Setting Agendas and Shaping Activism: EU Influence on Central and Eastern European Environmental Movements

Abstract

Accession to the European Union is shaping the development of environmental movements in Central and Eastern Europe by defining much of the agendas of environmental NGOs and by moulding the context in which groups act and, therefore, their means of activism. Individual organisations and the mix of organisations in a movement, in turn, evolve to tackle these agendas and engage in these means of activism. This study outlines several paths of direct and indirect EU influence over the evolution of these movements. While such an evolution strengthens the movements' ability to engage in political processes at the national and EU levels, both these movements' internal decision-making mechanisms and the EU's policy processes must allow for input from grassroots groups. Avenues exist for grassroots input into the policies national movements pursue, but these paths of influence are weak. The EU's decision-making processes are even more remote. Balancing external and internal influence is crucial, however, if these movements are to serve as channels of citizen participation in politics and policy.