Infrastructures of expertise: policy convergence and the implementation of the EU Nitrates Directive in Poland

ABSTRACT

Access to the EU leads to a process of policy convergence in which member states’ institutions and policy cultures become increasingly adapted to align with an EU governance system. Especially in EU environmental policy, knowledge and expertise are key aspects of the institutions and policy cultures that are adapted in this process, which ideally results in the alignment of EU policy and administrative arrangements of member states. This paper offers a historical analysis of the Nitrates Directive's implementation in Poland and shows how increasing convergence of Polish institutions and cultures of expertise with EU policy occurred in response to the directive's requirements. The results highlight that (1) knowledge and expertise are central to policy convergence processes and that (2) institutions and cultures of expertise are entwined in ‘infrastructures of expertise’. The paper concludes with a call for more consideration of the science–policy interface in policy convergence processes related to Europeanisation.

Keywords:

• science–policy interface
• policy convergence
• Nitrates Directive
• Europeanisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. NVZs: Nitrates Vulnerable Zones - areas of agricultural land which drain into polluted waters or waters at risk of pollution and which contribute to nitrate pollution.

2. Including letters of different Ministries presenting their positions towards the Directive implementation, discussions between Ministries on the implementation strategy, correspondence on preparing implementation reports for the EC, invitations to meetings, and letters with comments to scientific reports.

3. Based on the Polish National Water Act as of 18 July 2001.

4. Based on Polish regulations on establishing action programmes for NVZs.

5. This information was collected via analysis of websites of ministerial research institutes who kept track about their own scientific conferences and themes. Also by seeing the invitations to the seminars within the ministerial correspondence.