Environmental leaders and pioneers: agents of change?

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article distinguishes between states acting as environmental leaders or pioneers. While leaders usually actively seek to attract followers, this is not normally the case for pioneers. Dependent on their internal and external ambitions, states may take on the position of a laggard, pioneer, pusher or symbolic leader. When doing so, states employ various combinations of types and styles of leadership or pioneership. Four types of leadership/pioneership–structural, entrepreneurial, cognitive and exemplary–and two styles of leadership/pioneership–transactional/humdrum and transformational/heroic–are used to assess leaders and pioneers. The novel analytical framework put forward is intended to generate greater conceptual clarity, which is urgently needed for more meaningful theory-guided cumulative empirical research on leaders and pioneers

The European Council, Council and Member States: jostling for influence

The European Council and the Council each constitute at once supranational EU institutions in which Member States collectively take decisions in the interest of the EU and intergovernmental bargaining arenas for Member States which try to defend their national interests. While the Environment Council has dealt with climate issues since the 1980s, the European Council has focused more regularly on climate policy issues only after they had become politically salient ‘high politics’ issues. Since about 2007, the European Council has become more active in EU and international climate policy, with notable peaks of activity in 2007-2009 and 2014-2015, associated with the 2009 Copenhagen UN climate conference (COP15) and the 2015 Paris UN climate conference respectively as well as in the run up to the 2021 Glasgow UN climate conference. Although the European Council is meant to define only the general political directions and priorities for the EU, in recent years it has issued sometimes fairly detailed instructions to the Council (and the Commission) to act on a particular climate policy issue. The Environment Council focuses on EU climate dossiers while renewable energy and energy efficiency are usually dealt with by the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council. Council meetings constitute only the tip of the iceberg of the Council machinery. They are prepared by Coreper and Council Working Groups which try to achieve as much consensus as possible on dossiers before they are placed on the agenda of Council meetings. The Council’s Working Party on International Environment Issues has been of central importance for the preparation of international climate conferences where the EU is formally represented by the rotating Presidency. Since 2004, a semi-permanent structure with issue leaders and lead negotiators has been in place and has led to an informal division of labour between the Presidency, Commission and Member States. The Council’s internal structures and administrative capacities to deal with EU and international climate issues have changed considerably over the years. This seems to confirm Helen Wallace’s (2003) assessment that the Council is an ‘institutional chameleon’. Over time there have also been significant changes in the relationships between Member States on EU climate issues, with different alliances emerging inside and outside the European Council and Council. Member States have frequently disagreed about the level of ambition for EU climate policies. The widely accepted informal convention that permanent or quasi permanent alliances between groups of Member States should not be formed within the European Council and/or the Council was repeatedly challenged by the Visegrad countries during the 2010s. This challenge, in conjunction with the decline of the relevance of the green trio/sextet, triggered the setting up of the Green Growth Group, both of which have however purposefully remained ad hoc alliances

Introduction: European Union climate leadership

There is no shortage of would-be leaders in EU climate change politics. The EU institutions (e.g. European Council, Council of the EU, Commission and the European Parliament (EP)), member states and societal actors have all, though to varying degrees and at different time periods, tried to offer leadership in EU and international climate change politics. Importantly, public support for EU environmental policy in general, and climate change policy in particular, has been consistently high (e.g. Eurobarometer 2015). The economic recession which followed the 2008 financial crises triggered only a moderate drop in public support for EU action on climate change, although considerable variation exists between member states

"The Europeanization of national environmental policy: A comparative analysis"

The aim of this [paper] is to document the Europeanization of national policy since 1970 in ten member states, namely Austria, Eire, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Given that our aim is to explore how common policies adopted by the EU are refracted by different national institutional forms, we have opted to focus on one sector, namely environmental policy, rather than looking at the Europeanization of several sectors in one single country, or a mixture of sectors and countries. Our selection of countries constitutes a representative same of "new" (i.e., post-1995) and older member states, environmental "leaders" and "laggards," and northern and southern states, to understand the main dynamics at work. By national "policy," we mean the content of policies (the paradigms of action, the objectives, and the policy instruments), the legal and administrative structures that that have been established to oversee them, and the dominant style in which policy is made and implemented

New Instruments for Environmental Policy in the EU. New Environmental Policy Instruments in the Netherlands

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020

Developing SE regional strategic guidance Draft consultative regional statement

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Lending Division - LD:5292.939(RPC--320) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

An 'Ever Closer Union' of National Policy? The Convergence of National Environmental Policy in the European Union

This article examines how far the EU has succeded in producing a secular convergence of the content, structure and style of national environmental policies. Using fresh empirical evidence collected from ten national environmental policies, it presents a very mixed pattern of change, with some elements of national policy converging more rapidly (and through different causal pathways) than others. These findings are viewed through the lens of popular theories of structural convergence, integration and Europeanisation respectively, to reach a fuller understanding of the pathways and outcomes of any policy convergence in an enlarging EU.environmental policy; policy analysis; Europeanization; national interest; positive integration; European law

Natura 2000 management plans in France and the Netherlands : Carrots, sticks, sermons and different problems

Many EU Member States are using management plans to ensure the sustainable conservation and management of Natura 2000 sites. The decision about whether to use management plans lies with the Member States. Although management planning systems differ, in most countries the management plan is developed at local level in close consultation with relevant stakeholders. This article explores to what extent national decisions on the management planning system have influenced the content of the local plans. The comparison of French and Dutch Natura 2000 management plans shows that the plans mostly propose conservation measures that can be implemented by individual owners or users of the site and for which funding is available. The individual measures in the French plans reflect the national decision that the management plans should work primarily as a funding tool. The individual measures in the Dutch plans however do not reflect the national decision that management plans should act as a legislative tool to regulate land use activities in and around the site. In the Netherlands, the focus has shifted towards a tool for the coordination of funding. The analysis shows that in both countries the selection of particular measures in the management plans is connected to other policies and funding mechanisms that deal with the problems perceived by involved actors, such as the Common Agricultural Policy and the Dutch National Programme for Nitrogen Deposition.</p

Umwelt- und Klimapolitik

Published online 19 November 2019Europäische Umwelt- und Klimapolitik befasst sich mit zentralen Aspekten der für das menschliche und gesellschaftliche Überleben unmittelbar relevanten physischen Umwelt des Menschen. Einen Umweltmedienansatz verfolgend, d. h. auf Wasser, Klima, Luft und Boden fokussierte Politiken konzentriert, ist sie einem hohen Natur- und Umweltschutzniveau verpflichtet und hat die Verbesserung der Umweltqualität sowie die nachhaltige Ressourcennutzung und Gesamtentwicklung der Mitgliedstaaten der Europäischen Union (EU) zum Ziel. Sie integriert Umweltbelange in alle anderen Politikbereiche der EU und dient dem Schutz von Umwelt und Natur sowie der Gesundheit des Menschen. Einen besonderen Stellenwert innerhalb der EU-Umweltpolitik nimmt die Klimapolitik ein. Der Verpflichtung der EU zum globalen Umweltschutz gerecht werdend und auf multilaterale Kooperation setzend, hat diese die Verringerung von Treibhausgasemissionen zur Bekämpfung des Klimawandels zum Ziel