Environmental policy expansion in the EU: the intriguing case of bioinvasion regulation

ABSTRACT

While bioinvasion was an issue of low political salience in Europe, a new regulation addressing it was adopted in 2014 with strong support. This article analyzes the making of the regulation as an intriguing case of policy expansion amid economic crisis. Based on theoretical literature on drivers of EU policy integration and policy dismantling, alternative plausible explanations are explored. Our main finding is that development of economic policy consensus among member states on trade-environment nexus was crucial for progress towards regulatory action. Policy consensus has been driven by a confluence of three domestic factors: trade liberalization, market disintegration, and changing ideas about the desirability of EU-level law, with the European Commission as policy entrepreneur. Low political salience has also had an important effect. It has increased the influence of transnational conservation alliances, which have played a significant catalytic role in building consensus by shifting consciousness to economic reward of policy action vs inaction, and bringing international models for legislative reform to the EU jurisdiction.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental policy expansion
• policy dismantling
• European Union
• bioinvasion regulation

Acknowledgments

The idea for this research emerged during Ronit Justo-Hanani’s stay as a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley with Prof. David Vogel as a host, to whom she is indebted for reading previous drafts of this paper and offering extremely helpful advice. She also thanks Prof. Miranda Schreurs from Technical University Munich (TUM) for insightful conversation. We thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments. The authors are solely responsible for the paper’s content.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ronit Justo-Hanani is a post-doctoral fellow and an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Public Policy, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.

Tamar Dayan is a Professor for ecology and conservation biology, School of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Israel.

Notes

1 Regulation (EU) No 1143/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species. OJ L317/35. 606 votes to 36, 4 abstentions (the ‘bioinvasion regulation’ or ‘regulation’).

2 EURACTIV. (2014, August 14). How the Commission ‘blocked’ key environmental plans [Electronic news]. Retrieved from https://www.euractiv.com/section/science-policymaking/news/how-the-commission-blocked-key-environmental-plans/

3 Defined as the ‘cutting, diminution, or removal of existing policy’ (Bauer et al., 2012), including reduction in formal intensity, the number of policies in a particular area, or in the number of policy instruments used. The financial crisis has triggered demands to halt and reverse the expansion of EU policies (Gravey & Jordan, 2016).

4 Invasive species are deliberately or unintentionally introduced by human activity to a territory outside their natural habitats, where they establish and spread, causing ecological, economic, and human-health damages (IUCN, 2000).

5 Although a non-binding European Strategy on bioinvasion was adopted under the Bern convention, in line with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (Council of Europe, 2003).

6 (A) Business as usual. (B) Maximizing use of existing legal instruments. (C) Adapting existing legislation (D) A dedicated law at EU-level.

7 Including (a) International ENGOs, e.g. World Wildlife Fund; (b) Professional networks, e.g. Central and East European Working Group for Biodiversity. This classification also includes the IEEP, a sustainability think tank.

8 EURACTIV. (2013, December 3). Danes lobby to keep mink out of EU’s ‘invasive species’ list [electronic news]. Retrieved from https://www.euractiv.com/section/sustainable-dev/news/danes-lobby-to-keep-mink-out-of-eu-s-invasive-species-list/

9 These findings align with Wurzel, Connelly, and Liefferink (2017) insights on ongoing reluctance of green member states to push for more stringent or ambitious policies.

10 For discussion on administrative challenges of environmental policy coordination, see Jordan, Schout, & Zito, 2004.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by post-doctoral fellowships to Ronit Justo-Hanani from the Department of Public Policy and the Steinhardt Museum for Natural History, Tel-Aviv University.