Environmental policy: a leader state under pressure?

In: Germany, Europe and the politics of constraint, S. 289-308

Abstract

"For much of the 1980s, Germany acted as an 'environmental leader' state, successfully exporting to the EU level some of its standards, instruments, and regulatory approaches. In consequence, the Europeanization process was largely taken for granted by most domestic environmental policy actors. Overall, the Europeanization of the German environmental policy system has been an incremental and relatively subtle process that began in the 1970s, although its full implications did not become apparent until the 1980s. In the 1990s, Germany lost much of its `environmental leader' status and came under pressure from the EU to reform its environmental policy system. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Germany remains an 'environmental leader' state that pushes for stringent EU environment policy measures on air pollution control issues in particular. However, it has taken on a defensive position with regard to the EU's recent procedural measures, which have caused considerable domestic adaptational pressures. The recalibration of Germany's EU and environmental policy co-ordination procedures can be interpreted as an attempt to regain the initiative on the EU level and to avoid these adaptational pressures. Overall, the Europeanization process has had a highly variegated effect on German environmental policy. Deeply engrained institutional structures and regulatory styles have been affected to a lesser extent than the substantive policy content." (author's abstract)