‘top down’ laws and regulations. In the mid–1980s this was followed by a shift to a more
consensual approach. As worked out in the NEPP (1989) and subsequent documents,
consultation between the state and target groups in society was supposed to lead to basic
agreement about the course of environmental policy. The NEPP approach can be
interpreted as a partial return to the corporatist roots of the Dutch political system, after a
more contentious period in the 1970s and early 1980s (Liefferink 1999:270). Nature
conservation policy also underwent this transition but slightly earlier than pollution
control.
Although some of the basic ideas of the NEPP were uploaded to the EU’s Fifth
Environmental Action Programme (European Commission 1993), the overall impact of
this effort was short-lived. The draft of the Sixth Programme appears to depart from
much of the Dutch legacy. This is not to say that consultation with private actors does not
take place in Brussels. Particularly in the draft phase of EU legislation, the Commission
The Netherlands 137
likes to keep in touch with a wide range of interest groups in order to acquire both
information and political support for its plans. However, the EU policy process almost
invariably culminates in the adoption of formal legislation, usually a directive, requiring
implementation by the member state governments. National governments are restricted in
the way they carry out this obligation in order to warrant equal treatment of policy
addressees throughout the Union. Very little room is left for experimenting with, for
instance, voluntary agreements (Mol et al. 2000). So, when compared with Dutch
practice since the mid- 1980s, the EU policy style can be characterized as legalistic and
formal.
If national policies are already in place and subsequent EU measures do not
significantly affect them, the discontinuities between the Dutch and European modes of
policy making do not cause any problem. As argued above, until the early 1990s this used
to be the case for the Netherlands as well as some other environmentally progressive
member states. For them, the EU mainly functioned to reduce the economic uncertainty
of acting unilaterally (cf. Liefferink 1996). This picture has now changed. In a number of
recent conflicts about the Packaging, Habitats and Nitrates Directives, compromises
between the state and private parties that had been reached after long and difficult
negotiation at the national level were subsequently upset by EU measures. Although the
strictness of EU requirements also played a role in those cases, the core of the problem
lay in the way relevant private actors should be induced to take action to implement those
requirements on the ground. Whereas Brussels insists on following the rules once agreed
upon in the Council, the Dutch prefer negotiation and, if necessary, accommodation. This
conflict in styles has led to hard fights, not only between the Dutch government and the
Commission but also within the domestic context.
Long-term policy planning

A second important difference between European and Dutch policy styles involves policy
planning. Due among other things to the multitude of actors involved in agenda setting
and policy formation (e.g. Richardson 1994), and the crucial role of the member states in
bringing issues to the European level, the EU’s style of policy development is fairly
reactive and fragmented. In the Netherlands a firm tradition of comprehensive, long-term
policy planning exists. Having its origins in spatial and socio-economic planning in the
years immediately after the Second World War, the planning idea naturally became part
of the environmental field from the beginning. In the 1980s, in particular, an
encompassing system of environmental planning was set up. It is enshrined in the series
of NEPPs which have been published at four-yearly intervals since 1989 (see above).
Each one looks ten years ahead and seeks to integrate across all environmental policy
sectors.
The existence of conflicting modes of policy planning in the Netherlands and Brussels
need not necessarily be a problem, since the two systems do not directly interfere on this
point. It should be realized, however, that comprehensive, long-term policy planning can
hardly be imagined without general concepts and principles that can be applied in a range
of concrete, existing as well as future, situations. The key role thus taken by concepts and
principles in guiding environmental policy development may, on the one hand, be
regarded as an important factor behind the efforts to export them, as described above. On
the other hand, the strong reliance on long-term, comprehensive strategies makes Dutch
environmental policy quite rigid. Within the limits of the pre-established playing field,
flexibility is very possible, but trespassing across the boundaries would require
fundamental discussion about underlying goals and values. On top of the consensual
culture, which makes policies once agreed upon difficult to change, this aspect further
increases the persistence of conflicts between European and Dutch policies.
Summing up
There is little indication that the prevailing Dutch policy style in the environmental field
is changing under the influence of Europeanization. On the contrary, the central features
of this style—consensualism and an emphasis on long-term planning—appear to be very
robust. Moreover, they appear to lie at the heart of most of the conflicts between Dutch
and European policy that have occurred in the past. The style of negotiation and (often
fragile) consensus between domestic parties exhibits a considerable resistance to pressure
from outside.
Therefore, the Dutch have taken steps proactively to minimize the impact of the EU
upon national policies. First, an active input into the policy-making process in Brussels
aims at ensuring that Dutch viewpoints are taken into account at the earliest phase of a
policy negotiation. The long-term planning tradition means this is done with an emphasis
on the development and consistent use of concepts and principles of environmental
policy. In line with the Dutch domestic tradition, the Dutch style in Brussels can be
characterized as constructive rather than provocative (Liefferink and Andersen 1998). In
recent years, a number of institutional adaptations have been carried through to support
this work. Nevertheless, a lack of co-ordination in the quite fragmented Dutch
departmental landscape still sometimes thwarts effective intervention in the early phases
in Brussels (Veenman and Liefferink 2004). Second, if Dutch efforts in the policy-
making phase have been insufficiently successful and difficulties may be expected in
implementation, recognition is sought for allegedly specific Dutch problems or
circumstances. In those cases, going-it-alone is not the usual Dutch style (Liefferink
1997; Liefferink and Andersen 1998). Alternative implementation routes commonly
agreed upon or formal derogations are preferred. Third and finally, if problems in
implementing a piece of EU legislation nevertheless occur, these problems tend to be
tough. Difficulties in changing domestic agreements and, possibly, deviating from pre-
established policy principles, may lead to protracted processes of adaptation at the
national level, as well as conflicts with the Commission and maybe even the ECJ.
Conclusions
The Europeanization of Dutch environmental policy has been a gradual, incremental and
largely ‘hidden’ process. In the 1970s and 1980s European environmental policy was
predominantly formulated after environmental forerunners, such as the Netherlands, had
framed and exported their domestic policies. Therefore, the counterfactual situation for
this country is quite clear: if the Netherlands had not been a member state, Dutch
The Netherlands 139
environmental policy would probably not have been fundamentally different from what it
is now.
Even nowadays, apart from a couple of notable but relatively isolated examples, the
EU does not seem to have had too much impact on Dutch environmental policies. As a
flexible ‘Mr Average’ in Europe, the Netherlands quite smoothly integrated most
European influences into its domestic environmental policy arena. Most of the key
aspects of the Dutch response to the Europeanization of environmental policy can be
understood in terms of policy style. Consensualism and a tradition of comprehensive,
long-term policy planning are robust features of the Dutch style in environmental policy.
They account for the efforts made to upload general policy concepts and principles to the
EU. Seemingly substantive problems of implementation in a number of fields, moreover,
originated to an important extent in the difficulties experienced in breaking up existing
domestic compromises. During the past decade a number of structural improvements
have been made to deal with EU environmental policy more effectively, but these have
not detectably affected the basic orientation of either Dutch domestic environmental
policy making or the Dutch input into the EU policy process.
Note
1 This section has greatly benefited from interviews with officials from the Ministries of the
Environment, Housing and Physical Planning (VROM) and Agriculture, Nature
Management and Fisheries (LNV), in March–May 2001. The latter changed its name to
Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality as of 1 July 2003.
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10
Norway
Top down Europeanization by fax
Eivind Hovden1
Overview
Norway presents an interesting case of Europeanization because it is not formally a

member of the EU.2 In theory, it offers a useful insight into the relative importance of the
EU vis-à-vis other possible causes of national policy change. After all, if Europeanization
depends on the presence of a misfit with EU policies that are imposed top down on
member states, then, logically, Norway cannot be Europeanized, and any national policy
changes must be due to other causal factors. This chapter, however, reveals that Norway
has been Europeanized because, while it is not formally a member of the EU, it has close
ties with the EU through the European Economic Area (EEA) Treaty. The EEA Treaty
means that Norway is fully part of the single market. Consequently, most of the EU’s
single market and environmental legislation applies in Norway in exactly the same
manner as it does in full member states.
Without full membership of the EU, Norway has had very limited influence on the
decision-making process in Brussels. It has, therefore, generally been a policy ‘taker’, not
a policy ‘maker’. Norway’s lack of influence on EU policy processes is centrally
important if we want to understand the full implications of the Europeanization of
Norwegian environmental policy content, structure and style. Crucially, the
Europeanization of Norway is characterized by a deep conflict between democracy and
diplomacy, which arises because the policy making takes place within the diplomatic
sphere (characterized by secrecy and elites), but the laws themselves are of such a nature
that they need a democratic mandate. It is in this democratic half-way house that the
Europeanization of Norwegian policy continues to take place (Claes 2003).
Attitudes to Europe
Norway has twice rejected membership of the EU in the referenda of 1972 and 1994.
Since 1994 Norwegian public opinion has shown a relatively stable majority against
membership. This has meant that EU membership has been low on the political agenda
until the early 2000s, when—for the first time since the early 1990s—opinion polls began
to show a significant majority in favour of membership over a period of about a year and
a half. But it remains a very fragile majority. At the time of writing (winter 2003), it is
Norway 143
already waning. The reasons for the shifts in public opinion over the last two years are
hard to determine, but eastern enlargement and the successful introduction of the euro
have probably been contributory factors. Both have given the EU much more positive
coverage in the Norwegian media. Similarly, the Swedish ‘no’ to the euro in September
2003 may have influenced the October 2003 opinion polls, where the no vote appeared
strengthened (Dagbladet 2003).
Norway first rejected membership of the EEC in 1972 by 53.5 per cent vs 46.5 per
cent. The 1972 referendum had a long-term effect, deeply splitting public opinion and the
main political parties. It was not an exercise that anyone wanted quickly to repeat. In the
late 1980s, however, a process of realignment with the EU began, with the negotiation in
1990–92 of the EEA Treaty. The EEA Treaty does not represent full membership, and
does not include (at least for Norway) the more contentious aspects of EU policy, such as
collaboration in the areas of common foreign and security policy, monetary and fiscal
policy, agriculture and fisheries policy. The EEA Treaty has the European Free Trade
Association (EFTA),3 less Switzerland, and the member states of the EU as its main
contracting parties. Beyond the single market, the EEA Treaty also concerns a few other
selected areas, among them environmental policy. Environmental policy was deliberately
added to make the EEA Treaty more than just a technical trade agreement; in other
words, to make the EEA Treaty a more ‘political’ treaty (Dahl 1999:132).
In 1994, after the EEA Treaty entered into force, Norway initiated another referendum
on EU membership for many of the same reasons that Sweden, Finland and Austria did
likewise, most of them stemming from or being connected to the decline of the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe post–1989. Sweden, Finland and Austria of course joined,
while Norway, the last country to hold its referendum, decided against joining by an even
narrower margin than in 1972 (i.e. 52.5 per cent vs 47.5 per cent). The reasons which
have been given for yet another no vote are both complex and varied (no less than 170
different reasons were cited in some surveys, e.g. Ringedal 1995:48). The most important
arguments against were related to democracy and autonomy. Environmental arguments
were used by both sides, but most of the green movement campaigned actively against
membership (Ringedal 1995:49, 51). The yes campaign did employ environmentally
based arguments to push for membership (Reitan 1997:322–52). However, environmental
arguments did not appear to have been a critical factor in shaping people’s preferences;
other factors were much more important.
Like its predecessor, the 1994 referendum was fiercely contested and left the nation
deeply split. It is therefore clear that a new referendum on membership will not be
attempted before there is a substantial, stable, long-term majority in favour of
membership in the public opinion polls. This seems a rather distant prospect at present.

Norway has a long tradition of being a pioneer in environmental policy, having
established a separate (and active) Ministry of the Environment as early as 1972 and a
Pollution Control Authority in 1974. Norway is generally considered to have been in the
vanguard when it comes to national environmental legislation and nature conservation,
and has been an active party to many international environmental agreements (Langhelle
2000:178; Reitan 1997:312–19). For example, Norway was among the first countries to
establish a national target for CO2 emission reductions in 1989 (Hovden and Lindseth
2004), and in the 1990s the government was among the first to establish a broad regime
of environmental taxes. Over 8 per cent of tax revenue in Norway was generated by
environmentally related taxes in 1998. These ‘green’ taxes now stand at about 3.5 per
cent of GDP, well above the OECD average of 2.5 per cent (OECD 2002:37). Norway’s
overseas development assistance (aid) is among the highest in the world at 0.83 per cent
of GDP in 2001 (SSB 2003), well above the United Nations’ informal target of 0.37 per
cent. Norwegian businesses are also subject to a set of unique environmental reporting
requirements that are unparalleled anywhere else in the world (Ruud 2002).
Gro Harlem Brundtland’s dual role as chair of the World Commission on Environment
and Development and Norwegian Prime Minister in the period 1986–90 and 1991–96
secured strong ties between national environmental politics and the work of the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) process (Langhelle
2000). However, public opinion has changed considerably since then in relation to the
severity and management of environmental problems. In 1989 61 per cent of the
population believed environmental problems were ‘serious’ with a need for ‘immediate
and drastic initiatives’. By 2002 this figure had dropped to just 25 per cent, representing a
dramatic sea change in public beliefs over a period of just 12 years (Hellevik 2002:8).
In 1993 the OECD gave Norwegian environmental policy a favourable review, mainly
because Norway was still well ahead of other industrialized countries in terms of
developing and applying a consistent and broad-based set of environmental policy
instruments (OECD 1993). While remaining positive, the 2002 OECD environmental
policy performance review pointed out that many of the promises of the early 1990s had
not been carried through. In particular, the OECD criticized Norway’s energy policy
(namely insufficient long-term targets), as well as its policies on climate (which promise
dramatic increases in future greenhouse gas emissions) and biodiversity (which still offer
insufficient protection to large predators) (OECD 2002:19–30). In general, one can detect
the appearance of a progressively less ambitious environmental policy in Norway
throughout the 1990s. From being a clear pioneer at the start of that decade, Norway is
perhaps best described today as an ‘above average’ state, but not much more (Lafferty
and Nordskag 2002; Langhelle 2000).
The Europeanization of Norway
The relationship between Norway and the EU is by no means extensively covered in the
literature. This may not seem at all surprising given that Norway is not an EU member.
However, the EEA Treaty is, without doubt, the most extensive and intrusive
international agreement ever signed by Norway. Therefore it seems odd that the literature
on the subject is relatively recent in origin. It was not until 1999—some five years after
the EEA Treaty entered into force—that the first comprehensive review of Norway’s
relationship with the EU (via the EEA Treaty) was published (Claes and Tranøy 1999).
This covered post– 1994 developments in every area of domestic policy from
environment, justice and home affairs, through to energy policy, fisheries and
telecommunications. It concluded that through the EEA Treaty the EU has affected
almost all areas of Norwegian life, with the exception of security and social policy
Norway 145
Since Norway’s formal relationship with the EU differs considerably from that of the
other case studies in this book, it may be worth giving a broad outline of the legal
architecture and political functioning of the EEA Treaty, with special reference to
environmental policy. The purpose of the EEA Treaty is to create a single market
encompassing all EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. This
effectively means that all EU acts relating to the single market and to environmental
policy must be transposed and implemented in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. When
the EU adopts a new environmental act, the EFTA states meet in an environment working
group of the EFTA Standing Committee to hold discussions and reach a common view. A
common EFTA position is prepared and then communicated to the EU Commission. The
EEA Joint Committee, consisting of representatives from the EU Commission and
member states in the EU and EFTA, then meets to decide whether or not to incorporate
the legislation into the EEA Treaty. The Committee has a special sub-committee on
‘Flanking and Horizontal Policies’, which handles environmental policy. There needs to
be unanimity in this Committee for legislation to be added to the EEA Treaty The
legislation in question is then communicated to the EFTA member states, ratified by
parliaments, and then transposed and implemented into national legislation in much the
same way as occurs in EU member states (Gjønnes and Knudzon 1998).
However, this arrangement creates a democratic deficit because EFTA countries
cannot, in any meaningful way, influence or control the actual production of EU acts,
even though the EEA agreement is based on the implementation of these very acts in the
EFTA countries. This deficit is compensated by: a) a right to participate in EU legislative
committees; and b) a right of reservation—the so-called ‘Veto-right’.
The EEA Treaty stipulates that the EFTA states have a right to be consulted on an
informal basis when new secondary legislation is being prepared in the Commission. The
Treaty does not specify meetings or forums for this contact, but in practice it happens
through the participation of EEA experts in the meetings of the EU expert groups. In
these expert groups, EEA countries enjoy, at least in principle, equal standing to the EU
member states. However, these committees are only advisory, even though they often
have a substantial influence on shaping legislative outputs. Furthermore, while EFTA
countries may be present, the EFTA representatives do not hold a formal vote on the
committees; they are physically placed together with environmental pressure groups and
other economic interest groups. None of them speak until all the EU member states have
spoken. The actual role that EFTA representatives play in these meetings varies
dramatically depending on who is chairing the meeting and what informal contacts have
been established in advance. It is therefore an unreliable and haphazard avenue for EFTA
countries to exert influence on the EU (Statskonsult 1999; 2001; Trondal and Veggeland
1999).
The second compensating mechanism is the so-called ‘veto-right’ enshrined in the
EEA Treaty. This is a type of ‘safety-valve’ that should ensure that an EFTA state is not
forced to implement acts it opposes but has had no part in developing. The EEA Joint
Committee requires unanimity in order to be able to add an act to the EEA Treaty and
thus commit the EFTA states to formally implementing the legislation. This stands in
sharp contrast to the EU, where a member state can, at least in theory, be outvoted and
thus forced to implement an act which it has voted against in the Council. The EU does
not directly legislate upon the EEA countries and, for an act to become part of the EEA
Treaty, it needs the active consent of EFTA. Norway cannot of course prevent the EU
from adopting a certain act, but it can prevent the act from becoming part of the EEA
Treaty by opposing the act in the Joint Committee. Judicially this is perfectly possible
and the EEA Treaty has clear provisions governing such a situation. In effect, therefore,
Norway enjoys a very negative form of influence in the EU: it can choose not to be a
policy taker, but it struggles to be a policy maker in the EU.
So far, however, the ‘EEA veto’ has not been employed by any of the parties to the
Treaty. The reasons for this are complex, but one obvious factor is that Norway fears that
important political consequences would almost inevitably follow in the wake of the veto
were it employed. Article 102 of the EEA Treaty states that those aspects of the Treaty
that are affected by a veto may be regarded as ‘provisionally suspended’. In other words,
if Norway were to veto the incorporation of a Single Market Directive into the EEA
Treaty, the EU would consider suspending parts of the single market legislation with
respect to Norway. As this would have potentially dire consequences on trade between
Norway and the EU and undoubtedly also have wider political ramifications, it is
generally regarded as the ‘nuclear option’. The use of the veto does not, of course, accord
with the overall aim of the Treaty, namely to create a single, harmonized market in the
EEA. Since the veto has never been employed in the ten-year history of the EEA Treaty,
one may safely assume that it will only be used in extremis (Arnesen et al. 1997).
However, it is worth underscoring the point that the EEA Treaty is au fond a
multilateral treaty, negotiated between parties that are afforded equal legal rights. Still,
Norway has consistently behaved in a passive and precautionary manner with respect to
the Treaty, and not exploited the room for manoeuvre provided by it. For every EU act
that is brought to the EEA Joint Council, it is, in principle, a matter of multilateral
negotiation as to whether or not it should formally become a part of the EEA Treaty.
Although the underlying logic of the EEA Treaty is that EU acts will eventually become
part of the EEA Treaty, there exists room for the Norwegians to manoeuvre from one
case to the next. Just as some EU members have secured special rights with respect to
certain policy areas, for example Denmark with respect to EU environmental policy
(Dahl 1997), Norway has, in principle at least, the same opportunities to create ‘space’
for its own policy priorities. However, because many Norwegians believe that the EEA
Treaty is intrinsically vulnerable and a burden to the rest of the EU, successive
governments have simply chosen not to push their luck and take whatever the EU throws
at them. This is in contrast to Iceland, which, although an even smaller state than
Norway, is viewed as having a much more proactive influence on the EEA Treaty
system.
The Europeanization of Norwegian environmental policy
The content of Norwegian policy

In the period between 1970 and 1994 (when the EEA Treaty came into force), Norway’s
approach to the EU was, naturally, strongly influenced by the outcome of the 1972
referendum, but the content of Norwegian environmental policy was not significantly
influenced by the EU.
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Norway and the EU have both taken part in the same broad international development of
environmental policy goals and paradigms. The various Environmental Action
Programmes of the EU are broadly similar in tone and content to strategic Norwegian
environmental policy documents. For instance, they both make ritual references to the
importance of prevention rather than cure, and to the precautionary, polluter pays and
environmental policy integration principles. There is, however, one clear instance where
Norway has interpreted the precautionary principle rather differently from the EU. This
relates to the control of dangerous substances. In this area EU standards were weaker
than Norwegian standards, which the Norwegians justified by invoking the precautionary
principle. In taking this stance, Norway may not have been motivated exclusively by
environmental arguments; it has a relatively small industrial sector and an even smaller
chemical industry. Either way, this difference in approach led Norway to adopt stricter
standards governing dangerous substances. With respect to pesticides, for example,
Norway employs a so-called ‘positive list’ approach, as opposed to the ‘negative list’
used in the EU. In practice, this means that Norway specifies which pesticides are
allowed on the market (all others are prohibited), whereas the EU specifies which
pesticides are prohibited (and all the others are allowed). Naturally, this means Norway
has a more restrictive control regime (Dahl 1999:135).
With respect to policy goals, it is interesting to note Norway’s relatively early
deployment of the term sustainable development. With Brundtland at the helm, it was not
surprising that Norway presented a major environmental policy document containing
sustainable development as early as 1989 (Norwegian Ministry of the Environment
1989). The EU, by contrast, did not take on board the principle of sustainable
development until mid–1993, when the Fifth Environmental Action Programme was
adopted. Since then, Norway has also taken the lead in implementing sustainable
development. In the late 1980s it adopted a process of EPI covering major policy and
budgeting decisions (Hovden and Torjussen 2002).
Policy instruments
Norway has had a long tradition of using command-and-control policy instruments in its
national environmental policy. As discussed above, there seems to be no example of
Norway successfully preventing the EEA system from adopting a directive to which
Norway had strong objections. However, when it comes to the observance of EEA
regulations, Norway has, in at least one important case, successfully defended a national
practice with respect to a levy on aluminium cans. Seeking to discourage the introduction
of recyclable aluminium cans on the beverage market, Norway introduced a tax on non-
refillable beverage containers in 1993. The argument was environmentally based, i.e. to
encourage the use of reusable beverage containers (i.e. glass bottles) rather than
recyclable beverage containers (i.e. aluminium cans). The EFTA Surveillance Authority
(ESA—a body akin to the European Commission) viewed the tax as a restriction on free
trade for the following reason. Exporters to the Norwegian market favoured recyclable
rather than reusable beverage containers, because the latter would require shipping empty
bottles back to the country of origin for refilling, while the former could be recycled in
Norway. This arrangement would favour domestic beverage producers since it would be
easier for them to operate a reusable bottles scheme and thus avoid the tax on recyclable
beverage containers. However, even though the Norwegian Parliament was notified that
the ESA viewed the tax as being in breach of the EEA Treaty, it retained the levy (Dahl
1999:140). The view taken was that as long as the Danish reusable bottles scheme was
maintained, the Norwegian levy could not be challenged. The ESA withdrew its case
against Norway, arguing that developments within the EU meant that such taxes were
unlikely to be illegal under the EEA regulations (ESA 1999:27). Judicial technicalities
aside, the main point is that this episode represents a rare case of Norway appearing to
implement a policy in defiance of the ESA.
The strongly consensual policy style in Norway (see below) does not mean that ‘new’
policy instruments, such as voluntary agreements, have quickly taken root in Norway.
There are a few examples of voluntary agreements, most notably on non-CO2 greenhouse
gas emissions (Ruud 2002). There are also some less successful ones, e.g. on VOCs, NOx
and SO2 emissions. But, on the whole, these are very much exceptions. Hence, while the
policy style is consensual, the instruments employed are still predominantly in the
traditional vein of command-and-control and fiscal instruments.

As regards the setting of policy instruments, Dahl’s (1994) study shows quite
conclusively that by the late 1980s there were few dramatic differences between the
content of EU and the content of Norwegian environmental policy, with one exception:
dangerous substances. In this area Norway, like Sweden, consistently adopted more
stringent regulations during the 1970s and 1980s. For example, with respect to the
regulation of organic solvents, a number of substances that Norway considered a health
risk were not regulated by the EU. Similarly, carcinogenic substances like asbestos were
completely banned in Norway, while no comparative legislation existed in the EU. Also,
in the case of the labelling of paint, the Norwegian system was more stringent than that of
the EU (Dahl 1999:135)
In all these areas, Norway had different standards from the EU. Therefore, transitional
arrangements had to be negotiated in 1990–92 when the EEA Treaty was being formally
negotiated. These arrangements were possible partly because the EU already wished to
tighten its own regulations over time. For example, the EU had a long-established policy
goal to ban asbestos, although, unlike Norway, the intention was to implement this in a
step by step manner. In such cases, finding a suitable transitional arrangement for
Norway was unproblematic. Thus, in the case of asbestos, it had a time limit of four
years, which was renewed in 1999 (Dahl 1999:137). However, a number of the
transitional arrangements were no longer needed, as the EU had, by 1999, effectively
caught up with Norwegian standards in areas such as car emissions. Here, Norwegian
rules in 1994 were more stringent than those of the EU, but are now harmonized (Dahl
1999:137).
In the immediate pre-EEA period, Norway took part in a complex set of international
negotiations between EFTA and the EU over the EEA Treaty. As Norway was not
subject to any supranational regime, it was in a comparatively strong position to defend
its often higher environmental standards. Of course, at that time Sweden and Austria
were EFTA members, and with their support Norway was in a comparatively strong
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position. Sweden in particular has often had very similar priorities to those of Norway in
the environmental field. In those areas where the EU was in any case developing more
stringent legislation, the Commission therefore had no real motivation to force Norway to
reduce its standards. Therefore misfits remained.
Since 1994 all EU single market legislation has applied to Norway, as has most
environmental legislation (except that relating to nature conservation). By 2002 no less
than 230 separate environmental acts (or amendments to existing acts) had become part
of the EEA Treaty system. Of these, only a handful have generated significant
disagreement. For example, in the late 1990s three directives on food additives (namely
Directives 95/2/EC, 96/5/EC and 96/77/EC) generated great controversy in Norway. In
this area Norway had a more restrictive policy than the EU, but chose—after trying for
six years to find a way to maintain existing levels of domestic protection—to adopt the
slightly less stringent EU policy standards. The reasoning behind this was quite clearly
related to the desire not to jeopardize the workings of the EEA Treaty. Indeed, the White
Paper published on these most technical of matters by no less than the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs clearly argues that not implementing the acts could have serious
consequences for Norwegian exports (Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2000). The
Norwegian view is still, however, that these directives are too lenient.
Another example of EU—Norwegian conflict in the environmental field is Directive
98/44 on the Protection of Biotechnology Inventions. This was (and still is) a
controversial directive even among the EU member states, but it certainly caused
considerable controversy in Norway, with many demands for the government to employ
its veto. In the end, the directive was transposed into Norwegian law in 2003, although
only with a significant dissenting minority both in Parliament and—more remarkably—in
the Cabinet (overt Cabinet splits are extremely rare in the consensual climate of
Norwegian politics—see below). The situation was more remarkable given that the issue
was one of foreign policy, where the need for Cabinet unity is normally seen as being of
paramount importance. This does indicate the lengths to which a Norwegian government
will go to safeguard the EEA Treaty.
In summary, Norway managed to negotiate a number of transitional arrangements in
the early 1990s, and has since had relatively few conflicts with the EU over the content of
policy. Where there have been conflicts, Norway has tended to cede ground. There have
been few conflicts over policy instruments, and Norway and the EU have followed
parallel developments with respect to policy concepts and goals, with Norway a little
ahead in its development of concepts like sustainable development and the precautionary
principle.
The structures of Norwegian policy
New co-ordinating structures

The EEA Treaty marks a watershed in the evolution of national policy structures. Prior to
the EEA Treaty, any questions relating to international environmental policy (defined
broadly to include the EU, the OECD and the UN) were handled in the international
section of the Ministry of the Environment or in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
However, with the EEA Treaty, a completely new decision-making structure was
established, comprising several new governmental bodies. The most important new body
is the EEA High-level Co-ordinating Committee, which is a committee exclusively
dedicated to EEA-related issues. As a basic rule, one senior civil servant from each
ministry meets in this committee. It aims to co-ordinate the input of the various ministries
into the operation of the EEA.
In addition, each ministry has also established a Special Committee, which provides
the first formal point of contact between an EU act and Norwegian administration. Thus
the Ministry of the Environment leads the Special Committee for new environmental
proposals and so on. The environment Special Committee consists of civil servants from
the Ministry of the Environment, plus representatives from other ministries to which the
act in question may be relevant. The Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Finance and
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can attend any meeting of a Special Committee.
The main task of these committees is to develop a co-ordinated, cross-government
position ahead of the negotiations in the EEA Joint Committee. In practice, this involves
drawing up a confidential policy memorandum. These policy memos typically outline the
main features of any new EU proposal, assess its impact on Norwegian policy, outline the
views of Norwegian stake-holders and calculate the likely costs.
If a Special Committee is unable to reach a cross-government consensus, the matter is
passed on to the EEA High-level Co-ordinating Committee. Any issues that cannot be
resolved at this higher administrative level are discussed in the Cabinet, which has the
final word on the Norwegian position in the EEA Council.
The national parliament

A new Parliamentary EEA Consultative Committee was established as a result of the
EEA Treaty. This Committee consists of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on
Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian members of the EEA Joint Parliamentary Committee.
The Parliamentary EEA Consultative Committee is chaired by the Foreign Minister.
Representatives of other ministries are invited on an ad hoc basis. It is up to the Foreign
Minister to draw conclusions from the advice he receives from the Committee. The
minutes of the meetings are confidential. The Minister of Foreign Affairs regularly
informs the Parliamentary EEA Consultative Committee about upcoming developments
in EU legislation. In the meeting with the Parliamentary EEA Consultative Committee,
the Foreign Minister is given the necessary mandate to agree (or, theoretically, disagree)
with an EU act being integrated into the EEA system.
The Foreign Minister must of course always secure parliamentary approval subsequent
to any actions taken in the EEA. In practice, the Parliament has very limited influence on
the Norwegian input into the EU and EEA legislative process. Until the act is
incorporated in the EEA Treaty and has to be transposed into Norwegian law, experts,
senior civil servants and, finally, the political leadership of the relevant ministries all
work together to forge a ‘Norwegian view’. The Parliament is informed, but the effective
decision-making power lies with the executive branch and its bureaucracy.
The Parliament is in a weak position partly because EEA acts are only presented to it
when they have been formally incorporated in the EEA Treaty. In such a situation,
Parliament may either adopt the act or reject it on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. With no real
option to amend legislation (as is normally the case with national acts), Parliament is
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faced with a situation of ‘institutional coercion’ (Nordby 2000:27). Because most new
environmental policy development in Norway is stimulated by the EU, this arrangement
has dramatically reduced its influence on Norwegian environmental policy making. It is
quite clear that the balance of power in the domestic decision-making process in Norway
has, with the EEA Treaty, shifted in favour of the executive at the expense of the
legislature. Many other national parliaments in Europe have, admittedly, suffered a
similar fate, but for Norway it is even more significant, as Norway and the Norwegian
Parliament have extremely limited influence over the long-term future direction of EU
policy
In spite of this process of disempowerment, a substantial majority of Norwegian MPs
continue to support the EEA Treaty. As openly refusing to adopt an EU act could place
serious strains on EU-Norwegian relations, the majority of parliamentarians tend to
accept passively new EU acts into the EEA Treaty. They certainly show little interest in
EEA cases, citing time pressures and their relative lack of influence. For MPs to
influence the Norwegian environmental policy that comes through the EEA system, they
need to get actively involved early on in the EU decision-making process. MPs
acknowledge this, and although they claim that they try to follow the developments in the
EU, there are few practical avenues for exerting substantive influence in the early phases
of the EU legislative process. Consequently, Parliament is only ever involved at the very
end of the legislative process, when a ‘Veto’ is the only available option.
Implementing structures
Finally, the legal transposition and implementation of EEA acts has not forced Norway to
create any new structures. EEA environmental acts are transposed into Norwegian law
through the creation of new laws, the amendment of existing laws or via administrative
means. Norway had a very poor transposition record in 2000–2001, ranking second to
last among all EEA countries (ESA 2001). However, since then, its record has improved
drastically, and in 2003 its transposition deficit was a mere 0.7 per cent, bettered only by
Denmark among EEA states (ESA 2003).4
In summary, Norwegian environmental policy structures have been Europeanized in
the 1990s. Several new bodies have been established as a direct consequence of the EEA
Treaty. With respect to EEA and national environmental policy, the balance of power
between the legislative and the executive has shifted in favour of the executive, with
Parliament losing influence. Norway’s implementation record has varied, but at the
moment it is very good.
The style of Norwegian policy
Active or reactive?
Norway has a reputation for being an environmental pioneer. How has this been affected
by the EEA Treaty? The changes to policy content and structure discussed above have,
arguably, contributed to a shift towards a more reactive policy style. Interviews both with
policy makers in the Ministry of the Environment and the civil servants in the Pollution
Control Authority reveal that Norway has not developed new and ambitious legislative
proposals, partly as a way of saving resources (new legislation may in any case be
coming through the EEA system) and partly in fear of developing national rules which
may later hinder harmonization in the EEA. Indeed, it is questionable whether there are
any significant national initiatives being taken in some key areas such as pollution
control. In most areas of environmental policy, virtually all new legislative initiatives
now come from the EU via the EEA Treaty
There is one clear exception to this general observation: dangerous substances. With
respect to some specific substances, such as bromide fire retardants, phthalates in toys
and acrylamide, Norway does pursue national initiatives independent of what may or may
not come from the EU. More generally, Norway takes, together with other Nordic
countries, an active part in the development of the EU chemical strategy and is active in
the EU’s expert groups dealing with chemicals. This represents a continuation of the
strong tradition in Norway and the Nordic region in general of taking a very tough stance
with respect to dangerous substances. To the extent that we can talk about the ‘uploading’
of policy from a non-member such as Norway to the EU, chemical policy stands out as
the clearest possible example. However, on environmental policy more generally,
Norwegian environmental authorities appear less willing to develop legislation that goes
beyond EU legislation.
In terms of the bigger picture, therefore, Norway’s policy style has become more
passive. A concrete example of this passivity can be seen in areas where the EEA acts do
not specify a maximum level of protection, as for example with respect to ambient air
quality. Here, despite pressure from environmental NGOs and advice from the Pollution
Control Authority, Norway chooses not to employ stricter regulations on ambient air
quality than the EU (Dahl 1999:142; Reinvang 2003). In fact, it is very difficult to find
instances where Norway has chosen to develop environmental legislation beyond the
minimum requirements of the EU (Reinvang 2003). In important areas such as climate
policy (Wettestad 2003) and with respect to the National Emission Ceilings Directive,
Norway appears to be a hesitant implementer, which imperils its reputation as an
environmental pioneer (Bellona/WWF-Norway 2003). This suggests that the picture of
Norway as an undisputed activist in environmental policy circles now needs to be
rethought.
With respect to the Norwegian policy style in Brussels, it is also relatively passive for
the reasons outlined above. It is very difficult to identify a particular national policy
‘style’ in EU committees. In fact, the way in which Norwegian views are received, the
types of representation Norway has, and how well co-ordinated the Norwegian position
is, all vary from committee to committee. However, as all EFTA representatives are
structurally disadvantaged (see above), the overall conclusion has to be that Norway
could do more to influence the EU (Statskonsult 2001), bearing in mind that the EU may
not always be receptive to the views of a ‘non’-member state.
EEA membership has contributed to a more passive style, but Europeanization is by
no means the only reason for this change. National factors can also be cited, for example
the recession of the 1990s, during which the largest environmental NGOs faced severe
financial problems and much bad publicity (Langhelle 2000; Dahl 1999:140). It is thus
difficult completely to ‘isolate’ the role of the EEA in changing the Norwegian
environmental policy style.
Norway 153
Consensual or adversarial?
With respect to the second dimension of policy style, Norwegian politics in general, and
particularly environmental policy, remain deeply consensual. While the Norwegian
policy style in general can be characterized as ‘corporate’, the environmental sector is
slightly more adversarial in that the traditional economic interest groups have enjoyed
less influence, whereas the environmental NGOs have enjoyed more (Reitan 1997:203–
5). Norwegian environmental NGOs enjoy a central role in Norwegian environmental
policy making; they even receive substantial direct funding from the Ministry of the
Environment.5 They are routinely consulted on matters relating to environmental policy,
so much so that some question their independence (Dryzek et al. 2003:669). This practice
is still very much in line with the ‘corporate’ ideal, namely to involve all sections of civil
society in the policy process.
As a direct consequence of the disempowerment of Parliament (see above),
environmental NGOs have undoubtedly lost some of the influence they used to enjoy
because the traditional lobbying points in the Parliament are no longer as effective as they
used to be. With the exception of the international and better resourced organizations (i.e.
Greenpeace and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, WWF), Brussels is effectively off limits
to most national groups. In addition, as many of the groups are Eurosceptic, they feel
even less inclined to take an active part in the EEA/EU policy process (Laudal and
Langhelle 2002:52–3). Significantly, only one environmental foundation, Bellona, has an
office in Brussels.
Why is this important? Norway’s traditional consensual policy style requires active
environmental NGOs. Without them, the style is moving towards a more technocratic and
impositional form. The Norwegian Ministry of the Environment has therefore established
special schemes in order to provide information to the environmental NGOs about
EU/EEA policies. This is in addition to the substantial financial support that
environmental NGOs already receive through the Ministry of the Environment. In
addition, the government has offered to help NGOs develop their own internal
institutional capacity to involve themselves in EU policy and politics (Government of
Norway 2003:46). The Ministry of the Environment in particular perceives the lack of an
effective NGO input to be a problem, and would like to see more Norwegian
environmental NGOs playing an active part in shaping environmental issues in the EEA.
To sum up, the traditional Norwegian policy style is active, but it gradually became
more reactive during the 1990s. Europeanization has undoubtedly helped to make
Norwegian environmental policy more passive in its style. But Europeanization is by no
means the only driver; other national factors have also played a role. Norwegian
environmental policy has always been consensual, although this does not mean that it has
relied heavily on ‘new’ instruments that embody voluntarism such as voluntary
agreements. However, in order to prevent an EU-inspired drift towards a more
impositional policy style, the Ministry of the Environment has tried to bring
environmental NGOs more actively into the policy-making process after the entry into
force of the EEA Treaty.
Conclusions
Norwegian environmental policy has changed over the last thirty years. The key question
is how much of this change can be attributed to Europeanization. With respect to the
content of Norwegian policy, policy instruments, policy goals and policy concepts, it is
difficult to detect any clear signs of Europeanization. A considerable amount of
harmonization has taken place, but if we look at the specific setting of policy instruments,
the EEA/EU has, with some important exceptions, not significantly changed national
policy since Norway became an EEA member. Rather, Norwegian policy has been
marginally adjusted to fit with EU requirements, and substantive conflicts have been
quite rare. Except where misfits were resolved through transitional arrangements, the EU
line has tended to prevail. Norwegian efforts to upload policy ideas are few and far
between because of the limited avenues for influencing EU decision making.
Norwegian environmental policy structures have been more obviously Europeanized,
typified by the creation of new co-ordinating structures and bodies. One can also quite
easily isolate the ‘EU effect’—or, more precisely, the ‘EEA effect’—in these changes.
The outcome is a much reduced role for both the Parliament and environmental NGOs in
the decision-making process. At the same time, the EEA Treaty—the main motivator of
the structural changes—is defended by a substantial majority both in Parliament and the
voting public. These changes in structures have not been incremental since the 1970s, but
rather have happened suddenly with the entry into force of the EEA Treaty.
Norwegian environmental policy style has certainly changed during the 1990s, from
activism in the 1970s and 1980s to greater passivity today. Today Norway is a more
average European nation ‘reluctantly carrying the torch’ (Langhelle 2000). The role of
Europeanization in this process is difficult to determine, and several studies describe the
emergence of a new policy style without making reference to Europeanization. Having
said that, the Europeanization process has undoubtedly played some role, but it is
difficult to quantify.
Does Norway therefore offer an analytical means of disentangling the ‘EU effect’
from other drivers of national policy change? In one powerful sense, the answer is no.
While not formally an EU member state, to all intents and purposes Norway’s
membership of the EEA is de facto the same as full EU membership, at least as far as
environmental policy is concerned. Clearly, the Europeanizing effects of the
environmental acquis spread much further than the formal borders of the EU. If analysts
want to separate out cause and effect relationships, they may therefore need to look at
countries such as Switzerland (Jervell 2003), New Zealand and Australia, which have
similar socio-cultural/economic characteristics to those of the EU member states but are
many more steps removed from the EU’s influence.
All in all, one can confidently conclude that the Europeanization of Norwegian
environmental policy has mainly taken place after the entry into force of the EEA Treaty
in 1994, and is most evident with respect to policy structures, somewhat evident with
respect to content, and a less salient feature of policy style. The counterfactual is
notoriously difficult to identify but at least as regards policy structures one can be
confident that the changes described above would not have taken place without the
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EEA/EU. However, with respect to the content of policy, the issue is less clear-cut, as a
small nation like Norway would probably have sought to harmonize its regulations with
the EU in any case in order to facilitate trade.
The legitimacy of these changes remains problematic however. A basic principle in
liberal democratic states is that the populace should be able to influence the making of a
law which applies to them. With respect to EEA legislation in Norway, this principle has
been greatly challenged. Some describe it as ‘a constitutional catastrophe’ (Aftenposten
1997) because in practice Norway simply transposes legislation made by the EU, with no
effective democratic input from the Norwegian populace. This is sometimes referred to as
a ‘fax democracy’—indicating that EU legislation arrives by fax from Brussels and is
incorporated into Norwegian law without much political debate. While this is clearly a
caricature, there is no doubt that after Sweden and Austria became EU members in 1995,
there has been a radical political imbalance in the EEA Treaty, with the entire EU on one
side, and three small countries—Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein—on the other. One
need not be a hard-nosed political realist to acknowledge that this mismatch poses a
problem for Norway.
Increasingly, Norway receives the coded message from the Commission that it would
like to see an end to the EEA, which it regards as a very labour-intensive device to keep
4.5 million indecisive Norwegians happy (Aftenposten 2001). The Commission would
clearly welcome Norway as a full EU member state. Although a new membership debate
has been brewing in Norway recently, the public is still sceptical about EU membership.
And so, for the time being at least, Norway is likely to remain with one foot just inside
the door of the EU and the other one out.
Notes
1 This chapter is to a significant degree based on Agnethe Dahl’s (1999) article (in Norwegian).
The views expressed in this chapter should, however, only be attributed to the author, who
accepts sole responsibility for any errors or omissions. The author wishes to thank Magnar
Ødelien at the EFTA Secretariat, Erik Mathisen at the EFTA Surveillance Authority, and
Rasmus Reinvang at WWF Norway for assistance; the politicians and civil servants that
agreed to be interviewed; and, finally, the editors for their useful comments.
2 In this chapter EU refers to the European Union after 1993 and EC to the European
Community that preceded it.
3 In 1993 EFTA consisted of Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Iceland, Liechtenstein and
Norway. After the enlargement of the EU in 1995, only Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland
and Norway remain in EFTA. Switzerland is not a party to the EEA agreement.
4 It is worth noting that EFTA countries with a veto power in the Joint Committee can delay the
adoption of controversial acts in the Joint Committee. This option is less and less available to
EU countries in the EU Council. Also, EFTA countries have much less legislation to
implement than full EU members. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that EFTA
countries score highly on the implementation rankings produced by the ESA.
5 For example, Norwegian Friends of the Earth receives annual direct support of 4.4 million
NOK from the Ministry of the Environment (Norwegian Ministry of the Environment
2003:111), equivalent to c. 30 euros per member or 24 per cent of their total budget.
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11
Spain
Old habits die hard
Susana Aguilar Fernández
Overview
If Spain had not entered the EU in 1986, the country’s environmental policy would
probably still be sectorized (i.e. not integrated into the work of ‘non-environmental’
departments such as agriculture and transport), reactive (i.e. focused on the solution of
existing problems) and fragmented (i.e. lacking any comprehensive approach). Current
Spanish environmental policy, its shortcomings notwithstanding, basically owes its
existence to EU membership. Belated economic development and material welfare,
linked to a long-lived authoritarian regime (1939–76) which ultimately aspired to some
sort of legitimacy by means of unbridled and unegalitarian economic growth, help
explain why politicians and citizens alike have traditionally had concerns other than
environmental protection. The external origin of the present policy also helps to explain
why, although undoubtedly showing some EU features (basically those that have
compulsory force through the incorporation of air and water emission standards into
national law via the transposition of EU directives), domestic environmental protection
politics have not been profoundly affected by Brussels.
In the absence of significant internal pressure, Spain has mostly paid lip service to or
only very recently implemented principles which are dear to the EU, such as shared
responsibility, precaution and the wish to apply non-legislative instruments. The fact that
environmental issues are neither a priority on the political agenda nor a matter of great
public preoccupation (beyond a verbal willingness to fight for a better environment) goes
a long way to explaining why the Europeanization of Spanish environmental policy has
basically affected its more peripheral elements, while leaving its core (which is largely
determined by administrative inertia and the Spanish political style) relatively untouched.
Spain became a full member of the EU in 1986, following an unprecedented inter-

partisan consensus regarding the need to share in the allegedly positive effects of
economic integration. In contrast to Greece and Portugal, both right and left wing parties
in Spain supported integration. Whereas in Portugal and Greece the crisis and
delegitimation of the military regimes opened up the way to democratic regimes that
clearly broke with the past, the Spanish Francoist regime preserved some of its legitimacy
for certain social sectors. The transition was therefore carried out from within the old
Spain 159
political apparatus with the explicit aim of avoiding political purges and drastic
departures from the past. Economic modernization and a betterment of Spain’s
international position, which would reinforce its embryonic democracy as well as end a
long-standing tradition of political isolation, were the two main theoretical benefits
expected to flow from EU membership and upon which the Spanish consensus was built
(Alvarez-Miranda 1996).
Comparatively speaking, Spanish public opinion has also been quite enthusiastic about
European membership: with the exception of agricultural policy, for instance, no other
area should be ‘renationalized’ according to recent opinion polls (Barreiro and Sánchez-
Cuenca 2001). At the political level, only when many other member states strongly
opposed Spain’s long-held desire for a cohesion fund to defray some of the cost of
environmental improvements demanded by the EU could doubts and inter-partisan
dissent on the EU be detected in Spain. The subsequent emergence of thorny issues such
as milk quotas, the reform of the olive oil sector and the fishing negotiations, alongside
the end to majority governments, may have accentuated this trend. Nonetheless, Spain
can still be defined as one of the most pro-integration member states in the EU today.
When Spain joined the EU, its environmental profile was low. Various official reports
openly acknowledge that, if the country had not entered the EU, a genuine environmental
policy would have taken much longer to emerge (DGMA 1987). The economic boom of
the 1960s was linked to the development of a highly polluting industrial sector and the
expansion of unbridled tourism. The only relatively important piece of legislation prior to
accession was the 1972 Air Protection Law, which was systematically breached. Even
today the environment remains a second-rank political issue in Spanish political life and
Spanish green parties are still weak.1 Not surprisingly, Spain has tended to be an
environmental laggard within the EU, waiting for other states to make the first move
rather than uploading its own ideas to the EU. In line with this reactive approach, EU
standards and goals have generally been uncritically downloaded into Spain. Unlike
Portugal, for instance, the Spanish delegation which negotiated EU membership did not
request an adjustment period and did not incorporate environmental issues into its
agenda, with the exception of the granting of a temporary delay on the introduction of
unleaded petrol.
Yet, in the discussions leading up to the approval of the Maastricht Treaty, this
approach began to change, becoming more active and more focused on the demand to
create a financial instrument to help the poorer member states reduce the economic gap
and shoulder the expenditures associated with the implementation of EU environmental
legislation. This demand eventually resulted in the setting up of the EU’s Cohesion Fund.
Likewise, Spain’s new found assertiveness has highlighted some of the biases inherent in
the EU’s traditional, narrowly focused policy approach. These include the prioritization
of industrial pollution issues (which favour central and northern countries) to the
detriment of others, such as soil erosion, desertification and forest fires (which are the
main concerns of Mediterranean countries). These have encouraged Spain to be even
more assertive in pushing its own environmental agenda in Brussels (Aguilar Fernández
1997a/b). For this reason, and due to the fact that the distinction between environmental
leaders and laggards in the EU is increasingly disputed (Kousis and Eder 2001), it is more
difficult now to characterize Spain’s role in EU environmental politics.
Spain’s adoption of a more active approach might have something to do with two
other factors. First, the reform of voting procedures in the Environment Council (i.e.
increasingly by way of qualified majority voting) limited the scope for single member
states to block proposals. Second, the 1995 enlargement reinforced the power of the
traditional ‘green’ troika (Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark) in the making of the
EU agenda. The new configuration of political interests in the Council has forced Spain
to put forward ‘its own proposals in a more consistent way, while trying to reach
package-deal compromises with other EU member states’ (cf. Aguilar Fernández
1997a:165).
The Europeanization of Spain
The economic effects of European integration on Spain have merited significant research
efforts (Martin 1997). In contrast, the effects of EU membership on the Spanish political
system and specific public policies have only recently begun to be analysed (Gomá and
Subirats 1998; Aguilar Fernández et al. 1999; Closa 2001). Seemingly, the main traits of
the system (a strong and autonomous executive, the low profile of its bicameralism, weak
opposition parties and interest groups, and troublesome inter-governmentalism between
the regions and the state) have been reinforced by EU membership. The ‘quasi-
presidential’ nature of the system, as some authors call it, has facilitated greater co-
ordination on crucial political issues, i.e. anything that threatens Spain’s voting power as
one of the five largest member states or its ability to maximize the inflow of EU funding.
Furthermore, the setting up of a Council of Foreign Policy in the year 2000 has
strengthened the ‘presidential style’ in Spanish policy making. This Council is a high-
profile interministerial group with extensive powers over strategic European affairs,
which can be convened by the premier (Molina 2001a). Besides, the consolidation of
Brussels as a crucial locus of decision making has, together with the ‘state of autonomies’
as envisaged by the 1978 Constitution, converted the domestic political process into a
multilevel game which opens up new opportunities for novel actors and advocacy
coalitions.
As regards the environmental field, single-issue movements plus locally based
conservation groups (sometimes acting in collaboration with regional governments) are
increasingly opposing environmentally harmful projects sponsored by state authorities. It
is often difficult to predict who will emerge victorious from the resulting conflicts
(Aguilar Fernández 1999). At the same time (and as a result of the constant inflow of EU
legislation into domestic law), new issues are increasingly being tackled with innovative
approaches and techniques, typified by the recent introduction of voluntary measures to
foster greater urban waste recycling (Aguilar Fernández 1998).
In summary, Europeanization has only progressed a long way in Spain because the
traditional state-oriented political style has been at odds with the more participatory
political dynamic prevalent elsewhere in Europe and the substance of domestic policies
has largely lagged well behind the EU legislative demands. This process is visible above
all in the case of environmental policy, an area in which the Commission has been
remarkably active.
Spain 161
The Europeanization of Spanish environmental policy
The content of Spanish policy
Policy goals
EU membership has mainly contributed to changing the substance of policies, as the
following examples will show. In 1993, when the first bill of the National Water Plan
(Plan Hidrológico Nacional, PHN) was put forward, a specific reference to the
transposition of Directive 91/27 was made to back up the request to protect the
environmental quality of water resources. The ongoing political debate surrounding the
passing of the PHN has highlighted important discrepancies in the overall goals that
guide water policy. The financial constraints linked to the fulfilment of the EU’s
economic convergence criteria have made the Ministry of Economy increasingly
reluctant to shoulder the burden of water infrastructure expenditures, while the Ministry
for the Environment (MIMAM) has started to cast doubt on the need to increase the
amount of irrigated land, as defended by the Ministry of Agriculture (MAPA) and
demanded by the Popular Party (PP) (Luaces 1998). Thus, the very premises of this
policy (that is, the need to build dams to regulate water flows as well as the urge to
increase the availability of the resource) have recently begun to be disputed. Entry into
the EU might be one of the most important reasons why the old consensus amongst the
main actors in the Spanish water policy sector is nowadays under question. New political
opportunities for environmentalists, the emphasis on the importance of controlling the
quality of the resource and the impetus created by a new economic discourse which
advocates the positive effects of charging water consumers the full costs of use are also
associated with European membership. However, as important as all these new
orientations have been, the EU has had a feeble influence on the substantive outcomes of
Spanish policy (Luaces 1998). Critically, Spain has been warned twice by the EU to
adopt measures to improve the quality of its bathing water. Meanwhile, the contested and
old-fashioned version of the PHN backed by the PP was finally approved in 2003.
In nature conservation policy, a different and well-established policy area (the first law
creating national parks dates from 1916), the European imprint has manifested itself
through the Birds Directive, which has led to 148 Areas of Special Protection for Birds
(ASPBs) being declared, covering approximately 2,500,000 hectares. Europeanization is
also clear in Law 4/89 for the Conservation of Natural Areas and Flora and Fauna and
decree 97/95, which, referring to the Natura 2000 network, made the state responsible for
putting forward ASPBs in Brussels, while regional governments are entrusted with their
management.
Policy instruments
Another area where the impact of European thinking (though, as yet, not policy) has been
extremely important is the introduction of economic instruments (the EU has yet to adopt
one in the environmental sphere despite years of trying). One of the politicians who first
raised the need to apply these tools was José Borrell, who headed the Ministry of Public
Works, Transport and the Environment (MOPTMA) during the first half of the 1990s.
When urging the need to charge real prices in water management, Borrell found a
powerful ally in the Commission, which was, at the time, analysing a framework
directive that would command all member states to pass water expenditures on to the
users in a twelve-year time period (Pérez-Díaz and Mezo 1999). Market-oriented criteria
have been more frequently defended and put into practice since the Right came to power
in 1996, as shown by the reform of the Water Law in 1999 (Law 46/99), which
introduced the concept of private water markets.
Following the pioneering experience of taxes in water policy, as envisaged by the
1985 Water Law, a number of eco-taxes have also been applied in other environmental
areas. If Spain is compared with the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, however, the
development of eco-taxation is very poor. It is largely not environment—but tax-
revenue—oriented. Only certain regional governments seem to have come to realize the
importance of economic instruments when protecting their local environments. Examples
here are eco-tax regulation with respect to air pollution in the Balearic Islands, Galicia
and Extremadura, as well as the proposal for a green tax to finance environmental
investments in Andalusia.
One type of new policy instrument in Spain is the voluntary agreement, a direct
response to the EU’s ideas of partnership and shared responsibility. Many have been
applied, mainly in relation to waste policy and energy conservation. The first voluntary
agreement to be adopted was in 1989; several others quickly followed in the mid–1990s.
The Programme for the Creation of a Technological and Environmental Basis of the
Ministry of Industry and Energy (MINER) is another symptom of Europeanization. This
programme, which represents a very significant financial effort to help industries comply
with EU requirements, has promoted the adoption of a preventive approach. The
introduction of clean technologies, as well as the implementation of more stringent
standards in air and water than those set by the EU, are two examples of this new
approach. The fact that the MINER, acting as the official representative of industry, has
gradu— ally begun to grasp the advantages of environmental policy in terms of
modernization and technological innovation has undoubtedly to do with the approval of
the programme. Furthermore, following the EU’s Fifth Environmental Action
Programme (1992–2000) and the 1998 report of the European Parliament on the
environment, the MINER has set itself the goal of increasing the use of clean energies by
the year 2008.
Although references to environmental impact assessment (EIA) can be found in a
number of regulations prior to EU accession, their scope was rather limited. However, the
main problem of these regulations is not their narrow nature but the fact that the
precautionary and participatory principles embodied in the EU directive were not
generally incorporated into the implementation of Spanish EIA legislation. Contrary to
the generally deficient application of EIAs, a number of regions have successfully
anticipated the adoption of EU legislation relating to the next phase of EIA, known as
strategic environmental assessment (SEA).
The domestication of EU environmental policy

Leaving aside the Europeanization of Spanish environmental protection, the efforts to
domesticate EU policy have been mainly deployed in two fields: water policy and
Spain 163
conservation policy. The priority attached to water can be explained by two factors. First,
there is a recurring shortage of this resource in many parts of Spain as well as a need to
consider the varying quantities of water flows when discussing quality levels in the EU.
Second, the increasing desertification of the south-eastern border of Spain has had a more
indirect effect. Conservation issues have been paid great attention because the costs
associated with the maintenance of some of the richest biodiversity in Europe had
allegedly not been duly considered by the EU when it designed its habitats policy. Also
related to conservation, the government has devoted some time to pushing forward its
proposals on tourism and chemicals in soil as elements of a more comprehensive strategy,
which, emphasizing the heterogeneity of the country’s territory (not only in
environmental but also in socio-demographic and economic terms), aims to highlight the
importance of soil quality as the basis of many industries and to establish nationally
based territorial planning schemes as the point of departure for a sounder environmental
policy. Spanish conservation policy in Brussels has therefore included a stout defence of
Spain’s existing interests (notably the demand for EU money to protect biodiversity) and
more proactive efforts to introduce new issues on to the EU’s agenda, such as the quality
of soil.
Water policy is probably one of the sectors where the impetus to domesticate the EU
agenda has been greatest. When Spain occupied the presidency in the second half of
1995, the government organized an informal meeting in Seville, which brought together
the Environment Ministers to address two closely related issues: water shortages and the
need to intensify the implementation of water quality directives. This meeting helped the
rest of the EU realize that the quantitative dimension had to be a prerequisite for the
maintenance of adequate quality levels, and that a framework directive embracing both
elements would have to be passed soon. In 2001 the Water Framework Directive was
duly adopted.
The negotiations over the Habitats Directive (92/43) provide a good example of
Spain’s desire to influence EU conservation policy. Having stalled the adoption of the
directive for several years, the national delegation eventually achieved two main goals in
Brussels which eased the approval of the text: the incorporation of the possibility of
Community co-finance for the maintenance of the Natura 2000 network, and the
reduction of the initial percentage of territory to be protected in Spain. The Spanish
delegation also succeeded in getting approval on the distinction between protection
(which imposes limits on economic activities in the protected areas) and conservation
(linked to sustainability, or compatibility between environmental protection and
economic development) (Aguilar Fernández 2003).
Another conservation-related policy where Spain is trying to make its imprint is
tourism. Although the Commission has devoted increasing attention to the analysis of
sustainable tourism over the last few years, Spain has taken the lead. In 1998 the
MIMAM and the MINER signed an agreement for the implementation of a sustainable
tourism plan. This plan includes the application of the EU Regulation on Environmental
Management and Auditing Systems (EMAS) that allows firms and municipalities to
obtain an EU-recognized logo. Two important Spanish innovations in the implementation
of EMAS are: an environmental management system for hotels (in 1999) and the so-
called Green Municipality Project. Moreover, efforts at inter-ministerial co-ordination are
being deployed so that a common position is established at international forums, such as
the Mediterranean Commission of Sustainable Development, whose lead has been taken
by Spain, and in the different working groups on the topic in the EU (MIMAM 2000).
These activities demonstrate Spain’s newfound willingness (and ability) to domesticate
the EU by working inside the Brussels process.
The idea of linking environmental protection to the provision of EU money has also
been successfully applied in the air policy sector. The granting of delays and exemptions
in relation to emission reduction plans for certain pollutants has been another example of
Spain’s desire to get the EU to accept one overriding idea: that, in order to overcome the
economic gap between Spain and the average EU member state, Spain should be allowed
to enjoy comparatively greater economic growth. The downside of the principle is that, if
implemented, it would inevitably entail some increase in pollution (unless, that is, the
growth was environmentally sustainable).
This economically motivated idea has been successfully deployed in discussions
concerning the application of Directive 88/609 on Air Pollution from Large Combustion
Plants and the quota for the reduction of greenhouse gases in the Kyoto agreement. In the
first case, the then Minister for the Environment, Isabel Tocino, coined the term
‘principle of differentiated solidarity’ at the Environment Council, held in June 1996.
This term, which simply implies a nominal change with respect to the stance of the
previous socialist government (1982–96), amounts to a demand for greater European
diversity, i.e. which allows the poorer (and less environmentally degraded) member states
environmental ‘space’ to pollute more than the wealthier ones. The ‘principle of
differentiated solidarity’ can also be detected in the draft directive on benzene, which
allows for a temporary exemption for those areas where dispersion or weather conditions
would make it impossible to achieve the directive’s goals without serious socio-economic
losses. Air policy, then, is similar to conservation policy in the sense that domestication
strategies which put the emphasis on the idea of ‘environmental diversity’ go hand in
hand with the defence of more narrowly oriented economic interests.
To sum up, Europeanization is clearly visible in all the policy sectors linked to
environmental protection. EU directives have determined the setting of standards in air
pollution control, influenced the choice of instruments in water (the approval of a tax on
discharges, following the ‘polluter pays’ principle, cf. Law 29/85) and waste policy (the
introduction of voluntary agreements for the recycling of different sub-products) and
contributed to the emergence of concepts such as sustainability in areas like water-quality
control. This influence is, however, less acute when analysing the endorsement of overall
goals such as prevention, precaution, shared responsibility and partnership, as well as
intergenerational equity. Spain has only really paid lip service to these concepts, which
run counter to the administrative culture and well-entrenched political practices. All in
all, the EU’s influence on, above all, standards and techniques, alongside the low
importance attached to domestic environmental policy, explain why it is difficult to find
cases where Spain has followed the more anticipatory approach sought by Brussels.
Conservation policy, water quality control and tourism represent some of the few
instances in which Spain has systematically attempted to shape EU policy
Spain 165
The structures of Spanish policy

The EU has affected environmental policy structures in Spain. Old agencies have
disappeared and new ones have been created. The result of inter- and intradepartmental
fights has also been conditioned by the EU, because the newly created agencies, set up to
carry out the EU’s dictates more effectively, are gaining power to the detriment of the
more traditional (and environmentally alien) ones. Basically, the impacts of European
membership can be detected in three recent changes: the gradual upgrading of the
departments responsible for environmental protection—a process which culminated in
the creation of the MIMAM in 1996; the implementation of various projects which aim to
overcome deficient environmental co-ordination both at the state level in Spain and
between the state and the regions; and the building of a new institutional framework to
oversee EU—Spanish affairs. The next section discusses each change in more detail.
A new national Environment Ministry

Only with the coming of the Right to power in 1996 was a specific department for the
environment, the MIMAM, set up. Until then environmental management had been taken
care of by the Ministry of Public Works. Consequently, Spain was, for a period, the only
EU member state not to have a department for environmental issues, something that was
repeatedly highlighted and criticized by Brussels.2 The creation of the MIMAM brought
the country back to ‘normality’ and appeased the Commission’s fears about the effects of
the previous dispersion of powers on the country’s environmental deficit. Moreover, the
MIMAM has had two positive effects. First, and most visibly, the new agency has
concentrated environmental powers previously dispersed amongst different departments.
The unit that handles the co-ordination of EU policy at the national level is the General
Subdirection of International Relations within the MIMAM. This unit also deals with the
enforcement of EU directives, a task which involves overseeing the environmental
performance of seventeen regional governments. Furthermore, the Minister’s Cabinet
relies on staff specialized in EU affairs. Second, the setting up of the MIMAM has led to
the establishment of a specific Commission for the Environment, both in Parliament and
in the Senate.
New co-ordination structures

The entry of Spain into the EU facilitated the approval of several projects whose aim was
to address the flawed environmental co-ordination among different ministries in the state
administration, and between the state and the regions. Since the Commission repeatedly
referred to excessive dispersion of powers and unclear distribution of competencies as the
main reasons for Spain’s poor environmental performance, it is not surprising that
attempts at inter-ministerial co-ordination and ‘co-operative federalism’ have been more
systematically pursued since 1986. For some time, the effect of the measures to provide
horizontal co-ordination was negligible because every attempt was eventually abandoned.
Yet the creation of the MIMAM is a factor that has undoubtedly contributed to the
alleviation of deficient horizontal co-ordination, not least because the likelihood of

boundary conflicts between different departments has decreased.
The introduction of measures targeted at providing better vertical coordination in the
environmental field began at the end of 1986, with a number of informal meetings which
brought together state and regional officials. In 1987 the different departments
responsible gathered at a Sectoral Conference of the Environment for the first time. This
forum has been held regularly since then, but its performance has been rather
disappointing because the negotiations between the state and the regions have generally
been bilateral, thus impairing a global exchange of information and the adoption of long-
term, national agreements. Another co-ordinating forum, set up following a
recommendation from the European Commission, consists of package-deal meetings
which, since 1995, have dealt with breaches of EU directives (Font 2001). In 1997,
finally, a Network of Environmental Authorities, comprising state and regional officials,
was established under the auspices of the Commission with the aim of integrating
environmental concerns with the activities financed by EU funds (Ministry for the
Environment 2000). The EU’s influence notwithstanding, projects to improve the co-
ordination of domestic environmental policy can also be explained by a path-dependence
logic: the goal, shared by all administrations, of maximizing the acquisition of EU funds
facilitates concerted efforts to improve the quality of the proposals submitted, while the
shared management of the Cohesion Fund (as established in the 1994 agreement between
the state and regional governments) forces political actors to develop more co-operative
strategies.
Until recently, regional governments have not played a significant role in the making
and co-ordination of the Spanish position in Brussels. The relationship between the state
and the regions has revolved around the Sectoral Conference for European Community
Affairs, set up in 1988. Particularly since 1996, when the Popular Party reached a
coalition agreement with the Catalan nationalists (CiU) which signalled the beginning of
the presence of subnational actors in the committees operating around the European
Commission, the regions’ role in Community issues has become more assertive.
However, the principal handicap experienced by the regions in seeking to influence EU
affairs has to do with the difficulties encountered in reaching a common position. Some
regional governments object to multilateral co-ordination and prefer to circumvent the
state or establish privileged links with it. Thus, EU membership has exacerbated the
asymmetries of a quasi-federal system, in which some (nationalist-ruled) regions enjoy
more bargaining power than others (Molina 2001a).
Unlike the German case, in which the Länder believe their environmental powers are
increasingly being curtailed by Brussels (and also by the federal state; see Wurzel in this
volume), the regions in Spain have not experienced a reduction in their policy-making
capabilities since 1986. Regional governments are not only responsible for the
implementation of EU policy, but have also become important law-making units, which
in many cases anticipate state (and, as we have seen, sometimes EU) legislation. When
conflicts over the distribution of powers arise, the Constitutional Court (CC) steps in.
Many of these conflicts (which peaked at over 800 in 1989, but have been decreasing
ever since) revolve around environmental issues, as shown by the fact that the regions
disputed 56.8 per cent of the state-related legislation between 1984 and 1994. Yet these
Spain 167
conflicts are gradually vanishing due to the CC’s efforts and the increasing willingness to
negotiate shown by both sides (Aguilar Fernández 1999).
Co-ordinating the Spanish input to the EU: a new institutional framework

When Spain entered the EU, the country had to adjust its administrative structure to
Community membership. In general terms, the new administration was based on two
pillars: an external one in Brussels and an internal one (at the domestic level) which
would co-ordinate tasks within the state administration as well as between the state and
the regions. The external co-ordination resides in the Permanent Representation (REPER)
set up in 1986 (RD 260/86) and located within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Theoretically, the REPER is the only unit to represent the official line in EU institutions,
but in practice it has to compete with the different ministries which undertake direct
negotiations in Brussels throughout the early phases of the decision-making process.
Moreover, all the ministries, except Defence, have their own representatives in the
REPER. When the standard procedure is observed, the REPER undertakes negotiations,
following instructions from Madrid but also helping to define the official standpoint, and
informs the Ministry for Foreign Affairs as well as the ministries concerned. Accentuated
departmental autonomy has reflected itself in a refusal to plan and co-ordinate the more
routine EU matters. Only when strategic issues are at stake is the hierarchical principle
resorted to (through the action of high-ranking figures in the executive) in order to
achieve some coherence in the governance of Community-related issues (Molina 2001b).
The internal co-ordination of EU affairs can be summarized as follows. The State
Secretariat for European Affairs has a constant, and theoretically exclusive, relationship
with the REPER in Brussels. Administrative fragmentation, however, stemming from
sectoral ministries following their own strategies, explains why the Secretariat cannot
impose its will upon other departments. Co-ordination has therefore to evolve along loose
and informal lines, particularly in relation to issues of ‘low politics’. With respect to key
issues, as pointed out before, co-ordination is organized more hierarchically (Molina
2001a:135). This includes, for instance, environmental issues with clear-cut financial
implications (Molina 2001b).
The role of the Parliament

In spite of its powers to keep a check on the executive, the Spanish Parliament has not
benefited from Europeanization since the political debate has been mostly determined by
the executive. Although not directly involved in the national co-ordination of EU
environmental policy, the national Parliament has begun to take a greater interest in both
EU and environmental matters, as shown by the astonishing number of amendments to
the PHN and the gradual rise of environmentally related questions presented in the
chamber. Yet it has been observed that ‘Parliament’s role has been reduced to formally
transposing EU directives and the control of the executive on a strictly reactive basis’,3
whereas the Senate is irrelevant ‘as an arena for intergovernmental bargaining’ (Molina
2001a:118). This is despite the fact that, as early as 1985, a Joint Committee (involving
the Parliament and the Senate) for the European Communities was established. In 1994 it
was transformed into the Mixed Commission for the EU.
Implementation structures
Finally, as regards the implementation of EU legislation, the overall Spanish record is
rather unimpressive. In the period 1989–94 Spain was the country with the highest
number of alleged infractions of environmental rules in Europe. Between 1993 and 1997
this situation considerably improved and Spain no longer stood out as the first ‘green-
breacher’ (Font 1996; Cienfuegos 2001). The poor record in the early years may have
been caused by the need to transpose and implement a large number of directives without
any exemptions or derogations. The subsequent improvements may have to do with the
learning that has taken place within Spanish implementation structures. Moreover, even
for countries with generally good environmental records, such as the Netherlands and
Denmark, ‘economic costs have been stressed as an important factor leading to patchy
compliance’ (Kousis and Eder 2001:15).
Summary
To sum up, the EU has undoubtedly influenced domestic environmental policy structures.
The creation of the MIMAM, after the coming to power of the Right in 1996, can be
unequivocally linked to the Commission’s criticisms about the dispersion of powers at
the central level. The efforts made to better co-ordinate state and regional environmental
authorities have also been pushed by the deficient implementation of EU law and the
concerns expressed by EU bureaucrats about the unclear and often conflicting
distribution of competences between the two politico-administrative levels. However, the
overall effects of the EU on the Spanish administrative structure as a whole, as well as on
its general functioning, are rather limited. Neither has EU membership had a marked
effect on the departmentalization of the state or the recurrence of jurisdictional conflicts
amongst the ministries. If anything, membership of the EU has reinforced the cohesion of
the executive as the only political force capable of overcoming administrative inertia and
dysfunctional performance when strategic issues are at stake.
The style of Spanish policy

The EU’s influence on the content of Spanish environmental policy has been extremely
marked. But this influence does not equally extend to the politics surrounding it. That is,
‘national systems remain untouched in most of their institutional arrangements and still
maintain their own dynamics’ (Aguilar Fernández 1994:42). The resilience of political
styles is not absolute though, and the Spanish state-oriented and confrontational approach
in environmental policy is slowly creating some room for the interplay of private
associations and actors with public ones, while the hitherto dominant dirigiste’ solutions
(reflected in the pre-eminence of command-and-control instruments) are being gradually
complemented by more market-linked and voluntary tools (see above). Even if these
changes could be attributed to endogenous factors, notably the coming to power of the
Right and its ideologically based inclination to use market mechanisms and facilitate a
more active role for entrepreneurs in the policy process, an EU imprint on the new trend
is undeniable. This is demonstrated by the tendency of politicians and officials to use a
pro-EU discourse or to refer to EU laws to legitimize the changes adopted.
Spain 169
In the 1980s the Spanish political style was described as one in which top bureaucrats
and civil servants concentrated in their hands a disproportionately large amount of power
to the detriment of interest groups (Linz 1981; Martin Rebollo 1984). After Spain entered
the EU, the participation and relevance of interest groups in most policy areas remained
limited. In environmental policy the weakness of interest groups (basically entrepreneurs
and environmentalists), alongside the traditional reluctance of the administration to allow
associations to operate in the public sphere, explained the continuation of a state-centred
approach. However, the pressures contributing to a change in this basically non-
participatory system are relatively strong in the environmental area because the
regulatory activism deployed by Brussels helps to make the implementation deficit more
visible than in other fields. This may account for the emergence of some political
initiatives aiming at closer collaboration between public and private actors with regard to
the application of environmental policy, for instance in the shape of environmental pacts
and voluntary agreements. The environment has thus become a sort of political laboratory
where experimentation with new instruments has made some progress.
Environmental pacts are more encompassing agreements between large firms and
regional governments in highly polluted areas. As a clear example of a reactive approach,
they usually try to tackle long-standing, serious cases of pollution which demand urgent
action. Some of them, like the pact to clean up the air of the Basque area of Bajo
Nervión-Ibaizábal, took shape before 1986. However, entry into the EU has both
underpinned this instrument while at the same time changing its nature. Pacts are now
seen as an element in a more active approach because they strive to achieve a better and
faster compliance with EU directives; on some occasions, they even aspire to more
stringent standards than those set by regulation. Voluntary agreements, on the other hand,
have been mainly applied to promote the reduction or substitution of environmentally
harmful substances via negotiation between the administration and different industrial
sectors. They work as an alternative to the imposition of objectives by legal instruments
and intend to achieve EU requirements more quickly and with lower administrative costs.
Like environmental pacts, their functioning has been relatively positive and they are
gradually becoming more common as a tool for the protection of the environment
(Aguilar Fernández 1997b).
Alongside this type of political experiment, an institution-building process has been
set in motion with the aim of establishing permanent forums for the different actors with
a stake in environmental policy. The most significant example of this process hitherto is
undoubtedly the Advisory Council (later Advisory Forum’) for the Environment
(CAMA), set up in 1994. It has been officially acknowledged that the creation of the
CAMA was a direct response to the need to incorporate EU principles, such as those of
partnership and shared responsibility, into everyday environmental practice in Spain. Yet
the working of the CAMA has been rather mixed up to now: on the one hand, it has
offered a new framework to openly debate some aspects of environmental policy but, on
the other hand, its political leverage has been small. While Greenpeace and Aedenat (a
national-based environmental group) left the institution in 1995, still under the socialist
government, clashes between the first Minister of the Environment, Isabel Tocino, and
the environmental groups at the CAMA were apparent. The head of the MIMAM from
2000 until May 2003, Jaume Matas, did not even summon the CAMA and decreased the
environmentalists’ presence from eleven to two, thus leaving the Forum in a critical state.
All in all, it is not possible yet to conclude that a new corporatist or associational
approach is going to replace the old state-centred one. But two factors in particular
indicate that these novel practices will not easily wither away. First, there is mounting
recognition by the public authorities that non-collaborative policies are increasingly
doomed to failure. This recognition is strongly linked to the growth of environmental
movements since the mid-1970s (Kousis et al. 1996), leading, among other things, to the
successful blocking of about 25 new incineration plant proposals by different
environmental groups and local committees during the last decade (Aguilar Fernández
1997b). Second, the need for ‘outer and independent expertise’ by over-burdened (and,
sometimes, not sufficiently knowledgeable) public officials, together with the new
political opportunities which EU membership has offered environmentalists, are
gradually undermining the traditional reluctance shown by the administration towards
social participation in the public sphere.
One other EU-inspired effect on the national policy style should be mentioned. The
impressive number of EU rules enacted hitherto has literally swamped the Spanish
bureaucracy, forcing officials to work faster while neglecting formal and very time-
consuming procedures. Environmental groups which have scientific resources can benefit
from this situation by providing their own input into the policy-making process. If the
Spanish executive tries to hinder this contribution, environmentalists can use a twofold
strategy: they can either supply EU bureaucrats with important information that public
authorities try to conceal or, if necessary, sue the government for breaching EU
regulations. Currently, Spanish groups account for 21.7 per cent of the total number of
complaints received by DG Environment.
Conclusions
The Europeanization of Spanish environmental policy is undoubted. The complexity (in

terms of both quality and quantity), comprehensiveness and stringency of contemporary
Spanish environmental legislation bear little if any resemblance to the piecemeal and
ineffectual approach to environmental problems which prevailed before EU membership.
Equally clear is the EU’s influence on policy structures: the creation of the MIMAM and
the attempts at better co-ordination (both at the state level and between the state and the
regions) are the two most outstanding examples.
Initially, the relatively uncritical early stages of Europeanization could be attributed to
a widespread feeling of satisfaction arising from Spain’s relief at joining a democratic
and developed political entity. It can also be attributed to a manifest inexperience when
negotiating in Europe. Later, however, when some elements of the process began to be
more openly debated (the harmonization of stringent air emission standards, for instance),
Europeanization has been facilitated by the receipt of EU resources (specifically the
Cohesion Fund). Not surprisingly, and in the face of the eastern enlargement, Spain has
fought especially hard to maintain that fund. It was recently assured that it would
continue until at least 2007.
Thus, the EU’s effect has clearly permeated certain elements of the content of policy,
notably standards and certain instruments and techniques, and affected changes in
national policy structures. It is not surprising that Spain, being an environmental laggard
Spain 171
when it joined the EU, more or less literally, and uncritically, transposed environmental
directives into Spanish national law. The few exceptions to this norm have been the
negotiations over the granting of laxer deadlines and standards, as has mainly happened
in air policy (the case of the Large Power Plants Directive—see above), and the struggle
to convince Brussels about the need to provide poorer countries with new and additional
money (i.e. via the Cohesion Fund), especially those (like Spain) that have unspoilt and
ecologically rich territories to protect (as in the case of the Habitats Directive). As a
result, domestication strategies have been systematically pursued only in a limited
number of cases, basically in water quality and, most clearly, in relation to conservation
issues. Likewise, cases where EU legislation has been successfully anticipated are very
rare, SEA being one of the few exceptions to this rule. As regards Spain’s policy style,
although it is undergoing some changes (in the sense of the gradual establishment of a
pattern of co-operation between authorities and private associations), many pre-
membership traits remain in place. The tendency of the administration to actively reduce
the role of interest groups in policy making best exemplifies this resilience.
Consequently, old habits do seem to be dying hard in Spanish environmental politics.
First, new experiences have been mainly reactive because only after grass-roots actions
had been organized has the state administration taken on board their claims. Second,
reforms have not been pursued wholeheartedly, as the case of the CAMA shows. Third,
institution building has responded to international, not domestic, developments, since
pressures from Brussels to open up environmental politics to social participation are at
the heart of most participatory experiences. The external origin of some of these new
trends goes a long way to explaining why they have only been partially successful or
have ended up in failure.
Yet, other novel developments are gradually easing the way towards the eventual
‘democratization’ of this particular sphere of public policy. Environmental groups have
eagerly seized the opportunities to co-operate with the European Commission and are
providing Eurocrats with important information which domestic authorities would prefer
to keep hidden away from public scrutiny. Civil servants, for their part, feel increasingly
forced to count on the expertise of interest groups in order to improve the quality and
implementation of environmental policy. If Spain did not belong to the EU (i.e. the
counterfactual), environmental coalitions would find it harder to achieve their goals, and
the advocates of economic development would continue to get their way.
To conclude, the relatively uncritical transposition of EU legislation has not meant a
full acceptance of all the elements included in the EU’s directives or compliance with the
principles enshrined in the six Environmental Action Programmes. Important ideas, such
as the need to replace and complement legislation with economic and fiscal tools or
voluntary measures, have only partially or belatedly begun to be applied in Spain,
whereas the goals of partnership and shared responsibility have been scarcely put into
practice, leading sometimes to significant failures. Europeanization is therefore most
visible in the more peripheral elements of Spanish policy (that is, the formal content of
policy and some changes in the national administrative structures). EU membership has
led to no more than a superficial shift towards a less ‘dirigiste’ attitude, more
participation and more willingness to experiment with new instruments and ideas.
Notes
1 Opinion polls show that environmental concern is very similar to that found in other European
countries. However, the main difference between Spanish people and other European
citizens lies in the low membership of environmental organizations and unwillingness to
vote for green parties (Gómez Benito et al. 1999).
2 The reasons given by the socialist governing party for not creating this department were
twofold: environmental protection should be a horizontal task cutting across different
ministries; and a department of this nature would interfere with the regions’ environmental
competences.
3 Legislation transposing EU law amounts to approximately 15 per cent of the total amount of
legislation passed by the Spanish Parliament. On the whole, law which transposes EU
legislation into national legislation has had its origin in government-approved projects (for
instance, the Law 10/98 on Urban Waste), but there have also been cases in which
parliamentary members or groups have put forward their own proposals, as shown by the
Law 8/94 which established a Mixed Commission for the EU. The government has the
power to enact law over a wide array of issues in order to adapt Spanish legislation to EU
law. Exceptionally, the same legal technique has been used to update and accommodate
certain elements of domestic law to new EU directives and regulations (Cienfuegos 2001).
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12
Sweden
Reluctant but environmentally ambitious
Annica Kronsell1
Overview
This chapter examines the Europeanization of Swedish environmental policy in the

broader context of policy making and Sweden’s historical relationship with the EU. After
an introductory overview, it discusses the Europeanization of the content, structures and
style of Swedish environmental policy. Sweden is normally portrayed as a reluctant
European state on most matters, including some environmental ones. Its vision for the EU
is mostly inter-governmental, not quasi-federal (Kronsell 2001:116; Johansson, K.-M.
1999b). On most environmental matters, however, Sweden is more supportive of
European integration, having consistently pushed for strict environmental standards.
The Europeanization of Swedish environmental policy started long before Sweden’s
entry to the EU, though full membership has given it a stronger and more intrusive form.
For the most part, the overall impact on Swedish environmental policy has been relatively
weak, because many elements of domestic policy were already stronger than EU
requirements at the time of Sweden’s membership in 1995. Consequently, there has been
minimal Europeanization in a top-down direction (i.e. from the EU to the member states).
Since 1995 Sweden has worked hard to minimize future Europeanization by uploading
domestic policy to the EU. Thus, Sweden tends to be a proactive ‘shaper’ rather than a
passive ‘taker’ of EU policy. In some respects, this situation is entirely consistent with
Sweden’s reputation as a forerunner in EU environmental policy making, especially with
respect to chemicals policy. The most serious conflicts between EU policy and Swedish
national policy tend to arise when the transposition of EU directives leads to the lowering
of Swedish standards, which is particularly evident in the regulation of chemicals.
Sweden finally took the decision to join the EU in 1995, after many years in which it
viewed European integration with deep suspicion. EU membership was deemed to be
incompatible with the neutrality doctrine until the end of the Cold War, when the
government radically re-evaluated its security policy (cf. Anderson 2001). Nevertheless,
it took a domestic economic crisis in the early 1990s to provide the necessary boost in
public support finally to achieve EU membership. In the social democratic budget
proposal of spring 1991, EU membership was presented as a means of lifting Sweden out
of economic recession. After that first step was taken, years of debate and long
Sweden 175
negotiations followed. It culminated in the referendum of 1994, in which 46.8 per cent of
the population voted ‘no’ and 52.3 per cent ‘yes’. Far from uniting the country, the
referendum exposed deep divergences in the public’s views on European integration. In
general, urban dwellers, men and economic and political elites favour EU membership,
whereas women, the working class and rural people remain sceptical. Regular opinion
polls since 1995 (see: http://www.scb.se/) have indicated the persistence of such views.
These were reconfirmed in the referendum on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in
September of 2003, which led to Sweden’s decision to remain outside Euroland.
Hence, it is not surprising that Sweden is usually described as a reluctant European. It
is generally felt that Sweden’s interest in the EU is primarily economic, as European
countries have always been Sweden’s main trading partners. The vision of assuring peace
and security in Europe has been less relevant as an argument for European integration,
reflected, for example, in Sweden’s sceptical response to recent EU initiatives on
common defence and security policy.
On environmental matters, the Swedish population is positively inclined to the EU and
Swedish policy makers are actively engaged in EU diplomacy, consciously uploading
their ideas to Brussels. After all, environmental diplomacy is one of Sweden’s traditional
strengths, the conuntry having pushed the rest of the EU to tackle acid rain and ozone
depletion and hosted the first world environment conference in Stockholm in 1972. By
1995 Sweden had accumulated a large corpus of environmental policy, aspects of which
were easily uploadable to the EU. From the very beginning, Swedish representatives took
an active role, particularly towards the Commission. They did so by pushing an ambitious
environmental agenda in the 1995–6 Amsterdam Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC)
(Liefferink and Andersen 1998). They also pushed the EU to adopt an acidification
strategy and, in alliance with the Swedish-born Environment Commissioner Margot
Wallström, worked hard for a comprehensive overhaul of the EU’s entire chemicals
strategy. All these attempts to shape the EU have been fairly successful.
The Europeanization of Sweden
The first few years of membership were spent developing strategies and ways to co-
ordinate the national political and administrative context for EU policy making and
implementation. The government, the parliament and the national representation in
Brussels tried different arrangements with the aim of acting efficiently and remaining
democratically accountable in the new, EU policy arena. A number of studies have
assessed these efforts and the effects of membership more generally (e.g. Jacobsson, K. et
al. 2001; Miles 2000; Johansson, K.-M. 1999a; Aylott 1999; Hanf and Soetendorp 1998).
Other studies have focused particularly on political influence and democratic
accountability (SOU 2002a; Hegeland and Mattson 2000; Hegeland 1999; Wiberg 1997).
The comparative work of Jacobsson, B. et al. (2001) summarizes some of the general
points regarding the transformation of national administrations in the Nordic countries
thus far. They argue that central administrations certainly have been transformed as a
consequence of membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the EU. The
polity has not been free to adapt at will but this does not mean that state administrations
have been totally disciplined by the demands of the EU. The transformation process
contains elements of both change and continuity. These general conclusions are highly
relevant when considering the policy content, style and structure of the environmental
sector in Sweden. It is notable that many general academic studies and government
reports have used the environmental field as the empirical base for their analysis
(Jacobsson, B. et al. 2001; Beckman 2001; Statskontoret 2000a/2000b; Sundström 1999;
Jacobsson, B. 1999; Beckman and Johansson 1999; Ekengren 1996). As we will see, EU
environmental legislation has posed a particular challenge to national policy structures, as
well as the overall style of national policy making when misfits arise between Swedish
traditions and those pursued by the EU.
In spite of its reputation as a reluctant member state, experience to date indicates that
Sweden has behaved conscientiously Like the UK, Sweden ranks high in relation to
compliance with EU legislation (Tallberg 1999:55–76). This can be partly explained by
the existence of the EEA agreement of 1992 that preceded EU membership. This gave
Sweden a considerable head start in adjusting to Europeanization, by forcing it to
transpose the requirements of the acquis communautaire prior to membership (cf.
Hovden in this volume). Perhaps even more important was the fact that domestic
environmental legislation had already been significantly developed prior to EU
membership. In broad terms, the EU was not expected to lead to many domestic
adaptations because national legislation already provided for similar, and often stricter,
levels of environmental protection.
Most EU environmental legislation takes the form of minimum directives. These
directives require member states to achieve a basic level of protection via the means of
their choice, while allowing any state to go beyond this minimum level if it so desires.
Hence, in the particular case of environmental issues, very few misfits have arisen,
provoking few adjustments. This does not hold true for other areas, such as agriculture or
competition law. Although Sweden often appears to have smoothly adjusted to EU
membership on a general level, the exact degree of adjustment does vary quite
considerably across policy sectors. In fact, we shall see that it also varies across the
environmental policy sector.
The Europeanization of Swedish environmental policy
The content of Swedish policy

Sweden can be considered an environmental forerunner because it already had a well-
developed environmental policy in place at the time of membership. Thus, the EU has
only minimally affected the development of national policies. However, this legacy has
also reduced the scope for continuing to develop national environmental policy. Instead,
most efforts have been geared to defending higher Swedish standards and to uploading
standards to the EU. This restraining effect of EU membership is particularly notable in
the area of chemicals policy. Sweden has a much stricter chemicals policy than any other
member state, but approximately 80 per cent of the chemical products it consumes are
imported from EU countries. This creates a basic policy problem because the EU
considers chemicals to be products that should be traded on the free market.
Consequently, any EU regulations governing chemicals have to be common to all
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member states. Since the same standard has to be applied in all the member states, it does
not allow for one country to proceed with environmentally stricter legislation. This
implies that specific chemical substances may be re-introduced to the Swedish market in
spite of the fact that they have been previously banned.
In order to maintain domestic standards, Swedish policy makers have had little
alternative but to upload national standards to the EU level. The strategies that have been
used by the Swedish government and the Chemicals’ Inspectorate (ChemI) to maintain
Sweden’s high standards have included the review process of the Commission
(Kemikalieinspektionen 2000:9, 11, 16, 30, 32), the attempted use of the environmental
guarantee provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, as well as persuasive negotiation
strategies. The Swedes have also tried to influence the underlying philosophy of EU
chemical policy. A substantial number of governmental studies have been published in
the last few years, which deal with various aspects of chemical production and use.
Although they are mainly produced for a Swedish audience, they are also written to
influence future EU negotiations (SOU 2001; SOU 2000; Prop 2000a). At the December
1996 Environment Council, Sweden managed to influence the list of environmental
priorities coming out of that meeting to include, as one priority, the revision of the EU’s
entire chemicals policy. The ensuing EU chemical strategy, which is now being
implemented under a process known as REACH, is an outcome of this pressure from
Swedish policy makers to achieve stricter EU chemicals regulation (KOM 2001).
Another issue on which Sweden has sought proactively to influence the EU is acid
rain. This work started well before Swedish membership. Since the 1972 Stockholm
Conference, Swedish policy makers have been heavily involved in convincing other EU
countries to adopt stricter air pollution abatement policies. Naturally, these activities did
not cease with EU membership. In 1995 two Swedish experts were sent to the
Commission specifically to work on the EU’s acidification strategy (European
Commission 1997; Molin and Wurzel 2000). This example of proaction shows how the
Swedes have worked to shape not only the content of specific directives, but also the
overarching policy frameworks and principles of EU policy (Regeringens skrivelse
1999/2000:161; 2001/2002:159). Other good examples are Sweden’s espousal of the
precautionary and substitution principles, its support for sustainable development and
environmental policy integration during the Amsterdam IGC, and its campaign for strong
emission reductions based on the BAT principle (Liefferink and Andersen 1998). More
recently, the Swedes have also sought to reshape the way nature conservation and
biodiversity are managed in the EU. Swedish policy makers believe that biodiversity can
best be assured if humans learn to co-exist with forests, agriculture and fisheries, rather
than seeking to delimit conservation areas in which there is little or no human activity.
These differing views on nature conservation may provide an explanation as to why
Sweden has, according to the Commission’s notifications, not set aside sufficient areas to
be included in Natura 2000 (Regeringens skrivelse 2001/2002:163).
To conclude, the Swedish experience of Europeanization has been dominated by the
uploading of high standards to the EU level. This can be explained by the fact that
Sweden already had an advanced content of national environmental policy at the time of
membership. On the whole, Sweden’s efforts to upload to the EU have been successful in
many areas, especially acidification and, in some instances, also chemicals. The
chemicals field has been particularly important as a lack of success in this area presents
the politically controversial possibility of having to accept long-forbidden chemical

substances to be sold again on the Swedish market. This would clearly constitute a
setback for Sweden’s environmental ambitions and cause great political embarrassment.
Nevertheless, there have been occasions when slight misfits have arisen in the
transposition process and Swedish policy has had to be adapted to fit EU requirements. In
such cases, Sweden has tried selectively to implement EU requirements. Two examples
illustrate how this approach works in practice. The first relates to the use of
environmental quality norms or objectives (EQO), the other to environmental impact
assessment (EIA).
Prior to EU membership, EQOs had never been used in the Swedish legislative
context. Prior to the EEA agreement, Swedish legislation mainly used (binding) emission
limit values and (non-binding) guide levels. Furthermore, the limits were normally set for
a polluting industrial business or agricultural activity, not a geographical area requiring
environmental protection. EU quality norms have become part of the Swedish
Environmental Code, which is a comprehensive legislative framework covering the entire
environmental field. According to many EU directives, such norms are binding and non-
negotiable. However, when quality norms have been transposed in the Environmental
Code, which is in the form of framework legislation, the decisions on more specific
norms have been delegated to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). A
degree of flexibility is thus added which may not be compatible with the requirements of
EU law (Naturvårdsverket 2000). Thus, local officials can deviate from a quality norm if
it places unreasonable costs on the polluter or if it is not technologically feasible. EU
directives appear stricter because they require authorities to test according to quality
norms, whereas in Sweden the traditional practice has been to test only when there is a
health danger or if a quality norm is likely to be breached. This example reveals how a
traditional Swedish policy style has influenced the way EU policy is translated into
Swedish law, i.e. in a way which allows more flexibility to work with the polluter than
EU law seems to suggest. However, of late these problems have been noted by both
SEPA and the government, for example with regard to the Bathing Water Directive.
Nonetheless, a number of questions have still not been satisfactorily resolved (Prop
1997a; Naturvårdsverket 2000; Statskontoret 2001), such as upon whom are EQOs
legally binding, who has the responsibility for assuring that they are reached, as well as
more practical problems relating to measurement and monitoring.
EIAs are not controversial per se, as they have been an integral part of environmental
legislation in Sweden since the late 1980s. The EIA Directive (85/337/EC, later amended
by 97/11/EG) was fully transposed into the Environmental Code. Much more
controversial was the way in which impact assessments were to be carried out under the
directive. Here important misfits between EU requirements and Swedish traditional
practices soon emerged. Previously, permission for environmentally hazardous activities
was granted by the Franchise Board, set up in conjunction with the Environmental
Protection Act of 1969. The Franchise Board held hearings on a particular type of
industrial enterprise. Typically, the Board weighed economic issues, employment
prospects and technical feasibility concerns against environmental issues (Kronsell
1997:52–3). This practice was consistent with the Swedish style of co-operation and
consensus building in national decision-making processes. There was little or no
litigation.
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The EU EIA Directive, on the other hand, requires that assessment be done according
to strict, legal procedures. Hence, an Environmental Court has replaced the Franchise
Board. Furthermore, the EU directive called for active participation by different interests
in society. Although the Swedish political system ensures the engagement of different
societal actors in the policy process, it has not traditionally been a legal requirement, but
has been based on negotiation as well as political and administrative decisions. This had
to change when the EIA Directive was transposed into the Environmental Code, which
now includes a legal right of participation. However, in the transposition process, Sweden
limited the right to be heard in court to organizations with more than 2,000 members, and
which had been active for at least three years. While this interpretation assures that
established organizations can voice their opinion concerning a project, it does not give
litigation rights to small groups or groups that are temporarily mobilized. This
unwillingness to adapt to EU requirements is evidence that Swedish policy makers do not
wish to forgo the traditional Swedish policy style. Although the national style (see below)
tries to bring societal groups and interests into the policy process, it has traditionally
privileged the bigger and better-established groups.
To conclude, in these cases there was no real willingness on the part of the Swedish
policy makers faithfully to adopt EU norms, as the existing means were already
considered to be sufficient. Sweden’s attempt to close misfits by selectively interpreting
EU requirements could, of course, eventually bring it into conflict with the Commission.
At the same time, there appears to be some institutional learning and adjustment going on
as Swedish policy makers are confronted with EU law and institutional practices. The
resources required to ‘shape’ policy in Brussels rather than passively ‘take’ policy from
the EU have undoubtedly hampered domestic policy development. On the other hand, the
EQOs recently introduced by EU directives have triggered a domestic debate on what the
quality norms should be in Sweden (Prop 2000b; 1997b). Where misfits have appeared
(e.g. EQOs and EIA), Swedish authorities have adjusted EU requirements to safeguard
Swedish policy structures and styles. At the same time, these misfits have opened up a
space in which new discussion and evaluation of traditional policy instruments have
taken place. Due to the binding nature of EU directives, the policy process has also
become more legally oriented and less negotiated.
The structures of Swedish policy

If we look at policy structures, some significant changes have taken place since
membership. In order to ensure democratic accountability, some new arrangements have
had to be made to secure the involvement of the national Parliament (Riksdag).
Traditionally, the legislative branch has always played an important role in Swedish
politics and this had to be guaranteed when decision-making powers were transferred to
Brussels. The Advisory Committee on European Affairs, inspired by the Danish
equivalent, is an innovative constitutional response to EU integration and the need for
parliamentary involvement (SOU 2002a:66). The regular standing committees of the
Parliament also deal with EU affairs. As might be expected, the standing committee
dealing with environment and agriculture is heavily involved with EU legislation (Ruin
2000:51–65; Hegeland 1999). However, parliamentarians working in the committees do
not believe their involvement is sufficiently safeguarded by these arrangements.
Information about the position formulated by the government in relation to an agenda

item on an upcoming EU Council is circulated before the committee meets. But when the
information reaches the Parliament, it tends to be late in the policy process when much of
the text has already been agreed upon (Interviews 2000; SOU 2002a:53, 74). Therefore, it
is difficult for the Committee on Environment and Agriculture to suggest amendments
and even more difficult to add new topics to the EU agenda. Clearly, Parliament has been
considerably disempowered by EU membership.
Most ministries have been affected by EU membership, simply because they now have
to deal with another level of policy making. Apart from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the ministries most affected are those operating in deeply communitized areas such as
environmental policy. EU policy making has greatly increased the need for more legal
experts in central government. SEPA’s decision to create a new legal unit represents the
most obvious organizational adjustment to EU membership. The Environment Ministry
has expanded its staff across the board to cope with the Europeanization of national
policy, but individual staff members still routinely claim that their workloads have
increased, especially during Swedish presidencies (e.g. January to June 2001). The
problem of how best to co-ordinate the work of the different ministries is a perennial one,
though one made substantially more acute by EU membership. Over the years different
solutions have been tried (Beckman and Johansson 1999). The most recent
reorganization, which was closely modelled on the British cabinet system (see Jordan in
this volume), took place in 1999. It now means that the Prime Minister’s Office plays a
central role in co-ordinating the various ministries on EU-related matters (Ruin 2000:60–
1). The complex co-ordination between the various tasks performed by civil servants in
the agencies, those in the ministries and by the Permanent Representation in Brussels in
relationship to the myriad of committees in Brussels appears to work amazingly well. A
recent government study showed that co-ordination seemed to run particularly smoothly
in the environmental area because of three factors: the familiarity with working in
international venues long before EU membership; the close working relationship between
the agencies and the ministry; and the professional interchange among the civil servants
working in the various national environmental institutions (Statskontoret 2000c:6).
More importantly, the Environment Ministry, due to its comparatively small size, has
increasingly relied on the civil servants and experts from within the larger technical
agencies (mainly SEPA and ChemI), who are now formally included in EU negotiations.
This has resulted in a much closer cooperation between the ministry and these agencies
than existed prior to EU membership. Civil servants from the agencies not only staff the
various Commission committees, but are also brought into the Council work as well
(Mazey 2001:268). This development has blurred the traditional distinction between
agency experts and the civil servants in the ministry. Crucially, there has been a
significant change in the way that the agencies and the ministry relate to each other,
insofar as they have become much more interdependent. Overall, it is clear that
Europeanization has severely challenged the traditional relationship between the ministry
and the agencies in the environmental field (Jacobsson, B. et al. 2001:10).
Although the Environment Ministry is officially responsible for overseeing the
implementation of EU legislation, the major part of its work has been delegated to the
agencies. As we have already noted, some institutional adjustment was demanded by EU
membership. Most pressing of all was the need to replace the Franchise Board with a new
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Environmental Court. Given that most national legislation already fits EU environmental
requirements, the SEPA has devoted most of its time to finding equivalent national
legislation and, if necessary, making the necessary legal and formal adjustments. EU
environmental directives have mainly been transposed by integrating them into the
Environmental Code. The SEPA has nevertheless faced implementation difficulties, some
of which have resulted in notifications from the Commission. These are mainly related to
decentralization and the use of framework legislation in the Swedish context. Local
municipalities have much flexibility regarding the choice of implementing legislation. In
this way, it is possible to adapt national policies to fit local conditions. The EU demand
for consistent, nationwide reporting and compliance have posed a real challenge to these
traditional practices (Statskontoret 2001).
Sweden has a decentralized policy structure and its municipalities have a major
responsibility for implementing and enforcing legislation. What seems to distinguish
Scandinavian municipalities from the municipalities in other member states is their
responsibility for social services. In order to conduct these services, municipalities have
taxation rights and enjoy extensive self-governance. The acquis communautaire has
affected the activities of the municipalities mainly in the areas of public spending,
competition regulation and environmental policy (Johansson, J. 1999:12–130). The
municipalities are responsible for the implementation of the Environmental Code. Hence,
we would expect the municipalities to have been significantly influenced by EU
environmental norms as well as being able to oversee and engage in its implementation
and control. However, presently there are no systematic studies available to verify how
Europeanization has affected sub-national agencies. In the following section I offer some
illustrations of how decentralization works in practice.
It seems as though the earliest EU directives have posed the greatest adjustment
problems for Sweden. Obviously, here Sweden was a policy ‘taker’ as policy makers had
not been active or able to influence the EU policy process. The 1976 Bathing Water
Directive and the 1992 Habitats and 1979 Birds Directives have posed particular
problems that were not fully anticipated at the time of joining. In 2001 the European
Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Sweden had not complied with the Bathing Water
Directive. According to Swedish policy makers, implementation problems arose because
at the time of joining they were unaware of what the directive actually required in terms
of new resources. Due to decentralization, the municipalities are traditionally in charge of
testing of water and can rather freely choose which parameters to test, when and where.
The EU Directive on Bathing Water, on the other hand, has a nonnegotiable set of
parameters. It took a long time before the implications of this directive were fully
understood at the local level. Some of the requirements did not make sense to municipal
civil servants who were reluctant to report to SEPA.
As regards the Habitats Directive, central policy makers failed to realize that extensive
local participation would be needed to ensure implementation. Hence, there was a clash
between implicit assumptions about policy structures embedded in the EU directives and
the existing decentralized policy structures of Sweden. This has not, however, been
accompanied by any formal changes in administrative regulation or given rise to an
extensive political debate. On the other hand, the decentralization of policy structures
appears to have delayed compliance. There is some indication that these and other
compliance problems may eventually push SEPA, albeit reluctantly, into directing the
municipalities much more closely (Statskontoret 2001).
Unlike SEPA, ChemI has not been faced with any real challenges as far as the
implementation of EU legislation is concerned. Nevertheless, ChemI is probably the
administrative institution that has been most significantly Europeanized. Nowadays,
ChemI is deeply involved with EU issues, as both an agenda setter in expert groups and a
negotiator in the EU. ChemI is, at best, an activist pushing for high common EU
restrictions on chemicals and, at worst, a fervent defender of national norms. These
activities have completely changed the tasks and the relationships of ChemI. ChemI’s
151 employees deal with all aspects of chemicals, namely the assessment of risks,
labelling, production, distribution, substitution and elimination. The 2000 self-evaluation
concluded that half of the resources of the entire agency were being diverted to EU
matters (Kemikalieinspektionen 2000:4). ChemI claims it has insufficient staff to cover
all aspects of EU chemical policy. This is, ChemI argues, a particularly urgent problem
since their proposals and suggestions are meeting with increasing resistance from other
states (Kemikalieinspektionen 2000:1, 8–9, 16–19).
To conclude, the EU has affected Sweden’s environmental policy structures. These
changes are important but, aside from the creation of new parliamentary procedures and
the Environmental Court, they do not amount to a drastic overhaul of what was there
before. It seems as if the most radical transformations have been more informal in nature,
such as those arising from the need to better co-ordinate the activities of ministries and
the agencies. The need to involve the agencies in EU policy-making activities has put a
lot more pressure on the activities and resources of the agencies and changed their
relationship with the ministry. While a recent government study argues that the pre-
existing national policy structures have remained largely intact since membership
(Statskontoret 2000b), this is only partly true for the environmental sector. The
Chemicals Inspectorate has been fundamentally challenged by Europeanization,
particularly because it deals with standardization directives. Since membership it has
undergone a radical transformation. It is also anticipated that the EU Water Framework
Directive will eventually require new institutional arrangements based on watershed areas
(SOU 2002b/2002c).
The style of Swedish policy

Although it is useful for analytical purposes to separate policy content from policy
structures and policy style, in practice they are closely interlinked (see Chapter 2). This
has certainly been the case in the environmental sector. For example, a decentralized
structure that provides autonomy to local authorities works well with a policy framework
which offers room for local-level interpretation and adaptation. Having argued that the
different aspects of environmental policy, i.e. content, structure and style, are intimately
interlinked, this section will nonetheless seek to identify the EU’s impact on national
policy style.
Sweden’s style of policy making has been considerably challenged by EU integration.
The traditional Swedish policy style relies on co-operation and consensus building, which
seeks to mediate between opposing groups and interests through negotiation. It relies on
the inclusion of a broad range of organized interests in planning and decision making.
Sweden 183
Their involvement has been formally recognized through the system of referrals
(remissförfarandet), through which government proposals are circulated among
stakeholders for comment prior to the formulation of a final governmental bill. In
political terms, broad participa— tion and engagement are motivated by the desire to
make policies more legitimate. Legitimate policies, in turn, are just in the eyes of the
citizen. The likelihood of their being adhered to is therefore much greater.
Implementation deficits are therefore less common.
One drawback of this style is that it tends to be time consuming to implement. A
considerable change has also taken place in the rhythm of policy making since 1995, i.e.
it has speeded up due largely to the demands of EU membership. Hence, EU issues are
decided upon much more quickly (Beckman and Johansson 1999:115), resulting in new
policy processes that are ‘more disjointed and piecemeal’ than was the case when policy
making was more domestic in its focus (Ruin 2000:65). Previously, bills were prepared
after lengthy studies commissioned by the government; moreover, a commission of
inquiry would be appointed to consider the most controversial issues.
In general, this working style has not been extended to EU issues. Policy makers argue
that there is simply not enough time to ensure proper consultation with affected interests
in society. ChemI, for example, claims that its relationship with domestic industrial actors
has deteriorated as contacts have become much less frequent. The referral system and the
commissions of inquiry are not used directly to prepare EU policy. Commissions of
inquiry have nevertheless been indirectly important. For instance, recent studies on
environmental issues (particularly in regard to chemicals) have served as an input to the
EU policy process. However, here the commissions of inquiry have served a slightly
different purpose than they did before, i.e. as a source of expertise to be deployed by civil
servants in the EU policy process, rather than as a means of legitimating policy actions.
Traditionally, framework legislation has been a crucial instrument for the co-operation
and consensus policy style in Sweden. Framework legislation sets out general guidelines,
goals and principles for policy rather than specific details. This type of legislation has left
interpretation to regional and local administrations in the implementation process.
Framework legislation may be more conducive to setting general and more visionary
goals. It is also favourable to a co-operation and consensus style of policy making
because it can be refined, revised or even compromised when adapted to local
circumstances. On the other hand, it puts a lot of trust and authority in the hands of civil
servants and the expertise of sub-national agencies. The tendency in Swedish
environmental policy has been to move towards a more comprehensive framework policy
rather than incremental and fragmentary pieces of legislation, which are such a dominant
feature of EU policy The Environmental Code of 1998 (Prop 1997a) bears witness to
that. It was developed over many years specifically to respond to the need to co-ordinate
different pieces of legislation, covering, for example, water, building and planning, and
nature conservation.
Because EU directives are normally more specific and more legalistic, transposition
has sometimes required Swedish policy to be equally detailed and specific. As a result of
this, the resulting domestic-level rules have adopted a different style and content. One
example is in the field of insecticides, where previously there was one relatively simple
piece of national regulation which now has been replaced by two long and complicated
regulations, one on plant protection products and the other on biocides. Very detailed
directives in this field have been transposed directly into national legislation (SOU
2001:198), but Swedish policy makers remain unconvinced of their merits. In SEPA
many officials express frustration at having to adhere to a new policy that they feel is
inefficient and outdated, even though at times it has produced clearer domestic
legislation.
Another feature of the Swedish policy style is the independent role of the agencies.
Most other member states have a much larger Environment Ministry than Sweden’s but
grant less autonomy to their independent agencies. The division of labour between the
agencies and the ministry in Sweden is not supported by any constitutional framework,
but rather has evolved informally through day to day practice (Statskontoret 2000b).
Earlier studies claimed that the progressive nature of Swedish environmental policy can
in large part be attributed to the work of the autonomous agencies and, in particular, their
relationship to the ministry (Kronsell 1997). Prior to 1995 autonomous agencies, like
SEPA and ChemI, could pursue high environmental goals by exploiting the scope for
agencies to set high standards.
It is evident that the relationship between the agencies and the ministries has changed
since 1995, at least on issue areas with extensive EU jurisdiction (Statskontoret 2000a).
Europeanization has, somewhat confusingly, both centralized control in government
ministries and, at the same time, given the agencies more influence over EU
environmental policy. When interviewed, many civil servants in SEPA and ChemI claim
that they have become much less autonomous and more closely tied to the ministry. The
agencies are now constantly asked for expert advice. The way they interact with other
government actors has also changed, becoming speedier, much more ad hoc and more
informal (Statskontoret 2000a). One of the disadvantages of this change is that it severely
restricts citizens’ access to information and makes policy makers less accountable. When
dealing with EU-related matters, the agencies and the ministry have been drawn closer to
one another, blurring their previously distinct roles.
In assessing these changing patterns, whereby the agencies seem to be more closely
tied to the dictates of the ministry, some contradictory findings arise. One report
(Statskontoret 2000c; SOU 2001:176), which looked at three areas of EU-intensive
activities, concluded that the work that goes into constructing a Swedish negotiating
position in the EU is mainly carried out by civil servants in the agencies, with only a
limited involvement from the ministry. The power to act on behalf of the Swedish
government in certain Commission-affiliated groups had been formally delegated to civil
servants, as for example in the Information Exchange Forum. So while an expert coming
from the agency formally functions as a scientific expert, in reality she often formulates a
national negotiating position on the issues under discussion.
It therefore appears that a new division of labour is now emerging as a result of
Europeanization. Issues that have been prioritized by the government, for example the
chemical strategy and the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, tend to attract a
stronger input from the ministry, often with more zealous political steering. Here, experts
from the agencies might have less influence. In relation to issues of a lower priority,
experts are sometimes the sole bearers of the national interest and experience minimal
steering from the ministry (Statskontoret 2000a:15–17, 50–4).
Sweden 185
Conclusions
We may conclude that the expectations held in 1995 about the course of Europeanization
in the environmental area have largely been realized. Moreover, the counterfactual
situation is not that different from what we see today. In fact the content of policy is
largely the same. Looking at Europeanization as a top-down process reveals another
important aspect of Sweden’s EU membership, i.e. its minimalist attitudes to European
integration. Thus, Swedish environmental policy in most areas has only been marginally
affected by EU legislation because similar (and sometimes stricter) environmental
standards were already in place. The fear that strict national legislation would be
compromised by laxer EU legislation has only partly been realized. The chemicals field is
the exception. However, in recent years problems with the transposition and, more
especially, the implementation of EU laws have become more evident. This is mainly due
to the combination of a decentralized domestic administrative structure and the use of
framework legislation. In these cases, domestic policy makers are very reluctant to adapt
to EU legislation mainly because it goes against the content, structures and style of
Swedish policy. Consequently, they try to mediate and adapt policies to ‘fit’ the Swedish
context.
In terms of ‘bottom-up’ Europeanization, Swedish policy makers have managed to
reduce adaptive pressures by uploading Swedish policy to the EU level. The desire to
shape the EU (enabled, in large part, by Sweden’s fore-runner status) to suit Sweden’s
environmental interests has more than made up for any scepticism that the Swedes may
have had about joining the EU. This policy-shaping strategy has broad public support,
especially in relation to chemicals protection. The EU’s involvement has been a boon for
the Chemicals Inspectorate, which has not only grown considerably in size but also
radically changed its focus and activities. This process became particularly intense when
the exemption period negotiated at the time of membership came to an end in 1999.
While other effects of Europeanization are visible in the environmental policy field,
they also appear in other policy areas. I would like to suggest that these changes have to
do with the more general challenge of adapting to a more multi-governance structure. As
far as political structures go, Europeanization is evident in the disempowerment of
political and societal actors. The ability of the national Parliament to initiate and respond
to policy has been limited by the EU’s involvement. Likewise, the previous engagement
of different societal actors in the various stages of policy making has been severely
diminished. There appears to be less consultation, openness and access to information
than previously. Engagement in EU policy making requires quicker decisions and
reactions and, hence, reduces the scope for using the referral system. With less political
involvement, there tends to be more reliance on expertise in the decision-making process.
One may argue that the emergence of a new governing style is an inevitable
development in response to EU integration and globalization, and that the real problem
may be that the Swedish policy system is outdated and in need of reform. On the other
hand, it is obviously problematic when a policy system shows a tendency to move away
from forms of democratic governance, where transparency, accountability, societal
involvement and legitimacy are key concerns. This aspect of Europeanization alienates
the Swedish public and strengthens their reluctance to integrate Sweden more deeply into
the EU.
Note
1 The chapter draws on research documented in Kronsell (1997, 1999, 2001, 2002) as well as a
number of interviews conducted at SEPA, ChemI and the Environment Ministry in
November 2000.
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13
The United Kingdom
From policy ‘taking’ to policy ‘shaping’
Andrew Jordan1
Overview
The Europeanization of British2 environmental policy has been much more deep seated
and wide ranging than one would expect to find in a state with a long history of
environmental policy making which dates back over a century or more, and a distinctly
reluctant attitude to European integration. Although it was never originally sought for
environmental reasons, Britain’s membership of the EU has nonetheless transformed
national environmental policy in highly unexpected and profound ways. Once a reluctant
‘taker’ of policy determined in Brussels, the deep and politically painful Europeanization
of national policy (Jordan 2002; 2003) eventually forced Britain to take positive steps to
‘shape’ EU policy in its own image. On one level, the long-term effects of EU
membership have therefore been exceptionally profound, not only making Britain’s
political preferences more pro-environmental, but also encouraging it to adopt less
obstructive and more communautaire tactics. However, on another, the British remain
deeply sceptical of the wider benefits of European integration. Significantly, Britain
looks set to remain outside Euroland for most of the 2000s even though it aspires to
operate alongside France and Germany within the EU’s ‘inner core’ of the most
influential member states.
By 1973 Britain had already developed an extensive and relatively sophisticated
system of environmental rules to fit its historical (strong social demands for animal
welfare; much weaker demands for pollution control), legal (common rather than Roman
law) and geographical circumstances (an island state). But it massively underestimated
the EU’s desire to forge a common set of environmental rules and resented their intrusion
into national political life. However, the lack of a stable prointegration discourse in
Britain made it difficult for British authorities proactively to shape the development of
EU rules in Britain’s image. So during the 1970s and early 1980s, Britain tried to steer
EU environmental policy from the margins by blocking policies that misfitted with its
settled domestic traditions. Crucially, extensive state ownership and/or sponsorship of
key polluting industries such as water, energy and farming provided Whitehall with many
strong, short-term economic reasons to resist the very expensive environmental
investments that more ambitious states such as Germany and the Netherlands were urging
the EU to adopt.
Britain would always have struggled to cope with the evolution of EU environmental
policy regardless of its fraught political relationship with the rest of Europe because its
pre-existing policy approach was inconsistent with that preferred by continental states.
The United Kingdom 189
The last thirty years could be interpreted as one long struggle to overcome the first mover
disadvantage of having innovated earlier than and differently from other pioneering EU
states. During the 1980s the national Environment Department’s failure to upload British
policy ideas to the EU combined with the national environmental movement’s
increasingly strident demands for EU rules to be implemented strictly to generate a
sizeable policy ‘misfit’. The Environment Department’s initial response (neutering
Europeanization by subverting key directives) not only conspicuously failed to close the
misfit, but also lumbered Britain with a reputation for being ‘the Dirty Man of Europe’.
By the early 1990s the Europeanization of national policy had progressed so far that
simply blocking new EU policies was no longer effective. With greater qualified majority
voting, Britain was left with no other option but to become more communautaire in the
environmental sector, even though its broader political relationship with the EU remains
sceptical to this day. Today Britain is to be found exporting domestic environmental ideas
to Brussels with a passion unimaginable even fifteen years ago. These ideas, which
include EPI, ‘better lawmaking’, greater subsidiarity and stronger implementation, are an
expression of Britain’s national policy preference for ‘good governance’. But in some
continental member states Britain’s eagerness to ‘shape’ rather than passively to ‘take’
EU environmental rules is perceived less as a dramatic, Damascene conversion to
continental environmentalism, and more as a clever ploy to blunt the future development
of EU environmental policy.
Attitudes to Europe
Britain has never wholly committed itself to European integration, even though it is a key
player in international affairs and has a very large and skilled diplomatic corps. It is
variously described as ‘aloof and sceptical’ (Rasmussen 2001:145), ‘an awkward partner’
(George 1994) and a ‘spectator…rather than an actor’ (Young 1998:1). Several factors
are often cited to explain Britain’s detached stance, including its geography (an island),
history (uninvaded since 1066), institutional structure (adversarial party politics),
economy (liberal-economic) and deep socio-cultural attachment to national sovereignty.
In spite of many recent changes, Britain remains politically, legally, constitutionally and
economically distinct from the rest of the EU (Armstrong and Bulmer 2003). Crucially,
the absence of a consistent, bipartisan consensus between the two main political parties
on the merits of European integration has produced a ‘staccato’-like series of negotiating
positions—often negative, sometimes briefly positive but never consistently one or the
other (Wallace 1995:49). When things have gone badly (as they often have!), the British
instinctively stand aloof rather than working inside the EU to Anglicize it.
These prevailing historical relationships would have undoubtedly complicated British-
EU environmental relations, but they alone are not sufficient to explain the deeply
contested Europeanization of British environmental policy. After all, prior to entry
Britain had worked very hard and, it must be said, successfully to develop international
policies to combat poverty, wildlife loss and population growth (Lowe and Ward 1998:9–
11). More than anything else, the conflicts which emerged in this policy sector after
accession are grounded in the fundamental misfit between the environmental policy
arrangements sought by the EU and those already firmly in place within Britain.
Encumbered by the path-dependent effects of having innovated early (Britain has one of
the oldest environmental protection systems in the world) and the anti-environmental
attitudes of many cognate departments, the national Department of the Environment
(DoE) invested much time in seeking to resist EU initiatives, other than in a very small
number of areas (e.g. waste, seals or lead in petrol) where European policies either built
upon, or were concurrent with, British policy.
Is Britain more ‘European’ today? Socially and culturally, probably yes (Gorton Ash
2001). In terms of the way it administers and transacts European policy, Britain is a
model of ‘good governance’ (Armstrong and Bulmer 2003). It prepares carefully for
meetings, has a ‘Rolls Royce’ mechanism for co-ordinating issues across Whitehall, and
an enviably good record of implementing EU legislation (Wallace 1995; 1997; Weale et
al. 2000:320). But in terms of its political commitment to the European integration
project, Britain remains at best unconvinced and at worst permanently detached from
mainstream views in continental Europe. Crucially, Britain lies outside Euroland, and
during the 2003–4 Iraq war, conspicuously allied itself with the United States and parts of
‘new’ Europe, instead of its EU partners in ‘old’ Europe. Under Blair, Britain has sought
to strengthen the EU’s foreign and defence policy capabilities as part of a more engaged
approach to the EU. But for many British people, ‘Europe’ is and always will be what
takes place across the English Channel on the continent of Western Europe; ‘it is them,’
observes Timothy Gorton Ash (2001:11), ‘not us’. This situation in part arises because
the overwhelmingly Eurosceptic press tends to focus more on the costs imposed by
Europeanization, rather than the benefits. Meanwhile, pro-integrationists have done a
poor job at selling ‘Europe’ to the British people.

Politically speaking, the British have tended to view ‘environmental policy’ in slightly
narrower and more negative terms than other industrialized northern European states.
British policy in 1970 (see Chapter 3) was narrow in the sense that it concentrated on a
small sub-set of environmental concerns, i.e. those that were predominantly human-
health-related or associated with life on a relatively crowded island state sharing no land
borders with others states (e.g. heritage and landscape protection, land-use planning and
nature conservation). Sharing no fresh watercourses with other states meant that Britain
never had to rely much on others to remedy its domestic problems.
The British perception was negative for two reasons. First, Britain joined the EEC
believing it was an environmental pioneer. Having just created the world’s first
Environment Ministry in 1970, it was understandable that the DoE (1978:1) might think
it was already ‘at a comparatively advanced stage of development and adoption of
environmental protection policies’. This organizational assumption was shared by many
influential members of the political establishment, who genuinely believed that national
policy had achieved a superior level of fitness through ‘160 years of our own history’
(Ashby and Anderson 1981:513).
These slightly jingoistic sentiments were reinforced by a widely shared belief in
Britain that the locus of public policy would and, more importantly, should continue to
reside in Britain, with international action reserved for those issues where it was
absolutely necessary. In 1980, Nigel Haigh (1984:xx) ‘shared a view widely held—and
certainly held within the [DoE]—that Community environmental policy had had little or
no effect on Britain’. But behind this ‘proud’ façade (Hajer 1995), British policy was
long on nature conservation policy, but comparatively short on air and water pollution
measures. The prevailing pattern of pressure group activity supported and in many
respects exacerbated this pattern (Fairbrass and Jordan 2001a/b). Thus, ‘insider’ pressure
groups like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (1899–) employed non-
confrontational techniques gently to influence the content of national policy. More radical
‘outsider’ groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth did not arrive on the political
scene until much later. Starting in the mid-1980s, they forcefully demanded radically
better waste and pollution control policies.
Second, the environment occupies an insecure niche on the national political agenda.
Every now and again, the environment receives a short burst of political attention, but
most mainstream British politicians tend to regard it as a politically unimportant and
largely self-contained area of policy. Environmental groups have found it relatively easy
to penetrate the Environment Department and alter its thinking, but have struggled to
green mainstream policy areas. Even now, most of the rest of Whitehall willingly
sacrifices environmental quality in order to address what many elites perceive to be the
overriding national priority - reversing Britain’s comparative economic decline (Weale et
al. 2000:254). This was immediately apparent in recent decisions to boost air transport
and commercialize genetically modified foods and crops.
The Europeanization of Britain
Europeanization research in Britain is relatively well developed compared to other EU

states. A stream of work suggests that the ‘EU effect’ on British policy and politics has
been much more significant and high profile than on the administrative structures of
government (e.g. Wallace 1990:168; Armstrong and Bulmer 1996; Rasmussen 2001:155;
Jordan 2003). Starting with structures, Bulmer and Burch (1998:606; 2000; 2001) argue
that the EU has been absorbed relatively smoothly into the ‘administrative logic’ of
different Whitehall departments with very little obvious disruption. They conclude that
membership has ‘renew[ed] national traditions of administration rather
than…confound[ed] them’ (Bulmer and Burch 2001:75). To be sure, new procedures
have been developed to co-ordinate EU policy across Whitehall (Kassim 2000; 2001a)
and between government departments and the national Parliament (Giddings and Drewry
1996) (see below), but they are not significantly different from those governing national
policy. By and large, the formal machinery of British government has been relatively
unaffected by Europe (Jordan 2003). However, other researchers who have looked at the
more cultural aspects of Europeanization suggest that the EU has altered the beliefs,
tactics and working cultures of government departments (Buller and Smith 1998; Smith
et al. 2000; Jordan 2003). Their work suggests that the departments that come into
contact with European rules become more ‘European’ in their long-term ‘view’ or ‘policy
bias’ (Buller and Smith 1998). Through their involvement in EU processes, individual
ministers and civil servants come to see Europe more as an opportunity to project their
influence on to a broader plane and less as an extraneous constraint on their activities.
The literature on the Europeanization of national policy is much more difficult to
interpret, not least because of the absence of a commonly agreed definition of what
constitutes ‘policy’. On the whole, though, British industrial and economic policy appears
not to have been that deeply Europeanized (Forder and Menon 1998:186; Menon and
Hayward 1996:275). The same could be said of transport and energy policy—two areas
of fairly limited EU competence. By contrast, it is broadly accepted that British
environmental policy has been ‘profoundly affected’ by the EU (Lowe and Ward
1998:285). In relation to the three aspects of policy content, EU pressures have
destabilized (though not completely overturned) the fundamental paradigms underpinning
national environmental policy, the instruments used to attain policy goals and the precise
setting of those instruments. More specifically, the EU has introduced higher standards
than would otherwise have been the case, created a more explicit and transparent policy
framework, and introduced new policy tools and principles. The structural impact of the
EU has been less obvious, although EU policy misfits have forced Britain to create new
regulatory agencies (e.g. the National Rivers Authority), and have reduced the discretion
traditionally enjoyed by local pollution control officers. Finally, existing scholarship
suggests that the EU has helped to make the style of British environmental policy making
more adversarial, less secretive and more anticipatory (Knill 2001).
The Europeanization of British environmental policy
In the late 1990s I observed (Jordan 1998) that British policy had developed a number of
new features. In terms of the content of national policy, there is a more consistent and
formal system of administrative control based upon fixed standards and timetables of
compliance, rather than administrative rules of thumb. There are many more source-
based emission controls, and a greater desire to enunciate the underlying principles and
objectives of control such as precaution, prevention and sustainability. Policy makers are
also more willing to experiment with non-regulatory instruments such as environmental
taxes and, more recently, tradable permits (Jordan et al. 2003). In terms of policy
structures, powers have shifted from local regulators to officials at higher (e.g. EU) levels
of governance. Finally, the style of environmental regulation is more transparent with
greater public involvement. The most marked change is to be found in the regulation of
public utilities such as energy and water, which are now regulated at arm’s length from
government by non-departmental public bodies.
However, the process of change has been evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Thus,
if we look at the content of many policies, there is still a strong attachment to informal
gentleman’s agreements and non-quantified standards. Central government is still
reluctant to set clear and legally binding targets other than those specifically required by
EU or international legislation. Environmental taxes and voluntary agreements are
beginning to appear, but regulation still forms the bedrock of national policy. New
departmental structures have been created (e.g. the fusion of the departments of transport
and environment in 1997), but they are not significantly different from what preceded
them. In relation to Richardson’s schema, British environmental policy is still
overwhelmingly consensual rather than adversarial, i.e. administrative discretion

continues to prevail over judicial interpretation (see below). It is also predominantly
reactive. Crucially, the political and legal status of the precautionary principle (one of the
fundamental precepts of ecological modernization) in British policy and practice, remains
unclear.
Many of these new features are, of course, also reproduced in other member states.
This suggests some EU involvement, although domestic and international causes should
also be accounted for. Of the ‘domestic’ drivers the most salient are inter alia: the
growing public demand for environmental quality; pressure exerted by advisory bodies
(e.g. the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution) and parliamentary select
committees; an increasingly large and sophisticated network of environmental pressure
groups; the ideological preference (by and large maintained by Labour from 1997) for
market competition and the modernization of the state; and a round of recent
constitutional changes including devolution, freedom of information legislation and
possibly also the creation of a supreme court on the US model. The most important
‘international’ drivers are international agreements brokered in the UN, international
bodies like the OECD and the periodic, ‘mega’ environmental conferences held in
Stockholm, Rio and Johannesburg. These have disseminated new ideas and concepts as
well as more specific emission reduction targets and timetables. Importantly, these
drivers would almost certainly have destabilized the domestic environmental policy
system irrespective of EU membership. The next section attempts to separate out and
discuss those changes which have been predominantly driven by the EU.
The content of British policy

Over ten years ago Nigel Haigh first claimed that:
[N]ot many areas of [British environmental] policy have now been left
entirely untouched by the [EU] even if the depth of involvement remains
uneven. Some fields such as the control of hazardous chemical substances
have largely been defined by [EU] policy. Others, such as pollution of air
and water, while profoundly affected by [EU] concepts, retain
distinctively national characteristics. In contrast, town and country
planning…has been much less influenced by the [EU].
(Haigh l992:v)
Crucially, these changes have occurred at all three levels of policy content. In terms of
policy paradigms, the EU has forced Britain to adopt a more preventative, source-based
approach to policy making. The need for change first arose in 1974, when the
Commission proposed to regulate the emission of dangerous substances to water. After a
long and acrimonious struggle, a compromise was incorporated into the 1976 Dangerous
Substances Directive. Around this time, Britain was clearly out of step with the rest of the
EU, because no sooner had this philosophical conflict been delicately resolved, than a
similarly bitter conflict erupted over the application of emission limits (this time
enshrined within the principle of best available technology, BAT) to acidic gases. This
time Britain was forced to compromise in the teeth of concerted opposition from other
states. In the course of these two battles, the EU made the objectives of national policy
more environmentally ambitious; it specified the instruments to be used to achieve them
and the manner in which they should be applied.
There are, however, three reasons for rejecting the simple view that the EU has forced
Britain to adopt a more precautionary, source-based paradigm of policy making. First, to
paraphrase Albert Weale (1997:105), Britain has almost certainly lost important aspects
of what ministers used to refer to as ‘the British approach’ (for a comprehensive
summary see Waldegrave 1985), but it is still to find a new policy paradigm. Even today
Britain is not wholly committed to ecological modernization and feels distinctly uneasy
about adopting strongly precautionary policies (O’Riordan et al. 2001), except when they
are economically favourable or at least supportive of a more politically ambitious
environmental policy (e.g. climate change). A more accurate characterization is therefore
one of deep change with important elements of continuity both in Britain and the EU. We
can see this reflected in the way that Britain succeeded in shaping the IPPC and Water
Framework Directives to incorporate elements of an EQO approach to setting standards
policy
Second, the depth of change varies greatly across the various sub-sectors of British
environmental policy (Lowe and Ward 1998:290). So, for example, air, noise, water and
chemicals policy now follow the EU’s preference for strong source-based controls,
whereas land-use planning and biodiversity protection still (though by no means
exclusively) reflect the traditional, contextual approach of gradually negotiating targets,
rather than specifying a priori some absolute level of environmental protection regardless
of the economic costs. Domestic and European waste policy developed concurrently, so
the EU effect is a mixture of top down and bottom up (see below). These cross-sectoral
variations are a function of: the depth and longevity of the EU’s involvement (high in
water and air, lower in planning/biodiversity); the institutional embeddedness of national
models (deep in the former, shallower in the latter); and the DoE’s behaviour in Europe
(i.e. proactively ‘shaping’ IPPC, waste and, to a lesser extent, biodiversity legislation,
while reactively ‘taking’ other aspects, e.g. water). However, more recent studies have
detected signs of Europeanization in areas which are supposedly much less
communitized, such as land-use planning (Wilkinson et al. 1998) and nature conservation
(Fairbrass and Jordan 2001a). It is a powerful measure of the depth of Europeanization
that the key debate in British academic circles is no longer whether Europe ‘matters’, but
how far it reflects initial British preferences (e.g. Golub 1996; Fairbrass and Jordan
2001b).
Finally, it is debatable whether the pre-existing British approach was ever a paradigm
in the sense of a narrow, confining cognitive framework (Jordan and Greenaway 1998). It
is probably more accurate to view it as a set of politically and economically expedient
activities, which were only worked up into a broader ‘philosophy’ in the late 1970s by
British officials seeking to justify the status quo to critics in the EU (cf. Haigh 1989:22).
In other words, we could say that for a time Europeanization exacerbated the differences
between British and EU policy, leading, temporarily, to a period of retrenchment.
Policy instruments
In terms of policy tools, the EU has led directly to the adoption of more sourcebased
controls, as well as more formal environmental quality standards for certain air and water
pollutants. These reflect the EU’s preference for more harmonized and precautionary-
based policies. However, for reasons that are widely known, the EU’s toolbox is still
predominantly regulatory (Jordan et al. 2004). Consequently (and with a number of
exceptions), one has to look at domestic and international drivers for an explanation of
the appearance of ‘new’ environmental policy instruments such as voluntary agreements
and eco-taxes in Britain (Jordan et al. 2003).

The precise setting or calibration of policy instruments has been clearly and very directly
affected by the EU. The EU has created many new emission standards, tightened existing
ones and formalized their achievement by setting strict deadlines. The style in which
instruments are calibrated has also changed, as has the structural context in which it takes
place. In the past the ability to constantly fine-tune the setting of policy instruments to
reflect local needs and circumstances was highly prized by local technocrats. Their
freedom to manoeuvre has decreased dramatically as more and more standards are set
within the EU. This trend has eroded the administrative discretion of local officials, who
have lost much of their ability to ‘create’ policy ‘bottom up’ in Britain. For some time,
the national Environment Agency has been seeking a more direct route into European
negotiations to compensate for this loss of local leverage (e.g. HL Paper 94, Session
2002–3:1–4).
Summary
A number of broader patterns can be identified in the overall impact of the EU. First, the
EU effect is most obvious in relation to the selection and calibration of policy
instruments, reflecting the Commission’s primary function as a regulatory body (Lowe
and Ward 1998:291–2). The EU’s ability to secure paradigm changes is much more
indirect. More often than not, we find the EU acting as an institutional mechanism
through which greener member states have exported a more precautionary paradigm to
other parts of Europe.
Second, several phases of change can be discerned. At first (c. 1972–6), Britain
regarded the EU’s involvement as being unsophisticated and essentially benign. Several
important directives (e.g. shellfish, bathing and drinking water) were negotiated around
this time in the mistaken belief that they would not disrupt settled British practices. With
some exceptions (lead in petrol, seal conservation and chemicals), Britain was content to
sit back and be a European policy ‘taker’ rather than a ‘shaper’. Later (c. 1976–88), when
Britain began to better appreciate the speed of integration and the pervasiveness of its
Europeanizing effects, it tried to block progress in the Environment Council (e.g. large
combustion plants, ozone depletion, EIA and dumping at sea) or subvert directives at the
implementation stage, e.g. almost all the key water directives and wild birds (Fairbrass
and Jordan 2001b).
When, like King Cnut, it discovered that it could not stop the incoming tide of
Europeanization, it set about trying to shape Europe by uploading policies to Brussels (c.
post-1988). The exports reflected traditional British strengths (e.g. IPPC, EPI) or its
preference for non-regulatory instruments (e.g. eco-labels, EMAS, etc.). Here we might
also include structural innovations (such as IMPEL, better implementation reporting and
perhaps even the European Environment Agency), which fitted with Britain’s traditional
desire for ‘good governance’.
Third, the broad pattern of policy shaping and/or taking has been influenced by the
pre-existing content, style and structure of British policy. Thus, British exports to the EU
have tended to be related to the more structural elements of policy, i.e. matters of process
and machinery such as implementation (IMPEL), EPI (the Cardiff process), IPPC and
subsidiarity. This is in contrast to the targets relating to emissions (e.g. acid rain),
technology (e.g. BAT) and production (e.g. packaging waste) that were uploaded by the
Germans in the 1980s. Similarly, Britain has been better at uploading policies and/or
ideas in areas where it has national expertise, e.g. biodiversity (Fairbrass and Jordan
2001a), or which developed concurrently with EU policies, e.g. waste (Porter 1998). Its
inability and/or unwillingness to upload policies from similarly well-established domains
in the 1970s (such as water and air pollution control) was, at least in part, due to the basic
inapplicability of ‘the British approach’ to continental contexts.
In summary, we can say that the EU has: (1) helped to erode (but not completely
overturn) the contextual policy paradigm by enunciating precise, source-based standards
and deadlines; (2) changed the objectives of British policy by exerting a strong, upward
pressure on domestic environmental standards and accelerated the pace of remedial work;
(3) introduced many more precise objectives and timetables; (4) brought Britain into
contact with new instruments and influenced the manner in which it applies existing
tools; and (5) forced Britain to adopt completely new tools such as air quality standards
and emission ‘bubbles’.
The structures of British policy
Legal structures
The impact of the EU is probably most clearly inscribed on legal structures (Macrory
1987; 1991), which have become more formalized and much more specific in terms of
the overall objectives to be achieved. In fact, national law was probably one of the first
elements of British life to be Europeanized, although the overall extent still came as a
very great surprise (Nicol 2001). As in other member states, British government and
politics were extremely slow to adjust to the rapid and largely unforeseen
‘transformation’ of the EU legal system (Alter 2001:183). Indeed, throughout the 1970s
central government acted deliberately to reduce the depth of change by employing
administrative circulars rather than secondary legislation to implement EU rules. This
practice had to be discontinued following adverse rulings by the ECJ. Of course, the
written word of EU law also has to be interpreted and implemented by national
enforcement bodies. Therefore, any assessment of the Europeanization of legal structures
must also include the concomitant effects on the overall style of national policy making,
which are discussed more fully below.
Governmental structures
It is considerably harder to identify a clear ‘EU effect’ on other national structures. The
most obvious changes include the creation of a Permanent Representation (UKREP) in
Brussels and some new regulatory agencies (e.g. the National Rivers Authority), the
establishment of a European co-ordinating unit in the DoE, the appearance of new
procedures to secure agreement across Whitehall, and the creation of parliamentary
committees to oversee the executive’s activities in the EU (Bulmer and Burch 1998;
Kassim 2000; 2001a/b). However, these are relatively modest impacts. If anything, the
characteristic features of policy making in Whitehall remain essentially undiminished.
The ‘Rolls Royce’ system of inter-departmental co-ordination still operates much as it
always has. Westminster has developed new procedures to scrutinize the Whitehall
departments, but they are strikingly similar to those governing national policy EU
pressures also contributed to the need for parliamentary reform, e.g. the creation of select
committees (Giddings and Drewry 1996), but they were certainly not the sole cause
(Rasmussen 2001:158).
Other causes of structural change

By comparison with the raft of ‘machinery of government’ changes initiated by the
Conservatives in the 1980s and continued by Labour since 1997, the overall ‘EU effect’
on national structure is actually very modest indeed. As part of a massive programme of
institutional change and upheaval between 1979 and 1997, the Conservatives slashed the
civil service, privatized industries such as water and energy, and contracted out many
central-run functions to the market. These changes had a huge impact on Britain’s
response to European environmental policies, e.g. the privatization of the utilities
provided the funds needed to comply with water and air pollution directives (Jordan
1998). Similarly, the EU was an important factor in the establishment of a national
Environment Agency, though by no means the only or even the primary one. Finally, the
negotiation of international environmental regimes on issues such as climate change and
acid rain would, in all probability, have forced the DoE to take on a greater central
steering role irrespective of the EU, although these would not have generated nearly as
many detailed policy targets and timetables as those associated with the EU.
However, those who have looked in more detail at the Europeanization of
organizational cultures suggest that the EU has made some departments more ‘European’
in their attitudes and expectations (Buller and Smith 1998). Research reveals that the DoE
has indeed ‘learnt’ new, more communautaire tactics, established new alliances and, most
profoundly of all, adopted a new (i.e. more environmental and more European)
‘departmental view’ (Jordan 2002). Rather puzzlingly, Europeanization has strengthened
the hand of the DoE within Whitehall battles, even though it did not consciously act to
secure this outcome.
Central-local relations
Turning to the relationships between central and local government, Nigel Haigh’s (1986)
thesis that EU directives have centralized power in Britain is still extremely apposite, but
it needs to be seen against the backdrop of a series of important domestic and
international drivers of change. So yes, it is true that the logic of European integration has
shifted more policy making from local levels up to Whitehall and the EU, thereby
eroding the power of local government and technical agency officials. But the
organizational landscape of British environmental policy would have changed regardless
of Europeanization, not least to fit the new public management aspirations of successive
governments since 1979, and Labour’s desire to devolve many environmental powers
(though not, significantly, the right to negotiate in the EU) to the administrations in
Wales and Scotland.
Winners and losers

Who have been the main winners and losers? Europeanization has empowered many
national environmental groups, offering them a higher authority to which they can appeal
(Lowe and Ward 1998:295). In the 1980s, DG-Environment actively courted these
groups to legitimate enforcement actions arising from the misfit between EU and national
policy There have been two main losers: national Parliament, which struggles to audit
policy making in Brussels (Armstong and Bulmer 1996:275; Giddings and Drewry 1996),
and local-level technocrats, whose professional discretion and influence have been
greatly circumscribed.
Summary
Therefore, in terms of policy structures, the EU effect has been quite modest. However, it
is clear that the EU has: (1) deeply Europeanized national legal structures; (2) led directly
to the creation of a small number of new structures; (3) contributed indirectly to the
formation of new organizations such as the Environment Agency and the various utility
regulators; (4) accelerated the centralization of important policy functions from local
officials to higher administrative levels; and (5) forced structures such as departments to
adopt new working procedures, tactics and, ultimately, policy preferences (Jordan 2003;
Smith 2001).
The style of British policy
The style of British environmental policy in Britain

There are two aspects to policy style: the style of British policy in Britain and the style of
the British in the EU. The style in which contemporary British environmental policy is
enunciated and implemented is undeniably very different from that described in Chapter
3, i.e. consensual and reactive (Jordan and Richardson 1982:81; Richardson and Watts
1985). We have already noted the secular trend towards greater explicitness, more
formalism and greater proaction.
However, there are many factors behind the emergence of what Weale (1992) has
described as a ‘new politics’ of the environment in Britain, of which the EU is only one.
For instance, the politicization of environmental politics (itself accelerated by
Europeanization) has perturbed the quasi-secretive world of pollution control, as has the
advent of public registers of information, mechanisms of judicial review and (most
recently of all) the formal adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights. New
public management has also ushered in a much more open and formal style of regulation,
although arrangements are still in a state of great flux. In the last five years, two of the
most important independent utility regulators have openly challenged the basis of
environmental policy decisions on waste water treatment and climate change
respectively. In so doing they have helped to create a more open and publicly accountable
system of regulation, which has forced central government departments to lay bare the
financial calculations underpinning environmental standards. Finally, industry too has
realized that tougher and more independent regulation plays well with customers,
employees, shareholders and potential investors alike. Many large companies are
beginning to divulge information voluntarily as part of corporate social responsibility
initiatives, although smaller companies still have a long way to go.
Overall, therefore, the domestic policy style has changed significantly since 1973, but
it has not been transformed and there is no obvious shift towards a completely new policy
style. There is certainly little appreciable evidence of an imminent phase change to a
more adversarial style of policy in Britain; informal negotiation and game playing are
still the lifeblood of British environmental regulation. Court proceedings are, in any case,
expensive and judicial review procedures are long, expensive and of uncertain outcome.
That British environmental groups have often found it more productive to exploit the
lobbying opportunities in Brussels than London is a good indication that ‘club
government’ (Weale et al. 2000:181) is still alive and well in Britain, albeit in a political
system transformed by Europeanization. The EU’s impact on British policy style appears
to have been rather more indirect. Europe has certainly helped to open up the British
system of regulation to greater external scrutiny and reduced the discretion once enjoyed
by local officials.
The British policy style in the EU

To a large extent, the British have carried this style of working into Brussels (Christoph
1993). The British like to think that they are hard negotiators but dutiful implementers of
EU legislation (Wallace 1997). British negotiators also believe they inject a dose of
administrative common sense, while other, supposedly more ‘European’, states slip into
an ‘easy rhetoric’ about the merits of European integration (Wallace 1995:47). The
British have successfully advocated the use of a more consultative and bargained style of
working, using white and green papers, as well as broader framework directives and
economic appraisal techniques.
In other respects (and particularly during the early years of EU membership), the
British were forced to adopt a new and somewhat more adversarial policy style in order
to resist the demands made by other, more pro-environment states and the European
Commission. However, on many occasions, it was left looking distinctly ‘awkward’ and
anti-environmental. In fact, some commentators have gone as far as to suggest that many
of Britain’s European problems stem not from substantive inter-state differences but from
contrasting styles of bargaining and coalition building (Buller 1995; Wallace 1995). For a
variety of reasons (see above), the British find it immensely difficult to speak the
language of European integration. Essentially, they see it as a zero-sum game played
between sovereign states. Consequently, they still tend to spend more time trying to
defend a fixed national position in the Council (a task to which the highly polished but
inflexible inter-departmental co-ordination mechanisms are ideally suited), instead of
employing more subtle negotiating tactics to create broad alliances or shape the all-
important ‘pre-negotiation’ stages of the policy process.
There are, however, signs that the British have started to learn a new, much more
communautaire policy style in Brussels, especially since Tony Blair’s election in 1997.
Labour’s politically more engaged stance has made it easier to work inside the EU
political system to upload policies than when John Major was Prime Minister.
Interestingly, the unexpectedly deep and politically painful Europeanization of
environmental policy had forced the DoE to adopt this more ‘European’ style already in
the early 1990s, i.e. well before the arrival of Blair. This shift was made mainly for
pragmatic reasons—the department realized that it had to get a firmer grip on EU policy
or risk many more policy misfits. Being more proactively engaged meant uploading more
policies to Brussels, using more communautaire language (‘yes, but’ in response to
Commission proposals rather than an unequivocal ‘no’) and engaging in more ‘corridor
diplomacy’ (Jordan 2002) to achieve its departmental objectives. In making these
changes, the DoE has transformed itself into one of the most European departments in
Whitehall (Buller and Smith 1998).
To conclude, the national environmental policy style in Britain today is more
consultative and more anticipatory than it was in 1973. EU membership is of course
deeply implicated in this change but there are many other, more important forces behind
it. However, it is clear that the EU has: (1) created a more explicit and transparent
framework of environmental protection, reinforcing the trend towards a more open and
transparent policy style; (2) generated much more environmental information, which has
made it easier for environmental NGOs to mount legal challenges to government
decisions as part of a gradual shift towards a more adversarial policy style; (3) in many
key areas (e.g. acid rain, marine pollution, ozone depletion, etc.) made British policy
considerably more anticipatory; (4) forced British negotiators to adopt a more informal
and negotiated policy style in order to secure British interests in Brussels.
Conclusions
Britain’s struggle to come to terms with Europeanization in this sector is really just
another symptom of a much longer struggle ‘truly [to] accept that her modern destiny [is]
to be a European country’ (Young 1998:1). As in so many other policy sectors, Britain
has taken a very long time to accept the EU as a potentially benign force in relation to
environmental matters. Large parts of the establishment were (and to a large extent
remain) viscerally Eurosceptic. In the early years of membership, even strongly
environmental NGOs were deeply suspicious of the EU and the European Commission in
particular. Consequently, the Europeanization, especially of the content of national
policy, has tended to proceed via a series of deep political conflicts and unintended
consequences, rather than a smooth or evolutionary acceptance of EU requirements (e.g.
Ireland), or (as in the case of the Netherlands) a gradual blending of national and EU
elements. In spite of all the problems and recriminations, Europeanization is now widely
regarded as having been a mostly serendipitous process, which has made the national
environmental policy sector more environmental and considerably more European than it
would otherwise have been.
The ‘EU effect’ is most clearly inscribed upon the content of national environmental
policy. Its effect on national policy structures and policy styles has been heavily
modulated by domestic factors, though the EU remains an important trigger of national
action and a constraint upon the autonomy of national actors pursuing ‘domestic’ policy
objectives. In the counterfactual situation, Britain would almost certainly have been
forced to modernize its environmental policy by international pressures arising from
continental Europe. However, the EU strengthened the arm of those states like Germany
and Denmark that wished to dominate the regulatory competition to set environmental
standards. Without the EU, their influence would have been less intensely focused on
states like Britain that had other political priorities and policy arrangements.
Consequently, the pace and depth of domestic change in Britain since 1973 would also
have been significantly less. Crucially, had Britain not acceded, any domestic change
would almost certainly have assumed a very different form from what we see today, with
far fewer inflexible timetables, non-negotiable targets and explicit standards.
But the difficulty remains of explaining why Europeanization penetrated so deeply in
a state with a minimalist view of integration, a very long history of domestic
environmental concern and great experience in advancing international environmental
diplomacy Intuitively, one might think that Britain would not have found itself under as
much adaptation pressure as some of the less progressive states such as Ireland and
Greece, as it had already made many significant innovations prior to membership.
Furthermore, as a partially detached state, it might be expected to have forcefully and
openly prevented the EU from adopting any ambitious environmental policies that
significantly misfitted with domestic practices.
There are three possible ways of explaining this apparent puzzle. The first is to suggest
that the progressiveness of British policy pre-1973 was always overstated, not least by the
British in Brussels. It is undeniably true that Britain had innovated in some national and
international areas prior to 1973, but they were not necessarily the same issues that
concerned the EU. The means it employed, namely externalizing waste products along
long pipes into the sea or up chimneys into the atmosphere, were abhorrent to fellow EU
states. By innovating early, Britain suffered a ‘first-mover disadvantage’, which hobbled
it during the critical, early stages of the European regulatory competition. The British
model was doubly disadvantageous because it could not easily be uploaded to other
states, which had similar legal systems and shared many policy problems arising from
their much stronger geographical affinity.
This leads us neatly on to the second possible explanation, which is that the apparent
success of the model at resolving some of Britain’s immediate environmental problems
itself nurtured a feeling of self-satisfaction among officials and ministers that made the
subsequent adjustments to EU rules all the harder to stomach. Instead of selling the
model (or ‘approach’) to the rest of the EU, Britain chose instead to dig its heels in and
actively resist innovations proposed by the EU. Very little sustained effort was put into
uploading policies to Brussels. In so doing, Britain suffered the fate of those that
consistently download policy from the EU—namely implementation problems, policy
misfits and performance crises (Cowles et al. 2001:8–9).
Finally, Britain did not actually resist European integration as toughly or as

successfully as its minimalist reputation for hard negotiation and dutiful implementation
might suggest. The environment has never been a serious focus of conflict in British
party politics, so it was understandable that many of the early directives were negotiated
in a very relaxed manner. Thereafter a succession of governments, weak on
environmental matters, saw the environment as an unimportant, ‘sacrifice issue’ which
could and should be traded for more important political and/or economic European goals,
such as the single market or an optout in a particularly controversial issue area such as
social policy. But EU environmental policy proved to be much more costly and self-
perpetuating than (prime) ministers ever expected. British environmental policy was
therefore Europeanized indirectly, stealthily and largely contrary to the expectations of
the British government (Jordan, 2002).
What wider conclusions should be drawn from Britain’s involvement in EU
environmental affairs? Eurosceptics will presumably argue that, if Britain had been more,
not less, sceptical, it could have avoided many of the subsequent policy misfits and
performance crises. In contrast, Europhiles will doubtless argue that the story underlines
the need for Britain to be bolder and more proactive in its dealings with the EU. Britain
tried to be negative but was Europeanized against its will. This casts serious doubt on the
value of the weakly Eurosceptic position, leaving two remaining courses of action: full
disengagement or full engagement. That, thirty years after it first joined the EU, Britain
continues to debate the merits and demerits of these three options speaks volumes about
its contested and deeply uncertain relationship with the rest of Europe.
Notes
1 The research underpinning this paper was generously funded by the ESRC (R00237870 and
M535255117), the European Science Foundation and a Philip Leverhulme Prize Fellowship
from the Leverhulme Trust. Duncan Liefferink helped me to set the British story in a much
wider, European perspective!
2 As this chapter is mostly concerned with events in England and, to a lesser extent, Scotland
and Wales, I use the term ‘Britain’ rather than United Kingdom.
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14
Europeanization and convergence
Comparative conclusions
Andrew Jordan and Duncan Liefferink
Introduction
The broad purpose of this book is to go beyond the two very well-known axioms that ‘the
EU matters’ in domestic political life and that its impact is ‘differential’ to document
empirically the patterns of domestic adaptation, and to search for underlying
explanations. In Chapter 1 we identified two main research questions: (1) to document
empirically the Europeanization of ten national environmental policies in the period
1970–2000; and (2) to assess the extent to which Europeanization is causing these ten
national policies to converge.
These two themes—Europeanization and convergence—thread through the remainder
of this chapter, which attempts to offer answers to the two broad questions and look
forward to the next phase of Europeanization research. Sections two and three summarize
the main empirical findings of the country chapters, while section four revisits the
debates described in Chapters 1 and 2 to see if they are capable of providing satisfactory
explanations. Section five examines the overall extent of convergence among the ten
national policy systems. The final section (six) examines what our work offers to those
studying Europeanization and convergence in other sectors.
The Europeanization of national environmental policies
The content of national policies

Table 14.1 summarizes the most significant changes in the content of the ten national
policies which can reliably1 be ascribed to the EU’s influence. When compared to the
baseline summaries in Chapter 3, the single most obvious point it makes is that the EU
has affected some aspect of policy content in all ten states, even the most
environmentally progressive or ‘leader’ states such as Germany, Sweden, Norway and
the Netherlands. As regards policy paradigms, the EU has promoted a more preventative,
source-based approach, which fitted neatly with common practice in countries such as the
Netherlands and Germany, but misfitted with everyday practice in Ireland and the UK for
example.
Table 14.1 Environmental policy content in the ten

countries c. 2000 as compared to c. 1970
Policy Dominant Calibration
goals instrument (s) of
instruments
Austria still source- still mostly little overall
based regulation; some change
NEPIs/procedural
instruments*
Finland increasingly still mostly tighter
source- regulation; some standards
based NEPIs
France increasingly still mostly tighter
source- regulation; standards
based* various NEPIs*
Germany still mainly still mostly little overall
source- regulation; change
based various
NEPIs/procedural
instruments
Ireland more more regulatory; tighter
source- several NEPIs* standards* (but
based implementation
problems)
Netherlands still mainly still mostly little overall
source- regulation; change
based several NEPIs*
Norway still mainly still mostly little overall
source- regulation; some change
based NEPIs
Spain more still mostly significantly
source- regulation; tighter
based various standards*
NEPIs/procedural
instruments
Sweden still mainly still mostly little overall
source- regulation; more change
based* procedural
instruments
UK more mostly tighter
source- regulation; some standards*
based* NEPIs*
Note * most significant change(s) as defined by the
chapter author(s)
A raft of water and air pollution directives dating back to the 1970s have also helped
to bring about a fundamental shift in the goals of national policy. Countries such as the
UK, Finland and France have been forced to adapt their domestic policies, which
Europeanization and convergence 207
contained relatively few explicit emission standards or focused on attaining (in)formal

EQOs. That said, the environmental acquis also contains some EQOs and environmental
quality standards (EQSs), e.g. the directives addressing bathing water, freshwater fish and
shellfish, as well as air quality standards for lead, which have disrupted arrangements in
countries such as Germany and Sweden which have traditionally relied upon emission
limits.
The EU has also introduced entirely new policy instruments in some countries, e.g.
certain types of air quality standard in the Netherlands and the UK among others, as well
as ‘emission bubbles’ and restrictions on the total production of certain chemicals such as
chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs. It has also altered the manner in which existing tools are
applied (e.g. the application of EIA in Sweden). The most disruptive tools have been
mainly procedural in nature, for example the directives on environmental information,
EIA and EMAS. Although these have been fairly comfortably accepted in countries such
as the UK, they misfitted with everyday practice in states such as Sweden, Germany and
Austria, where strong, source-based controls founded on the BAT have traditionally been
the norm. Generally speaking, however, the EU has not had a significant effect on policy
instrument selection at the national level. Instruments mostly remain regulatory in nature,
primarily because the EU’s own policies are disseminated through regulation. While
many states have adopted so-called ‘new’ environmental policy instruments such as eco-
taxes and voluntary agreements, the EU has not been a particularly influential driver
(Jordan et al. 2003). In fact, the EU has, for a variety of reasons, actively prevented some
states (e.g. Austria, Finland and the Netherlands) from implementing new instruments.
Finally, the EU has significantly tightened the level at which these (mostly) regulatory
instruments are formally calibrated. In some countries the degree of change has been
relatively limited (e.g. Norway, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Germany),
whereas in others (namely Ireland and Spain) it has been quite dramatic.
The overall pattern is therefore one of slow and steady adaptation in terms of
paradigms and instruments, with more significant changes in relation to goals and the
setting of instruments. If this seems rather modest, then perhaps it is because of the way
in which we have defined policy content. For instance, the EU has introduced entirely
new policy issues in some countries. The best examples are probably Ireland (waste
management) and Spain (fisheries), although the EU could also be said to have
championed a more formalized and scientifically driven system of biodiversity protection
that is alien to several member states (namely Finland, France, Norway, the UK, Sweden
and Ireland among others). The EU has also forced member states to reorder their
domestic policy priorities. For instance, the EU forced the UK to pay much more
attention to controlling industrial pollution. Similarly, Sweden, Norway and Finland have
had to rethink the way in which they address non-pollution issues such as nature
conservation
Table 14.2 Environmental policy structures in the

ten countries c. 2000 as compared to c. 1970
EU co- Importance Strength of Importance
ordination of national national of the sub-
parliament Environment national
Ministry level
Austria + − ++ −−
some new Länder and
structures ‘social
added partners’
weaker
Finland ++ − + +/−
strengthened
domestically
and in the
EU
France ++ −− + −
new co-
ordination
structures
created;
attempt to
be more
pro-active
Germany ++ +/− + +/−
strengthened
domestically
and in the
EU
Ireland + +/− + +/−
some new more
coordination powerful but
structures still relatively
small
Netherlands ++ − + +/−
strengthened still low growing cf. still low
domestically Foreign
and in the Ministry
EU
Norway ++ − +/− +/−
various new
coordination
structures
Spain ++ +/− ++ +/−
strengthened creation of
domestically Environment
and in the Ministry
EU
Sweden ++ +/− +/− +

strengthened new increased
domestically consultation importance
and in the procedures of technical
EU added agencies
UK + − + −−
existing
structures
strengthened
Scale: ++=significantly more; +slightly more; +/− unchanged;
−slightly less; − −significantly less
and EIA. All these changes—some of which are admittedly highly significant—are not
properly captured by our rather narrow definition of policy.
The structure of national policies

Table 14.2 summarizes the main structural changes in the ten countries which can
reliably2 be ascribed to the EU’s influence. Again, the most obvious point to make is that
the EU has affected some aspect of policy structure in all ten countries, including the
most environmentally progressive states. It is immediately obvious that all ten have
developed new co-ordination mechanisms to cope with EU membership. The degree
and/or suddenness of this change has been greatest in those countries which joined the
EU only very recently (e.g. Sweden and Austria) or had traditionally relied upon a much
less internally co-ordinated approach to negotiating in Brussels (e.g. Germany and the
Netherlands). But the majority have simply adapted their existing internal co-ordination
structures. In fact, recent research suggests that even the most ‘Europeanized’ parts of
state structures, i.e. those co-ordinating EU policy within Brussels (Kassim 2003), retain
their own, distinctive national characteristics.
Similarly, most states have created additional structures to keep their national
parliaments informed and/or involved, but these tend to consist of very slight
modifications of existing practices. This does not necessarily imply that the EU’s
growing involvement has gone entirely unnoticed in national parliaments. On the
contrary, many of the chapters reveal that the increasingly technical nature of
environmental decision making, the speed at which dossiers are moved through the EU
system and the physical remoteness of Brussels and Strasbourg have combined to further
erode their role in environmental decision making. In some countries the
disempowerment of parliamentary scrutiny procedures has provoked serious political
debates that have challenged the legitimacy of the whole EU process.
Our case studies also confirm that Europeanization has helped to further centralize
policy-making responsibilities in the hands of central government departments (e.g. the
UK) and technical agencies (e.g. Sweden) at the expense of sub-national pollution control
bodies and local or regional government (e.g. Germany). Finally, Europeanization has
created new political opportunities for environmental NGOs. The ability to lodge formal
complaints with the Commission against imperfect implementation of EU law has
provided them with a new way in which to ‘fight’ their own national governments. The
bestknown examples are those in which NGOs have sought to use this avenue to stop
building projects in important natural habitats (e.g. in the UK, Spain and the
Netherlands).
As with policy paradigms and policy instruments, the overall pattern is one of slow
and steady adaptation, with very few obvious discontinuities or sudden step changes. The
three most dramatic structural changes to arise from EU membership are probably as
follows. The first is the creation of an integrated Environment Ministry in Spain, and
enlargement and/or creation of technical agencies in the UK, Sweden, France and Spain.
However, in none of these cases was the EU the only motivating factor. The second is the
dramatic Europeanization of national legal structures, although this is also a general
feature of many policy areas, not just the environment. In the case of regulations, the
extent of Europeanization is effectively complete because EU law is automatically and
immediately national law. With directives, the effect is not as immediate, but it is more
sudden than it used to be. In the 1970s and 1980s states such as France, Germany, Ireland
and the UK sought (illegally) to mask the legal effect of the EU by using administrative
devices to transpose EU directives. Third, the Europeanization of national policy making
has undoubtedly increased the workload of most national environmental officials. It is
unclear precisely how much national policy is made in the EU (the figure of 80 per cent
is often quoted). Be that as it may, many national civil servants nowadays spend much
more time on EU affairs than on ‘national’ policy making.
Finally, our study identifies the same overall pattern of winners and losers as that
detected by other analysts. Of the main winners, the most prominent have been national
environmental departments, technical agencies (e.g. France and Sweden) and
environmental pressure groups. In less strongly co-ordinated national governments, the
Europeanization of environmental policy making has strengthened the arm of
environment ministries in inter-departmental conflicts with cognate departments. The
main losers have been national parliaments, foreign ministries (which are no longer
solely responsible for determining the content of national foreign policy), and local and
regional governments.
The style of national policies

National policy styles do not appear to have changed that much under the EU’s influence
(see Table 14.3). On the whole, the dominant style remains consensual rather than
adversarial, but it has become more proactive in some states. However, the latter change
is restricted mainly to some of the environmental ‘leader’ states, such as Germany, the
Netherlands, Sweden and France, which suggests that this is an autonomous trend rather
than an ‘EU effect’. The chapters on Finland and Norway, by contrast, suggest that the
EU’s growing involvement as a national agenda setter has led national policy actors to
behave in a more reactive way. Moreover, the basically reactive style of Spain, Ireland
and the UK has hardly been affected by Europeanization. This pattern is intriguing
because the aim of many EU laws and action programmes is to prevent environmental
problems before they appear. We offer some possible explanations below.
One other anomaly is worthy of note, namely the shift towards a more adversarial
style in states that have traditionally been highly consensual. The two most obvious
examples here are Austria, Sweden and, to a lesser extent, Finland. The explanation
offered by the respective authors is that the deadlines governing EU policy making have
speeded up the domestic policy process, reducing the scope for extensive consultation
with affected interests. Apart from this quite specific
Table 14.3 Environmental policy style in the ten
countries c. 2000 as compared to c. 1970
Active Adversarial
(precautionary) vs vs
reactive (curative) consensual
Austria more more
anticipatory/strategic adversarial
Finland more reactive somewhat
more
adversarial
France more anticipatory more
adversarial
Germany more anticipatory still
consensual
Ireland still reactive still
consensual
Netherlands more anticipatory still
consensual
Norway more reactive still
consensual
Spain still reactive still
consensual
Sweden more anticipatory more
adversarial
UK still reactive still
consensual
change, the overall impact of the EU appears to have been quite limited, or at least is very
difficult to disentangle from other causes of change. These include the post-industrial
demand among national publics for higher environmental standards (all the states to
varying extents), financial pressures (e.g. Austria, Ireland, Germany, Finland), domestic
political change (namely the election of right-wing governments promoting variants of
new public management, e.g. the UK) and the restructuring of domestic economies (e.g.
the rapid development of the tourist industry in Spain or the decline of old, polluting
state-owned industries in the UK).
General patterns of domestic change
Changes in content, structure and style

Table 14.4 offers a very simple summary of the main patterns of Europeanization. It
reveals that the EU’s impact is indeed differential, i.e. it has affected the content of
national policy more deeply than national policy structures and policy style. But Table
14.4 does not reveal the full extent to which the EU’s impact varies across the ten states,
the sub-sectors of environmental policy and even the three dimensions of domestic policy
content. In other words, when looked at systematically, the EU’s impact in this sector is
even more differential than is commonly assumed.
Table 14.4 The overall extent of Europeanization in
the ten countries c. 2000
Policy Policy content Policy
structures style
Austria accommodation accommodation absorption
Finland absorption accommodation absorption
France accommodation/ accommodation absorption
transformation
Germany accommodation accommodation absorption
Ireland accommodation transformation absorption
Netherlands accommodation absorption absorption
Norway accommodation accommodation absorption
Spain accommodation transformation absorption
Sweden accommodation absorption absorption
UK absorption transformation absorption
Thus, the effects of Europeanization are more apparent in relation to policy goals and the
calibration of tools than policy paradigms and the introduction of new policy tools. The
impact on structures has been less dramatic, incremental and mostly path dependent. The
really big ‘machinery of government’ changes—e.g. the creation of new ministries or the
merging of existing ones—have been triggered by domestic and mostly ‘non-
environmental’ political demands. Policy style has not changed significantly, although it
is difficult to disentangle the ‘EU effect’ from other causal factors (see below).
One striking feature of Table 14.4 is that every dimension of national policy has been
Europeanized to some extent. It is telling that there are no examples of inertia (no
change) or retrenchment (negative change). But the fact that inertia does not appear
anywhere in Table 14.4 does not mean that the chapters are entirely devoid of examples.
On closer inspection, there are instances in the case-study chapters of particular states
seeking to hold back the Europeanizing effects of individual directives (e.g. the UK,
France and Ireland in relation to water legislation, wild bird protection and waste
management respectively), but there is no clear evidence that any state systematically
engages in non-implementation to a large enough extent to be picked up by Table 14.4.
Broadly speaking, the same holds for retrenchment: while there are specific instances
(see below), it is not a pattern of change which characterizes whole categories of national
policy. We might tentatively conclude that these two dimensions are of a more transitory
nature and are thus more likely to be picked up by case studies of individual directives
than more comprehensive analyses such as ours.
The first and most obvious explanation for this even more differentiated pattern is that
it reflects the equally differentiated modus operandi of the EU, i.e. the EU primarily
disseminates policy content (and especially goals and targets) not policy structures or a
new policy style. In the language of top-down Europeanization studies, the misfit (and
hence the adaptive pressure) is therefore likely to be greater in relation to content than the
other two categories. The EU has very little power to dictate the structure or the
functioning of national public administrations (Bossaert et al. 2001:3; Goetz 2001:1040),
or directly influence the policy style of a country. Directives (the main instrument of EU
environmental policy) are mainly output-orientated—they specify the ends to be achieved
but not the means of doing so. Another possible explanation might be that changes in the
content of policy are more immediate, and hence visible to the analyst, than changes to
the other sub-categories of policy, i.e. structure and style, which occur over longer
periods of time. Although credible, this argument does not apply as well in a thirty-year
study such as ours.
Moreover, neither of these explanations is capable of fully accounting for the observed
variation within the three categories of national policy, although the EU’s modus
operandi may be an underlying factor. Thus, the EU is a much stronger disseminator of
policy goals and targets than policy instruments and policy paradigms. As regards policy
structures, European integration is ultimately a legal process, enshrined in and
underpinned by written legal texts. Therefore, it is not at all surprising to find that
national legal systems have been especially deeply Europeanized (Alter 2001; Snyder
2001).
Disentangling causal processes

How do we know that these changes are direct manifestations of Europeanization? In
Chapter 3 we said we would try to disentangle Europeanization from other drivers by
using three devices: case selection (i.e. tracking the environmental policy baseline in a
selection of old and new states over time); comparing (‘bottom up’) all the drivers, both
national and international; and exploring the ‘counterfactual’, i.e. what would have
happened without the EU. On balance, they show that Europeanization has probably only
been a weak and indirect cause of the policy convergence reported above.
Taking case selection first, if we look at the member states that joined after 1970, the
poorer states (Spain) joined with weaker environmental policies and even now are still
some way behind the most industrialized states, although the formal, legal content of
their national policies has been heavily Europeanized. In contrast, more industrialized
states such as Finland, Austria and Sweden joined the EU in the 1990s with national
environmental policies that were about the same as or (in some crucial respects) stronger
than the environmental acquis. Meanwhile, Norway is still not formally a member state,
but its policies are very similar to those of the EU. The obvious conclusion to draw is that
domestic socio-economic changes are at least as (and probably more) important than
Europeanization.
The bottom-up analyses conducted by the chapter authors reveal a large number of
‘non-EU’ drivers of domestic change, including domestic economic pressures (Ireland,
Austria, Finland, Germany), new public management (the UK), national party politics
(Austria, Germany and the UK) and long-term industrial transformations (Spain and
Ireland). Interestingly, they also suggest that the EU’s ‘non-environmental’ policies (e.g.
agriculture and transport) have greatly altered national environmental quality. In a way,
this point confirms the danger of treating EU environmental policy as the main driver of
change. One corollary of this is that environmental policy may not be as ideally suited to
a top-down approach as we originally assumed in Chapter 1.
Finally, each chapter provides a slightly different account of the counterfactual
situation, but two themes recur. The first is that national environmental policies would
undoubtedly have been modernized without the EU, but not nearly as quickly, as
uniformly or as comprehensively as they have been with it (see in particular the chapters
on Ireland, the UK, Spain and Germany). Thus, Britain would probably have continued to
emphasize nature conservation measures while seeking to continue externalizing
pollution. Germany, meanwhile, would have concentrated upon maintaining a very
strong, technologically driven approach to pollution control, while downplaying the more
procedural aspects. The second is that national environmental policies would probably
not have been expressed to as great an extent in specific and quantified terms as we see
today. This point is particularly true of the UK and Ireland, but is also relevant to
countries such as Germany and Sweden, which already exhibited these features. We
might conclude that Europeanization has removed the most obvious outliers (e.g. the
UK’s peculiar system) and brought the environmental systems of the economically
peripheral states (namely Ireland and Spain) up to the same level as the states in the more
industrialized north.
Competing models of Europeanization: an empirical evaluation
Competing accounts of domestic change

Having described the main patterns of domestic change associated with EU membership
and offered some intuitively appealing explanations, we now turn to consider how well
they fit the theoretical frameworks outlined in Chapter 1. As the EU is our main
independent variable, one might have expected to find a strong positive correlation
between the length of membership and the depth of Europeanization, i.e. older member
states should be more deeply and extensively Europeanized than newer member states.
Our empirical analysis finds no support for this crude distinction. Some of the oldest
member states have been quite moderately affected (e.g. the Netherlands and Germany),
whereas more recent members (e.g. the Nordic states) have already made significant
domestic adjustments since 1995.
Scholars have therefore developed more nuanced frameworks to account for the
spatial and temporal pattern of domestic change. Although five of these were identified in
Chapter 1, we elected to follow a top-down definition, which regards Europeanization as
a process of domestic change inspired by the EU. How well does this particular
interpretation explain the patterns of change described above? At one level, the misfit
concept does provide a very neat and simple explanation for the patterns described above.
Clearly the UK did misfit with the approach that the EU increasingly adopted in the
1970s and 1980s. It moved into line during the 1980s and 1990s by adapting domestic
policy in ways that amounted to a significant Europeanization of the pre-existing
situation. On the other hand, policy in the Netherlands—the EU’s ‘Mr Average’—was
(and to a large extent remains) congruent with EU practices. Consequently, the
Europeanization of national policy has been correspondingly low. With some caveats, the
same is generally true of Germany, Sweden, Norway and Austria.
However, one problem associated with the misfit concept is that it can easily be used
too mechanically. Some have claimed that there may in fact not always be ‘a coherent,
rational layer of “EU decisions” from which Europeanization descends’ (Radaelli
2003:31). This is, at least potentially, a fundamental problem: if there is no clear ‘top’,
then top-down models are obviously inappropriate. Our case selection is helpful here
because in Chapter 1 we identified the environment as being an inherently ‘top-down’
policy sector, comprising clear legal rules. Our empirical evidence suggests that this
assumption may now need to be rethought because, although the EU specifies minimum
standards which states are free, by and large, to exceed, it does not normally require
every state to take exactly the same implementing steps or achieve the same
environmental outcomes. Typically, directives contain myriad ‘escape devices’
(Rehbinder and Stewart 1985:255), e.g. the designation of improvement zones or
protection sites, which states can use to fine-tune the EU’s requirements to their national
circumstances. It is also common practice among states to reinforce this feature by
attaching unpublished ‘minute statements’ to policies adopted in the Environment
Council (The Economist, 16 September 1995:59). So, one way or another, EU
environmental policy is highly differentiated well before it is implemented
(differentially!) at the national level (Krämer 2000). It is very difficult to square this with
a rigid, top-down model of Europeanization.
In addition, simple top-down models also do not adequately explain the precise timing
and patterns of domestic change described above, or the preemptive tactics employed by
different actors to achieve them. It is also not obvious that there has to be a misfit to
generate domestic change. For example, in the Netherlands, we often see national policy
developing at the same time as, but separate from, EU policy. This is logically consistent
with top-down models, but softer forms of policy transfer or ‘benchmarking’ between
states are not (i.e. definition 5, Chapter 1). Good examples of the importance of the latter
are to be found in relation to NEPIs or during the initial development of a policy area,
when the EU’s competence is still contested. For these and many other reasons (e.g. the
‘inside out’ impact of states on the EU—see below), it is very hard to stick rigidly to a
top-down definition and ‘bracket off’ other influences. Although the misfit concept
provides a very crude predictor of domestic change, other factors need to be considered.
Additional intervening variables

In Chapter 1 we identified a number of intervening variables that could also be
considered. The first was the number of veto points. The implication here is that the
higher the number of veto points, the less likely domestic adaptation is to occur. Our
cases (see Table 14.4), however, reveal no consistent difference between federal states
with more veto points and more unitary states with fewer veto points. There also appears
to be no consistent link between the depth of Europeanization and another potential
variable—the degree of domestic societal support for European integration: there are
deeply Europeanized states that take a minimalist view of integration (e.g. the UK) and
those that are much more supportive (e.g. Ireland). At first sight, a far better predictor of
national change is the level of domestic political support for environmental protection.
Thus the most Europeanized states in Table 14.4 (namely Spain, Ireland and the UK)
have generally exhibited lower than average levels of political support. On the other
hand, leader’ states with more environmentally demanding publics such as Germany,
Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria have been far less Europeanized across all three
domains of policy
There are, however, two potential dangers in pursuing this line of argument. The first
is that, although the level of environmental ambition is negatively correlated with the
depth of Europeanization, one has still to explain the differential Europeanization of the
three components of national policy (or, indeed, the variations within any one
component, e.g. policy content). Second, and more important, a given level of
environmental ambition may be auto-correlated with the level of misfit (i.e. more
environmentally progressive societies tend to have more progressive environmental
policies).
Another potentially important intervening variable is the presence of ‘norm
changers’—that is actors who are sufficiently well motivated and resourced to exploit
misfits. At this point, it becomes very difficult to identify a priori the precise conditions
under which a misfit will produce domestic change. Much depends on what is being
Europeanized. Clearly, some changes (e.g. the amendment of national legal structures)
are fairly straightforward to make or generate additional benefits (e.g. the improvement
of internal co-ordination arrangements). Others (e.g. the wholesale reorganization of
national permitting systems, the retrofitting of power stations or the construction of new
water treatment facilities) require much greater spending and are thus much less likely to
occur without sustained political pressure. This explains why the EU appears to have
succeeded rather better at Europeanizing (i.e. harmonizing) national legal systems than
national polities or policy outcomes.
Norm changers do not simply exploit an objective misfit; they may in effect also
socially create them by complaining to the Commission about non-implementation, or
exerting political pressure on it to adopt more ambitious rules in the first place.
Environmental pressure groups in the UK have done this to spectacular effect, and to a
much lesser extent in Spain and Ireland. Interestingly, ‘progressive’ industries that have a
competitive interest in pushing strict environmental policies may also play this role (so-
called ‘helper interests’, cf. von Prittwitz 1990). However, there must also be
personalities in EU institutions willing to respond to these demands. Often, unless and
until the Commission’s infringement procedure is triggered, ‘paper’ misfits will not
translate into domestic change.
Domestication as a proactive strategy

Another criticism levelled at top-down models is that they overlook the two-way
interaction that occurs between states and the EU. This criticism is commonly voiced by
those who prefer a more recursive, two-way view of Europeanization (e.g. Bomberg and
Peterson 2000:8). At a very general level, the case studies suggest that all ten states are
engaged in a regulatory competition to set (or ‘domesticate’) the European ‘rules of the
game’ by uploading national models (see Chapter 1). Every single chapter provides
compelling examples of when a state or group of states has sought to upload aspects of
policy content to the EU. The Netherlands has been conspicuously concerned with
promoting long-term strategic planning, environmental impact assessment and ‘good

governance’; Germany in particular has sought to promote uniform emission limits and
the use of BAT, as well as measures to reduce car pollution. Still other states have tried to
upload generic issues rather than specific approaches, for example chemicals (Sweden),
transport (Austria) and water supply concerns (Spain). Finally, deeply Europeanized
states (i.e. Spain and Ireland) have not consistently uploaded anything, although Ireland
has long-standing reservations about nuclear power (especially in the UK), and Spain has
successfully argued for EU cohesion funding (i.e. a subsidy for fitting domestic pollution
control facilities).
These uploading activities are so strongly patterned across our ten cases that it is
possible to construct a very crude typology of the main types. Figure 14.1 relates the
degree of proactivity to the level of domestic change. It suggests that the countries that
have been most deeply engaged in uploading policies to Brussels are also those that are
the least Europeanized. Simplifying greatly, the well-known ‘pioneers’ in our sample (i.e.
Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden) have had to adapt the least, whereas some
aspects of policy in Spain and Ireland have been completely transformed by EU
membership. These two groups could be crudely labelled as policy ‘shapers’ and policy
‘takers’. The UK originally also belonged to the group of heavily Europeanized policy
‘takers’ but started to adopt a more active stance in EU environmental policy from the
1990s. An intermediate grouping of states comprising France, Finland and Austria has
consistently neither ‘shaped’ nor ‘taken’ EU policy since joining. Norway can
EU policy EU policy
taker maker
weakly Austria, Netherlands,
Europeanised France, Germany,
Finland, Sweden
Norway
strongly Ireland, Spain UK
Europeanised
Figure 14.1 Patterns of domestic

action and domestic impact c. 2000
also be placed in this category because, as a non-member of the EU, it has never fully
been in the formal position to ‘shape’ EU policy. It has nevertheless been able to limit the
impact of the EU on national environmental policy as compared to policy ‘takers’.
In Chapter 1 we identified some of the more conceptual disadvantages of relying on a
recursive definition of Europeanization. Our empirical research suggests several more.
First, Figure 14.1 does not necessarily imply that there is a direct causal link between the
desire to upload and the depth of domestic adjustment. With the exception of the UK’s
shift from the late 1980s, countries do not decide to invest in uploading simply in order to
limit the degree of Europeanization. There are many variables intervening in this process
(see above). To mention just a few: a generally positive attitude towards European
integration is likely to increase the willingness to put considerable effort into uploading
(or ‘constructive pushing’, see Liefferink and Andersen 1998, e.g. Germany, the
Netherlands), whereas a high public and political profile of environmental issues ‘at
home’ may have a similar effect (e.g. Sweden and the UK since the late 1980s). On the
other hand, those countries that generally regard European integration as a force for
national good are more likely passively to ‘take’ environmental policies suggested by the
EU (the Mediterranean countries, Ireland and, to a lesser extent, Finland). Figure 14.1
thus shows an end effect rather than a direct causal relationship.
Second, although the flow of influence may well be recursive, analysts must account
for the enduring patterns of uploading and downloading to avoid it becoming an empty
truism. For instance, states appear to be good at shaping certain aspects of EU policy
while passively taking other aspects. The UK chapter, for example, shows that it has
actively exported proposals to improve European governance (better implementation,
greater integration, etc.), while at the same time passively accepting others (e.g. local air
quality directives and some of the more recent waste directives) but implementing them
very actively. Similarly, the two Nordic member states in our sample have passively
accepted much of the environmental acquis, while actively uploading policies associated
with chemicals, transparency and sustainability.
Third, it is obvious from the chapters that there are directives which have provoked
significant national adaptations in all countries, including those that originally
championed them, e.g. the Drinking and Bathing Water Directives, the Nitrates Directive,
and the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives. This suggests that there are some directives
that misfit with all national policies, in spite of the repeated attempts to domesticate them,
i.e. the dominant flow of influence is top down. Moreover, proaction may, on occasions,
generate unintended consequences. The case studies are replete with examples of an
uploaded policy ‘backfiring’ and causing much more domestic change than the original
champion intended. The best examples are the UK (IPPC), the Netherlands (nature
conservation) and Germany (various air pollution directives). Therefore, the misfit
concept may not be applicable in all cases but it is applicable enough to be worth
retaining.
Finally, recursive models struggle to explain why the pattern of ‘taking’ or ‘shaping’
varies over time. The UK is a good example of a ‘taker’ that has transformed itself into
much more of a ‘maker’. Germany, on the other hand, has shifted in the other direction,
‘making’ important areas of EU policy in the 1980s, only then to lapse into a more
passive period of ‘taking’ in the 1990s. The chapter authors analyse the precise reasons
for these changes, but the most important overall point is that they cannot be understood
simply as a response to ‘outside pressures’ from the EU or ‘inside out’ pressure exerted
by states on the EU (e.g. by uploading successful national policies). Rather, they
demonstrate the intricate interrelationships between European integration and
Europeanization.
Domestic policy change: convergence, divergence or resilience?
General patterns
Having mapped out the overall pattern of Europeanization in the ten countries, we are
now in a better position to determine how far these national-level adaptations have
produced (or are producing) a common European ‘model’ of policy It is worth stating at
the outset that the initial perception that national policy systems were very different but
have become more similar under the influence of the EU is not borne out by the policy
baselines described in Chapter 3. On the contrary, there was already a great deal of
similarity in 1970, especially with regard to the content and style of national policy.
Thirty years later, state policies have not converged upon a single, European ‘model’ of
policy, but neither have they stood still.
These very general observations notwithstanding, the precise level of change can only
realistically be measured by looking at the three elements of policy-structure, content and
style—one at a time, as some appear to have converged more than others. Broadly
speaking, content has converged slightly more than style and structure, but none has
converged strongly. The approach to national policy has become more preventative, at
least in a number of countries, but this is not entirely due to the EU. The main goals are
more likely to be expressed in terms of source-based emission limits, which can be
reliably attributed to Europeanization (see above). Also, the national legal structures of
the ten are more similar than they were in 1970, largely because of the EU’s influence.
However, policy styles continue to differ. In fact, it is striking that several states actually
replicate their domestic policy style when they negotiate in Brussels with EU institutions
(see, for example, the chapters on the UK, the Netherlands and Germany).
There are also instances where the EU has produced greater divergence (i.e.
retrenchment) by encouraging states to stress the uniqueness of their national approach.
The UK, for instance, developed its assimilative policy ‘paradigm’ when challenged by
the Commission to adopt a more harmonized approach. The same could be said of
chemicals policy in Sweden. Finally, by stressing the intellectual coherence or
uniqueness of their domestic approaches, some countries have sought to make them more
uploadable (e.g. Germany post-1982).
Mechanisms of convergence
In Chapter 2 we examined different variants of the new institutionalism to ascertain how
well they could account for these patterns and found them to be wanting in several
important respects. In order to pinpoint the possible mechanisms of EU-induced
convergence, we instead turned to Colin Bennett’s four mechanisms of convergence.
First, we can see that harmonization indeed plays an important role across our ten cases,
but mainly in relation to the content of national policy. The influence of the EU,
moreover, appears to be restricted to the more concrete aspects of policy content, i.e. the
choice of policy instruments and particularly the setting of those instruments. Individual
directives and regulations, by their binding and often detailed character, pushed national
policies in similar directions in their specific operational fields. In spite of frequent
instances of poor implementation ‘on the ground’, this effect is certainly impressive—and
larger than any other international regime has so far accomplished. But this ‘top-down’
harmonizing effect has not prevented individual states from innovating with non-
legislative instruments such as voluntary agreements and market-based instruments, as
the EU competence in these areas is either weak or still poorly defined (Mol et al. 2000;
Jordan et al. 2003). The EU’s massive harmonization of specific policies, moreover, has
failed to have a significant indirect effect on the fundamental goals and principles of
national environmental policies. In fact, underlying paradigms of national environmental
policy appear to have remained remarkably stable over the last thirty years. This suggests
a more limited role for other mechanisms such as emulation and elite networking (but see
below).
With regard to national policy structures and styles, a specific sort of penetration
appears to be the main mechanism at play. Our cases show that, in various ways and to
various degrees, national institutions and styles have adapted to the way decisions are
made in Brussels. For instance, in order to work more effectively in the Environment
Council, states have strengthened their environment ministries by creating co-ordination
units, instituting training programmes and developing new, more EU-focused, working
practices. At the same time, the influence of national parliaments and sub-national levels
has diminished and opportunities for NGOs have increased. In some cases, this
adaptation may have been the result of a conscious effort, e.g. the creation of an
environment ministry (e.g. Spain) or new interdepartmental co-ordination mechanisms. In
other cases, the effect may rather have been unintended—and perhaps undesired. The
disempowerment of national parliaments and the interference with traditional consensus
mechanisms in some countries, in particular, appears to be the unintended consequence of
complicated procedures, tight deadlines and the relatively technocratic style of policy
making in Brussels. This combination makes it very difficult for actors outside a well-
informed and well-resourced ‘in crowd’ to become consistently and deeply engaged in
EU-related issues. What is at stake here is not the harmonization of national rules. If
Bennett describes penetration in general as states being ‘forced to conform to actions
taken elsewhere by external actors’ (Bennett 1991:227), what we have observed may
perhaps be characterized as procedural penetration, i.e. the need for states (or actors
operating at the member-state level more generally) to conform to procedures followed
elsewhere.
In our cases, the two remaining mechanisms in Bennett’s scheme, emulation and elite
networking, appear to be of limited importance. Long before the EU’s involvement,
learning from foreign examples must have played a role in the diffusion of various types
of policy instruments over Europe and in the establishment and organization of
environment ministries. Within the context of the EU, however, little impact of emulation
and elite networking could be demonstrated in the dissemination of fundamental ideas
and conceptions of environmental policy, an area where policy learning is often assumed
to be particularly relevant (e.g. Rose 1991). With its frequent interaction between policy
makers also on strategic issues, the EU is in principle well equipped for accommodating
such learning processes. The successive Environmental Action Programmes, in
particular, have promoted a preventative approach to environmental policy, increasingly
inspired by ideas of ecological modernization (Weale 1993). Nevertheless, the impact of
this has been limited mainly to member states that were susceptible to these ideas
anyway. As far as emulation and elite networking across national borders have been
instrumental in preparing the ground in these countries, moreover, the impact of the EU
inextricably mixes with that of learning from geographically or politically ‘neighbouring’
countries directly or in the context of other international organizations, such as the UN
(and the Brundtland report), the OECD, etc. This suggests that the sociological
institutionalist idea that cultural norms diffuse transnationally is by no means obvious. At
the same time, it does not exclude the possibility that emulation and elite networking may
play a role at a more specific level, for instance with regard to the organizational
implementation of certain directives (Zito 2000).
Different yardsticks of convergence

Much, however, depends upon how we choose to define ‘policy’. In this book we have
mostly been concerned with the content of national policies (i.e. that which is written
down in legal texts) as well as the administrative structures and styles of policy. Our
cases do not offer a detailed exploration of how far structure and content have affected
policy outputs (i.e. the sub-national interpretation and implementation of EU laws) and
barely consider policy outcomes (i.e. the actual changes in environmental quality brought
about by the EU’s interventions). In terms of outputs, we noted above that differentiation
is built into the fabric of EU environmental directives. Thus, it is common to find that
something as apparently simple as a term like ‘BATNEEC’, which is supposed to
harmonize national practices, is interpreted very differently (Weale et al. 2000:451).
Furthermore, the Commission’s ability to ensure that states actually implement these
‘fine-tuned’ requirements in their own domestic territories is surprisingly weak, thus
further diluting any Europeanizing pressure emanating from the EU (Jordan 2002).
But if we move on to assess long-term policy outcomes, it is even harder to detect any
consistent policy convergence. The chapters clearly reveal that, even when states adopt
the same directive, it is often implemented very differently. Non-implementation
provides one explanation for why the content of national policy in states such as Ireland
and Spain has been transformed by the EU but their overall environmental performance
remains comparatively weak. Irrespective of whether differential implementation is legal
or not, it is almost certainly one of the reasons why levels of environmental quality in the
EU are not converging strongly (Neumayer 2001). Moreover, for all its complexity and
impressive scope, EU environmental policy does not appear to have produced (at least
yet) a strong societal demand for high levels of environmental quality in each and every
member state. One of the main conclusions of the chapters on Spain and Ireland was that
the domestic political demand for environmental parity with the more industrialized parts
of the EU (as expressed through public opinion surveys and votes for green parties)
remains comparatively weak in spite of the Europeanization of national policy.
These findings raise an important question: if we do not find ‘deep’ Europeanization
and secular convergence in the environmental sector (which is relatively top down and
has evolved over three decades), in what other policy area are we likely to find it?
Monetary and internal market policy are strong candidates, but in the absence of
comprehensive assessments of Europeanization in other EU policy sectors it is very
difficult to make comparisons.
Looking to the future

The purpose of this concluding section is to summarize our main findings, analyse the
utility of the theoretical frameworks described in Chapter 1, and look forward to the next
phase of research on comparative environmental policy in the EU. In response to the first
question posed in Chapter 1, our main finding is that each and every state has been
Europeanized to some extent. The EU has affected domestic environmental politics,
policies and administrative structures, often in profound and long-lasting ways. Even
those states with long-established and environmentally ambitious policies have been
forced to adjust their domestic practices so that they align more closely with EU policies.
This is an important finding in itself, as there is a common perception that a core of
northern, highly industrialized member states, namely Germany, the Netherlands and
Denmark (supported, on occasions, by Sweden, Finland and Austria), form the political
powerhouse of EU environmental policy making. It is sometimes assumed that this core
group successfully disrupts settled patterns of policy development in the less
industrialized and geographically peripheral parts of Europe (namely Ireland, Spain and
Portugal) but is itself untouched by the EU’s influence.
Our empirical research confirms that the EU’s impact is indeed differential. But, if
anything, it suggests that the level of differentiation is even higher than that uncovered by
second-generation Europeanization studies (see Chapter 1). In particular, there are
significant variations across the ten countries, the various sub-sectors of environmental
policy, and even the three dimensions of national policy. These patterns have partly
arisen because states began from different starting positions, and also because states have
been unevenly successful at shaping EU policy in their own image. They can also be
attributed to the way in which the EU works (as a disseminator of policy goals and
targets, not styles and structures).
Our response to the second question is that a systematic comparison of state policies in
1970 and 2000 at best finds evidence of very modest convergence. The EU’s contribution
to this secular process of change is actually quite small as compared to other causal
processes such as domestic industrial and societal change. Its greatest contribution has
been to add sharpness and a greater sense of urgency to the policy convergence that
would have occurred anyway. This finding resonates more strongly with theories of
divergence than those predicting strong or sustained convergence. States have not, as
some sociological institutional theories suggest, responded automatically to a new set of
cultural norms forming at the EU level. Rather, national policies appear to be deeply
rooted in history, changing only very slowly in response to external pressures. It is
probably impossible to determine precisely whether weak convergent pressure from the
EU or the resilience of national institutional forms is the dominant causal factor.
Europeanization is undoubtedly a fashionable term, but (Olsen 2002:937) ‘is it
useful?’ Our response is emphatically ‘yes, it is’. Even though the EU has not completely
overturned domestic structures and policy styles, its influence has nonetheless been
highly significant in a relatively short period of time. National politics (as distinct from
policy) has been significantly transformed by EU membership and to that extent cannot
be properly understood outside of an EU frame of reference. Second, there are many
instances where the EU has directly affected national policy These provide fairly clear-
cut symptoms of Europeanization at the national level (and particularly with respect to
the content of national policy), and their timing and distribution deserve to be
documented empirically, not least because they often provide an important trigger for
national policy and politics. The two-way interaction between the national and the
European spheres was generally overlooked by the three streams of research that gave
rise to the Europeanization ‘turn’ in EU studies (see Chapter 1). Europeanization scholars
are now well placed to inform future work on European integration, implementation and
domestic politics respectively
If Europeanization offers a new and valuable perspective on the EU, which of the five
perspectives described in Chapter 1 holds the most promise? The first point to make is
that many of the models were developed on the basis of quite narrowly defined case
studies. Although we chose to adopt a top-down view of Europeanization, our rather
more comprehensive empirical assessment has identified flaws in all five approaches. It
has also raised a series of more general questions about the assessment of causality and
the measurement of political change which are shared by most if not all areas of social
sciences. We originally suggested that it was more meaningful to restrict the term
‘Europeanization’ to national adaptations to EU requirements. However, our empirical
analysis demonstrates that it may not even be as ideally suited to a strongly regulatory
policy area such as the environment as was first thought. Moreover, the empirical reality
described in the case-study chapters is very hard to explain by bracketing off the ‘inside
out’ impact of states on the EU. To the extent that states use the EU to upload their
preferred policies (and thereby circumvent Europeanization), the EU is at best only an
intervening variable.
We discovered that the level of ‘fit’ or ‘misfit’ between the EU and national policies
provides a simple predictor of Europeanization. However, conscious human agency also
plays an important part in modulating the long-term impact of any misfit. The most
obvious action a state can take to circumvent misfits is to upload policies of its own to the
EU. The UK has employed this strategy to particularly good effect since the early 1990s.
However, the relationship between the depth of Europeanization and the eagerness to
‘shape’ (rather than ‘take’) EU rules is not at all clear-cut (Figure 14.1). There are, for
instance, deeply Europeanized states such as Spain and Ireland that continue to ‘take’
policy from the EU, i.e. they show little willingness to circumvent Europeanization by
uploading national policy models to the EU. At the same time, there are very weakly
Europeanized states such as the Netherlands and Sweden that continue to pursue a highly
proactive environmental stance in the EU.
There are two obvious directions in which work on Europeanization and convergence
might now travel. The first is to pursue more detailed comparative work. Much more can
be learnt from describing and explaining the patterns of Europeanization in other, non-
environmental sectors, where the empirical base is not as well developed. Such research
might explore how far the depth of Europeanization in various sectors can be related to
the length of the EU’s involvement (i.e. is it less significant in policy areas where the
EU’s competence is less well or more recently developed?), or the mode of the EU’s
action (i.e. positive or negative integration?).
The second is to be less parochial and undertake more comparisons with states lying
outside the EU. At the moment, it is difficult to make relative statements about the depth
of Europeanization or the extent of convergence because we know so little about similar
processes in comparable political contexts. There is certainly plenty of policy resilience
to be found in much more federated political systems such as the US and Canada
(Scheberle 1997; Harrison 1996), Australia (Holland et al. 1996) and Germany (Rose-
Ackermann 1995), in which case it may be unrealistic to expect deep Europeanization
and significant convergence in such a new and partially formed political system as the
EU. More comparative studies may also help to disentangle the EU’s impact from other
causes. The main problem here is that there are probably only a very small number of
countries that are sufficiently similar to EU member states (e.g. Australia or New
Zealand) to permit good comparative work. We have shown that Norway provides a
highly revealing test case, but it is not entirely unproblematic.
Finally, Europeanization research is worth pursuing because it could eventually shed
new light on the old debate about European integration. The rivalry between inter-
governmentalists and their critics reached an impasse in the late 1990s (Jordan 2001),
since when other organizing perspectives such as (multilevel) governance have come to
the fore. By studying Europeanization, it may be possible to better understand the extent
to which states actually achieve their objectives in the EU. One of the most striking
findings of the chapters assembled in this book is that for many states (and not just the
weakly co-ordinated policy ‘takers’) Europeanization has been an unpredictable and at
times disruptive process. This casts serious doubt on the inter-governmentalist claim that
states are remote from, and largely in firm control of, the integration process. Our
detailed study of the long-term domestic consequences of European integration—i.e.
Europeanization—powerfully reveals that this claim attributes to states far more
autonomy and control than the evidence warrants.
Notes
1 We critically examine the basis of this assumption more fully below.
2 We critically examine the basis of this assumption more fully below.
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Zito, A. (2000) Making European Environmental Policy, Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Index
absorption 8, 230–2
access to environmental information 49, 51, 61, 104, 113
accommodation 8
acidification policy in the EU 100–1, 192
Amsterdam Treaty 53, 68;
and qualified majority voting 27;
and sustainable development 53;
IGC of 190
Australia 244
Austria 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 47 ff, 155, 224 ff;
and nuclear power 54;
and transit traffic 54, 236;
attitudes to the environment 48–9;
attitudes to Europe 48;
content of national policy 50–5;
entry into to the EU 47, 48;
environment ministry 56, 79;
local government 57, 60;
parliament of 57;
role of the ‘social partners’ 47, 56, 58;
structures of national policy 55;
style of national policy 58
Auto-Oil programme 111
backfiring 238
baseline (conditions) see policy baseline
BAT (best available technologies):
see best available technologies
Bathing Water Directive 86, 106, 124, 175, 194, 197, 213, 226, 238
benchmarking:
see policy transfer
Bennett, C. 16, 25 ff, 239–41
best available technologies (BAT) 37, 69, 86, 101, 103, 104, 109, 193, 211, 236, 241;
see also precaution;
see also emis sion limits
better law making:
see subsidiarity
biodiversity 87;
policy 70, 84, 87, 193, 212;
see also Birds Directive;
see also Habitats Directive
Birds Directive 84, 107, 123, 126, 140, 141, 176, 197, 238;
Index 227
see also Natura 2000

Britain 205, 221–2;
see also United Kingdom
calibration of policy instruments 38, 226;

see also Europeanization;
see also policy instruments
Canada 244
CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) 120, 127
carbon energy tax:
EU proposal for a common 70, 61
Cardiff process, the 53, 61, 108, 213;
see also environmental policy integration
chemicals policy:
in Sweden 189, 193, 200, 199, 201, 236;
in the EU 182, 200, 201;
in the UK 213;
REACH process 192;
climate change policy 49, 129
cohesion funding 127, 173, 181, 186
convergence:
see policy convergence
COREPER (committee of permanent representatives) 72, 126
counterfactual analysis 34, 62, 114, 132, 168, 186, 219, 232–3
Dangerous Substances Directive 103, 211;

Anglo-German dispute over 103
Denmark 66, 103, 147, 159, 219;
see also green troika
dependent variable 34
desertification 177;
in Spain 177
DG Environment:
see European Commission
Directives (EU):
essential characteristics of 20, 232
divergence:
see policy convergence
domestic change:
measures of 8
domestication:
of the EU 10, 21, 177, 236, 238
Drinking Water Directive 87, 124, 213, 238
ecolabels 105, 112, 213

ecological modernisation 103, 121, 131, 240
ecological tax reform 70, 105
eco-taxes 52, 70, 78, 87, 105, 122, 156, 160, 176, 210, 226;
EEA (European Economic Area) 72, 154–68, 191
EFTA (European Free Trade Association) 48, 155;
Index 228
standing committee of 157;

Surveillance Authority 160
EIA (environmental impact assessment) 49, 51, 53, 61, 69, 78, 86, 87, 104, 107, 129, 139, 177,
193–94, 213, 226, 236
elite networking 25, 26, 240
EMAS (environmental management and auditing system) 51, 53, 61, 69, 105, 178, 213, 226
emission bubbles 226
emission limits 103, 37, 210, 226;
see also BAT
emissions trading 52, 75, 77, 105;
EU proposal 77, 111;
also tradable permits 52
EMU (economic and monetary union) 64, 68, 190, 207
emulation 25, 26, 240
end of life vehicles (Directive) 51, 52;
nego tiation of 110
enlargement (of the EU) 49, 51, 55, 103, 132, 172, 186;
1995 enlargement 103, 174, 189
Environmental Action Programmes (of the EU) 92, 187, 240;
First 35, 103;
Fifth 87, 138, 140, 141, 148, 160;
Sixth 140, 141,200
environment ministries (national) 40, 66, 73, 79, 85, 88, 108, 125, 143, 162, 179–80, 195, 227;
and foreign environmental policy 41
environmental policy integration (EPI) 33, 53, 68, 108, 129, 144, 192, 213;
see also Cardiff process
environmental quality objectives (EQO) 38, 103, 193, 211, 226
environmental quality standards (EQS) 121
epistemic communities 26
environmental policy (of the EU):
as a process of regulatory competition 10, 21, 138–9;
as a patchwork 21;
definition(s) of 33;
expert committees (comitology) 26;
implementation of 3, 4, 20, 57, 50, 61, 81, 109, 123, 125, 148, 185, 213;
modes of national influence 6;
see also green troika;
EU (European Union) policy style 23
European Commission xiii–iv, 10, 69, 78, 23, 100, 123, 125, 130, 144, 148, 157, 180, 186, 219;
DG Environment 69, 77, 104, 113, 216;
Environment Commissioner 113
European Council 21
European Court of Justice (ECJ) 27, 51, 91, 106, 109, 139, 142, 150, 197, 214
European Environment Agency 213
European Parliament xiv, 69, 106, 128, 144
Europeanization 1, 2, 224 ff;
and national policy convergence 2, 4, 5, 16 ff, 28, 232, 238–41, 242;
and policy transfer 6, 234;
as European integration 6, 243;
as a two-way (recursive) process 6, 201, 236–7;
definition of 1, 5;
degrees of 8;
Index 229
different approaches to understanding 5–6;

differential impacts on member states 5, 18, 22, 24, 224, 230, 234;
existing literature on 4, 5, 6–7;
main winners and losers created by 229;
measurement of 2, 35;
need for more empirical research 1, 224;
new directions in research 244;
of legal structures 229, 232;
of national parliamentary systems 228;
of policy goals 225–6;
of policy instruments 226;
of policy paradigms 224;
of policy structures 227, 228–9, 21, 242;
of policy styles 229–30;
phases of research 4;
relationship with European integration 243–4, 238;
top down models of 1, 4, 6, 9, 232, 233, 234, 243;
see also intervening variable;
see also norm changers;
see also policy maker;
see also policy shaper;
see also veto points;
Finland 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 50, 64 ff, 155, 224 ff;
attitudes to the environment 66–7;
content of national environmental
policy 69;
entry to the EU 64, 67;
local government 76;
national environment ministry 73, 74, 75;
national referendum on EU membership 65;
role of national parliament 74;
structure of national environmental policy 72;
style of national environmental policy 76
fisheries 226
framework directives 140;
see also Water Framework Directive;
see also Directives (EU)
France 237, 40, 41, 42, 43, 81 ff, 224 ff;
as a typical unitary state 94;
attitude to the environment 82;
Charles de Gaulle 81–2;
content of national environmental policy 84 ff;
Fifth Republic in 81, 83;
national environment ministry 85, 88;
national parliament 83;
regional water agencies 85, 90;
structure of national environmental policy 88 ff;
style of national environmental policy 92 ff
Index 230
Friends of the Earth 208
Germany 2, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 99 ff, 147, 205, 219, 224 ff;
1988 EU Presidency 104;
1999 EU presidency 100;
as an environmental leader in the EU 112, 100–1;
attitudes to the environment 100;
national environment ministry 108;
policy of ‘self restraint’ 99;
Red-Green political coalition 102;
structures of national environmental policy 107 ff;
style of national environmental policy 111 ff;
sub-national government 108, 109;
unification (post 1989) 112, 100;
GMOs (genetically modified organisms) 62, 93, 208
goodness of fit 7, 9, 10;
see also policy misfit
Greece 172, 219
green ‘troika’ (in the EU) 147, 174, 242
Greenpeace 128, 184, 208
Habitats Directive 84, 93, 107, 123, 126, 139, 140, 141, 178, 186, 197, 238;
see also Natura 2000
harmonisation 25, 26, 27, 239
helper interests:
see norm changers
historical institutionalism 18 ff; 25
Iceland 50, 157, 159

IMPEL (implementation and enforcement of environmental law (network)) 27, 91, 140, 213
independent variable 33, 233
inertia 8, 231
institutional fusion 22
intergovernmentalism 244;
see also Moravcsik, A.
intervening variables 9, 11, 235, 237, 243
IPC (integrated pollution control) 78;
see also IPPC
IPPC (integrated pollution prevention and control) (EU Directive on) 69, 104, 122, 211, 238;
see also IPC
Ireland 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 103, 118 ff; 219, 224 ff;
accession to the EU 118, 119;
as a policy taker in the EU 119, 120;
attitude to Europe 119;
British influences on 119, 121;
Index 231
Celtic Tiger economy 125;

content of national environmental policy 121;
national environment ministry 125 national parliament 126;
rapid economic development of 119, 125;
sub-national government 126–7;
isomorphism 17
Johannesburg conference (on sustainable development) 7, 21
land use planning policy 212;

see also EIA;
see also SEA
large combustion plant directive 106, 139, 142, 178, 186, 213
leader states 235;
see also pioneers
lesson drawing 26, 27;
see also emulation
Maastricht Treaty 82, 109, 136, 173

misfit:
see policy misfit
Monnet, Jean 81
Moravcsik, A. 3, 23
multilevel governance 201
national environmental policy definition of 34;

see also policy baselines
national veto 18
Natura 2000 70, 178, 193;
see also biodiversity
nature conservation 175, 238;
see also biodiversity
Netherlands 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 103, 136 ff; 176, 205, 224 ff;
as an environmental ‘pioneer’ 137;
national environmental policy plans 138;
tradition of long term planning 149;
new environmental policy instruments 176, 212, 225, 234;
see also ecotaxes;
see also emissions trading;
see also volun tary agreements
New Zealand 244
Index 232
Nice Summit (2001) 82

Nitrates Directive 139, 123, 147, 238
norm changers 10, 235
northern dimension (of EU affairs) 72, 75
Norway 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 50, 154 ff, 224 ff;
and the EEA veto 158;
atti tudes to Europe 154;
conflict with EFTA 160;
referenda on EU membership 154;
role of EFTA membership 157;
support for sustainable development 160;
transitional agreements with the EEA 161
nuclear energy 51, 54, 113, 119, 236
ozone depletion 213, 218
packaging waste policy 9, 122, 125, 140, 213

Paris summit 3, 83
penetration 26, 240;
see also procedural penetration
pioneer states 236
policy baseline(s) 3, 5, 32 ff
policy content of 1, 20 ff; 36 ff, 224–8
policy definition of 1,241
policy communities 26, 24
policy convergence 2, 15 ff, 224 ff;
and Europeanization 2, 3;
and homogenization 3, 238–9;
divergence 17 ff, 239;
mechanisms of 16, 25 ff, 230–41;
theories of 17;
policy goals 36, 225–6;
see also Europeanization
policy instruments 36, 38, 77, 226;
calibration of 36, 38;
policy (mis)fit 4, 7, 9, 21, 191, 194, 205, 207, 232, 243;
problems with the concept of 10–1, 234, 243
policy networks 130;
at the national level 130;
in the EU 23–4;
policy outcomes 19, 241
policy outputs 241;
policy paradigms 36, 224;
policy shaper(s) 11, 154, 194–5, 205, 236, 243
Index 233
policy structures of 2, 21 ff; 38 ff;

policy style of 2, 23 ff, 42 ff;
policy taker(s) 11, 21, 119, 154, 194–5, 205, 236, 243
policy transfer 6, 19, 234
policy voids 3
polluter pays principle 85, 123, 179
Portugal 172–3
precautionary principle 37, 55, 103, 159, 210
procedural penetration 240
processbased standards 141
REACH:
see chemicals policy
rebound effects 4
regulatory competition 10, 21
renewable energy 53;
biomass 53
RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) 128,208
retrenchment 8, 212, 231
SEA (strategic environmental assessment) 139, 177, 186

Single European Act (1987) 82, 109
single (European) market 99, 154
sociological institutionalism 17 ff, 240, 242
soil protection 140, 177
Spain 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 44, 224 ff;
as an environmental laggard in Europe 173;
attempts to shape EU water policy 177;
attitude to Europe 173–4;
attitude to the environment 172–4;
demand for ‘differentiated solidarity’ 178;
entry to the EU 172;
environmental movements in 185;
Francoist regime in 173;
problems of desertification 177;
regional government in 181;
style of national environmental policy 183 ff
Stockholm environment conference (1972) 44, 190, 192
subsidiarity 206, 213
sustainable development 53, 61, 72, 91, 160, 192, 210;
in the Amsterdam Treaty 192;
national sustainable development plan 129
Sweden 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 50, 66, 137, 155, 189 ff, 224 ff;
1994 referendum on Membership 190;
Index 234
as a policy maker in the EU 189;

attitude to Europe 189;
entry to the EU (1995) 189;
national environmental ministry 195;
regional government in 197;
Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) 193, 200, 196–7,
Switzerland 155
top-down models of Europeanization weaknesses of 10;

tourism policy 178
tradable permits 52, 75, 210;
see also emissions trading
transformation 8, 230–2
UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) 156

United Kingdom 2, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 103, 119, 121, 137, 224 ff;
as the Dirty Man of Europe 206;
local government 215;
national environment ministry 206, 218;
traditional environmental policy 207;
Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive 86, 121
USA (United States of America) 244
USSR (Union of Socialist Soviet Republics) 65, 66, 68, 155
veto points 10, 235

voluntary agreements 52, 69, 75, 104, 122, 141, 148, 160–1, 176, 184, 212, 226;
Water Framework Directive 27, 71, 75, 104, 121, 124, 138, 141, 178, 211
water supply issues 236, 177

Andrew Jordan - Environmental Policy in Europe - The Europeanization of National Environmental Policy (Routledge Research in Environmental Politics) (2005)

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Andrew Jordan - Environmental Policy in Europe - The Europeanization of National Environmental Policy (Routledge Research in Environmental Politics) (2005)

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Environmental Policy in Europe

Global Warming and Global Politics

Politics and the Environment

International Relations Theory and Ecological Thought

Deliberative Democracy and the Environment

Routledge Research in Environmental Politics presents innovative new research

2 Ideas and Actions in the Green Movement

3 Russia and the West

4 Global Warming and East Asia

5 Europe, Globalization and Sustainable Development

6 The Politics of GM Food

7 Environmental Policy in Europe

8 A Theory of Ecological Justice

Edited by Andrew Jordan and Duncan

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

ISBN 0-203-44900-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-67958-X (Adobe e-Reader Format)

1 The Europeanization of national environmental policy 1

5.1 The co-ordination of EU matters in Finland 68

14.1 Patterns of domestic action and domestic impact c. 2000 217

1.1 Degrees of domestic policy change 7

3.1 Indicative examples of domestic change 33

3.2 Environmental policy content in the ten countries c. 1970 34

3.3 Environmental policy structures in the ten countries c. 1970 36

3.4 Environmental policy style in the ten countries c. 1970 39

6.1 The institutional history of the French Environment Ministry 83

14.1 Environmental policy content in the ten countries c. 2000 as 206

14.2 Environmental policy structures in the ten countries c. 2000 as 208

14.3 Environmental policy style in the ten countries c. 2000 as 211

14.4 The overall extent of Europeanization in the ten countries c. 212

Susana Aguilar Fernández, Faculty of Political Sciences and Sociology, Complutense

The Europeanization ‘turn’ in the social sciences

Europeanization research has generated a bewilderingly large number of definitions.

The Europeanization of national environmental policy

Measures of national change

Top down approaches

Problems with top down approaches

Aguilar Fernández, S. (1994) ‘Convergence in environmental policy? The resilience of institutional

theories predicting either convergence or divergence are not actually sufficiently

Europeanization and policy convergence

As we have seen in Chapter 1, Europeanization research has boomed in recent years,

Theoretical approaches to convergence

Different theories and different predictions

Europeanization: a convergent force?

volume by Cowles et al. on Europeanization, Transforming Europe. The concluding

a significant amount of evidence suggests that, as a process, European

although the different nations may be confronted with similar economic

Mechanisms of convergence in the EU

Convergence through emulation

Convergence through elite networking

information and ‘best practices’ with a view to common ‘lesson-drawing’ and,

Convergence through harmonization

Convergence through penetration

because of factors other than Europeanization (e.g. cultural or economic globalization in

Bach, M. (1992) ‘Eine leise Revolution durch Verwaltungsverfahren: bürokratische

Kohler-Koch, B. and Eising, R. (eds) (2000) The Transformation of Governance, London:

Analytical and methodological issues

‘environmental policy’ in their respective countries. In reality most of this volume

instances of ‘uploading’, ‘domestication’ or ‘projection’ as far as this has been employed

National policy baselines, c. 1970

Netherlands source-based predominantly

National attitudes to Europe and the environment