What can the study of EU environmental policy tell us about EU governance?

Résumé du document

Although it was not at the core of the EU integration, the environmental policy is nowadays at the heart of the EU policy-making and governance. This regulatory policy relies on the statement that all human actions have an impact (positive or negative) on the environment. Recognized as useful and legitimated by several polls (Lenschowand Sprungk, 2010, pp. 144-47) the EU environmental policy is, at the EU level, to monitor human activities against harmful actions regarding the environment and to promote good use of natural resources (McCormick, 2001 page 21). Environmental changes ruled by the TFUE (article 4), this policy is so sophisticated and structured, that it can be part of the acquis communautaire of EU membership. The ‘Governance' concept appeared in the 1980s with the neoliberal turn and became part of EU studies in the 1990s. In the White Paper on Governance, The Commission defined EU governance as ‘rules, processes and behavior that affect the way in which powers are exercised at European level, particularly as regards openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence.' (European Commission, 2001, page 8).

Beyond the Government concept, the governance tries initially to capture the complexity of public action. Indeed, since the 1980s, public action transformation were boosted and scholars had developed numerous studies about conceptions, theories and impacts of the Governance (Kohler-Boch and Rittberger, 2006).Although, every scholar ‘agree to disagree' about delimiting the Governance concept, it appears that this process is like the ‘privatization of public action' and a hierarchy decomposition in the political arena. Eventually market strategies influenced political actions concepts and paradigms like accountability, transparency, public participation or openness (Heldeweg, 2005). Even more, ‘Governing without government' at the EU level is accurate because obviously supranational policies are different from domestic policies.

Extraits

[...] Organisations like Greenpeace, Friends of Earth, Birdlife and the European Environmental Bureau are well-respected in the EU environmental governance. They even had the possibility of being in charge of EU investigation concerning subjects and their knowledge about monitoring or scientific progress. Plustheir expertise power, they have a strong agenda-setting and formulation capacities and can confront themselves tobusiness interests. Their main advantage lies on the coordination capacity between each other (with for instance coordination groups like the G10). Unlike business interests, their aim is to promote ‘universal' interests; they are not eventually in competition with each other. [...]

[...] At first we shall develop how interactions between the governance and the environmental erected a unique frame for this policy with keen instruments, new objectives and new public action strategies. Secondly, analysing new patterns of public action by those interactions like new actors, new territorialities and new perspectives on the political scale is compulsory to understand the EU environmental governance and policy. Thirdly, assessing weaknesses of the governance perspective in the environmental policies will give some credits to the paradox. The governance is not a magic solution regarding the environment. [...]

[...] The diffusion of the subsidiarity concept into EU environmental law is an illustration of the territoriality of Environmental governance. Regional powers, since the devolution process in the 1990s in Spain, Italy or even France and the United-Kingdom gained environmental competences and can be, along withthe proximity criterion, a keen level for policy evaluation. This multilevel governance is attached at some to a multispeed green Europe. The article 193 that authorises more stringent environmental legislation that EU environmental law and this illustrates territorial differences with the EU concerning the environment (Holzinger and Sommerer 2011). [...]

[...] (2009), Governance for the environment new perspectives, Cambridge University Press DHONDT Nele (2003),Integration of Environmental Protection into other EC Policies Legal theory and Practice, Europa Law Publishing GREENWOOD Justin (2011), Interest Representation in the European Union (3rdedition), Palgrave Mc Millan HALPERN Charlotte (2010), ‘Governing Despite its instruments? Instrumentation in EU Environmental Policy', West European Politics pp. 39-57 HATTAN Elizabeth (2003), Implementation of EU Environmental Law' in Journal of Environmental Law 15(3) pp HELDEWEG Michiel A. (2005), ‘Towards Good Environmental Governance in Europe' European Environmental Law Review, 2005(1), pp. 2-24 HIX Simon and HOYLAND Bjorn (2010), The Political system of the European Union (3rd edition), The European Series, Palgrave Mc Millan. [...]

[...] What can the study of EU environmental policy tell us about EU governance? Introduction Although it was not at the core of the EU integration, the environmental policy is nowadays at the heart of the EU policy-making and governance. This regulatory policy relies on the statement that all human actions have an impact (positive or negative) on the environment. Recognised as useful and legitimated by several polls (Lenschowand Sprungk pp. 144-47) the EU environmental policy is, at the EU level, to monitor human activities against harmful actions regarding the environment and to promote good use of natural resources (McCormick page 21). [...]