"Balancing trade and the environment in the EU: The importance of non-state actors in emerging policy networks"

Cloutier, Michelle. (1997) "Balancing trade and the environment in the EU: The importance of non-state actors in emerging policy networks". In: UNSPECIFIED, Seattle, WA. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Beginning with a brief tracing of EU environmental policy from 1972 to the post-Maastricht period, I will show how the EC, and now the EU, has tried to resolve the apparent contradiction between its primary free-trade goals and the protection of the environment. Using the policy network approach of Coleman and Skogstad (1990), I investigate the growing role of the EU's non-state institutions (Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice) and non-state societal actors in this balancing act. Evidence from a case study on the 1994 Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste reveals that these non-state actors play an increasingly important role in the environmental policy-making process, which traditional intergovernmentalist approaches to EU policy-making cannot capture. Investigating and describing this interaction between non-state and state actors has become increasingly important for a clear understanding and explanation of day-to-day EU governance, and the use of a policy network approach to flesh out the policy-making process can enhance the usefulness and applicability of newer theoretical approaches to the EU, such as multi-level governance (Marks 1993; Marks, Hooghe et alia 1995a). This paper concludes that one must look beyond both the official language of the Treaty and the actions and preferences of the member states to understand who holds the ball in the juggling act between trade and the environment in the EU.

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