Greening Europe? Environmental Interest Groups and the Europeanization of a New Policy Field (original) (raw)
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Journal of European Integration History, 2021
In standard textbook accounts, the history of European Community (EC) environmental policy conventionally begins in 1973, when the First Environmental Action Programme was officially accepted. Some texts also mention the Paris summit of October 1972 and the subsequent ministerial meeting of the member states in Bonn on 31 October 1972, where the governments agreed in principle and in detail on the start of environmental policy measures at EC level. 1 Even though these were important steps, putting the new policy on track, the origins of EC environmental policy actually go back to the summer of 1969. The new policy was not simply the result of the enlightened environmental spirit of national governments still under the impression of the Stockholm United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972. In fact, EC environmental action can be traced back to an initiative by what is usually believed to be the least powerful of European institutions, the unelected European Parliament (EP). The EP first put the issue of water pollution on the agenda of the European institutions via an own initiative report, one of the few instruments available to it. 2 Members of the EP (MEPs) responded to a massive fish kill in the river Rhine, Western Europe's main watershed, in June 1969, caused by a pesticide released in Germany. The Dutch were particularly cross with their German neighbours upstream, not only because they had not been notified, but also because they crucially relied on Rhine for their water resources. Activist MEPs from the Committee of Public Health and Social Affairs skilfully widened the issue from the Rhine to river and water pollution more generally, to other issues, such as noise and air pollution, that contemporary scientists and policy makers increasingly conceptualised as part of the problem called the "environment". MEPs argued for the introduction of European level policy action on such environmental issues.
Environmental policy has become an important area of European Union (EU) policy making, even though it had not originally been foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. Its emergence in the early 1970s can be understood as a result of a transfer of the novel policy idea of the environment to the European level. This paper thus inquires into the emergence of a European environmental policy from a diffusion of ideas perspective. Rather than focusing on multi-level policy making it seeks to trace the diffusion of environmental ideas from the level of international organizations to the European Communities (EC) in the early 1970s. It analyzes how and why these new concepts were taken up by the European Communities and adapted to the specific institutional framework of the EC. Starting with a brief introduction into the historical context, the paper first explores the origins of the notion of the environment as a political concept emerging in the context of international organizations at the time. Secondly, an analysis of the first Environmental Action Programme of 1973 will be used to show how the EC conceptualized the environment, including the definition of problems and potential remedies. Thirdly, the origins of these ideas will be traced back to international models, from the UNESCO conference “Man and the Biosphere” in 1968 onwards. In a final step, the paper tries to explain the diffusion and reception of ideas. It examines how these ideas were received by the EC, which actors were involved in this process, and which mechanisms of diffusion played a role. The goal is thus to make a contribution to the debate about the transnational diffusion of ideas.
2011
Environmental policy has become an important area of European Union (EU) policy making, even though it had not originally been foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. Its emergence in the early 1970s can be understood as a result of a transfer of the novel policy idea of the environment to the European level. This paper thus inquires into the emergence of a European environmental policy from a diffusion of ideas perspective. Rather than focusing on multi-level policy making it seeks to trace the diffusion of environmental ideas from the level of international organizations to the European Communities (EC) in the early 1970s. It analyzes how and why these new concepts were taken up by the European Communities and adapted to the specific institutional framework of the EC. Starting with a brief introduction into the historical context, the paper first explores the origins of the notion of the environment as a political concept emerging in the context of international organizations at the time. Secondly, an analysis of the first Environmental Action Programme of 1973 will be used to show how the EC conceptualized the environment, including the definition of problems and potential remedies. Thirdly, the origins of these ideas will be traced back to international models, from the UNESCO conference "Man and the Biosphere" in 1968 onwards. In a final step, the paper tries to explain the diffusion and reception of ideas. It examines how these ideas were received by the EC, which actors were involved in this process, and which mechanisms of diffusion played a role. The goal is thus to make a contribution to the debate about the transnational diffusion of ideas.
KFG Working Paper 31, 2011
Environmental policy has become an important area of European Union (EU) policy making, even though it had not originally been foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. Its emergence in the early 1970s can be understood as a result of a transfer of the novel policy idea of the environment to the European level. This paper thus inquires into the emergence of a European environmental policy from a diffusion of ideas perspective. Rather than focusing on multi-level policy making it seeks to trace the diffusion of environmental ideas from the level of international organizations to the European Communities (EC) in the early 1970s. It analyzes how and why these new concepts were taken up by the European Communities and adapted to the specific institutional framework of the EC. Starting with a brief introduction into the historical context, the paper first explores the origins of the notion of the environment as a political concept emerging in the context of international organizations at the time. Secondly, an analysis of the first Environmental Action Programme of 1973 will be used to show how the EC conceptualized the environment, including the definition of problems and potential remedies. Thirdly, the origins of these ideas will be traced back to international models, from the UNESCO conference "Man and the Biosphere" in 1968 onwards. In a final step, the paper tries to explain the diffusion and reception of ideas. It examines how these ideas were received by the EC, which actors were involved in this process, and which mechanisms of diffusion played a role. The goal is thus to make a contribution to the debate about the transnational diffusion of ideas.
L'européanisation de la politique environnementale dans les années 1970
Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire, 2012
This article analyses the emergence of an environmental policy of the European Communities (EC) in the 1970s in terms of the Europeanisation of the environment. Drawing on the conceptual literature on Europeanisation, three different types of Europeanisation are distinguished: first, Europeanisation as establishment of institutions and policy making at the EC-level, secondly, Europeanisation as the EC's impact on the member state, and thirdly, societal Europeanisation, as a process of establishing transnational cooperation of societal actors across the EC. The article disentangles the process of Europeanisation of the environment emphasising the beginnings of Europeanisation in the context of the Council of Europe and the takeover by the EC of policy ideas and principles from the international level. Furthermore, it addresses the rapid emergence of societal Europeanisation, notably by anticipating the European impact on member state legislation.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2011
Environmental policy has become an important area of European Union (EU) policy making, even though it had not originally been foreseen in the Treaty of Rome. Its emergence in the early 1970s can be understood as a result of a transfer of the novel policy idea of the environment to the European level. This paper thus inquires into the emergence of a European environmental policy from a diffusion of ideas perspective. Rather than focusing on multi-level policy making it seeks to trace the diffusion of environmental ideas from the level of international organizations to the European Communities (EC) in the early 1970s. It analyzes how and why these new concepts were taken up by the European Communities and adapted to the specific institutional framework of the EC. Starting with a brief introduction into the historical context, the paper first explores the origins of the notion of the environment as a political concept emerging in the context of international organizations at the time. Secondly, an analysis of the first Environmental Action Programme of 1973 will be used to show how the EC conceptualized the environment, including the definition of problems and potential remedies. Thirdly, the origins of these ideas will be traced back to international models, from the UNESCO conference "Man and the Biosphere" in 1968 onwards. In a final step, the paper tries to explain the diffusion and reception of ideas. It examines how these ideas were received by the EC, which actors were involved in this process, and which mechanisms of diffusion played a role. The goal is thus to make a contribution to the debate about the transnational diffusion of ideas.
Making European Environmental Law. Ideas, Actors and Institutions
2021 Academy on German and European Law Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG), Thammasat University, Thailand, 2021
Why is there an environmental policy in the European Union (EU)? Why did an - primarily - economic community establish a substantial body of environmental law made at the supranational level? And European environmental law matters: for some of the EU countries the law made by the European institutions accounts for almost all of the environmental legislation in place. Furthermore: Why does EU environmental law look the way it does and cover certain problem, while not addressing others? What instruments does EU environmental law encompass – and how does EU environmental law link up with the law of the member states? These are some of the core issues that this talk addresses. The lecture will seek to provide explanations in a historical perspective by going back to the origins of European Environmental Policy and law-making in the 1970s. The talk will focus on the role of ideas, actors and institutions.
Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 2011
And if the problem of climate change is seriously addressed, the ultimate strategy will be based on incentives, not on command-and-control. 1 §1. introdUcinG reGUlAtorY MUltipolAritY: eUropeAn environMentAl GovernAnce With regard to its evolutionary legal development, the eU's multi-level framework of environmental and climate regulation faces a variety of contemporary challenges. Alongside the complexities related to scientific evidence for environmental protection, the conflict between normative hierarchy and heterarchy as well as the trade-off between legal harmonization and regulatory decentralization requires adjusted legal arrangements on a global scale. Moreover, the pluralistic administration in the supply of global common goods combined with the reluctance of Member states towards community methods needs integrated governance mechanisms, 'where many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering their relationships with one another within a general system (…)' 2 of normative order. not only the multitude of top-down approaches in environmental regulation has largely been contested. The european commission's understanding of its hybrid role in the process of decision-making has also been subject to concerns within a number of domestic administrative bodies. Additionally, the design of modern statehood that once correlated with its territorial, civil and political space 'metamorphosed' into a sovereign entity of europeanized and globalized character providing legitimacy to supranational institutions. 3 The process of structural adaptation to new frames of transnational regulation, therefore, coincides with the emergence of a multitude of non-state actors aiming for the integration into different political fora of decision-and norm-making. especially, the severe management of climate change regulation exceeds the limited scope of sovereign states and accounts for cooperation on a global scale. considering that the effects of climate change have spread across continents, countries and communities, state and non-state authorities are asked