Environmental organisations and the Europeanisation of public policy in Central and Eastern Europe: the case of biodiversity governance

Abstract

How has Europeanisation of environmental policy, as represented by the adoption of European Union (EU) biodiversity policies, influenced the agendas and repertoires of action employed by environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) in Hungary, Poland and Romania? The EU's environmental acquis gave ENGOs new and often forceful tools to reach their aims by emphasising the importance of collaborative relations between state and non-state actors and by offering opportunities to civil society actors to circumvent their national governments in the policy process. Implementation of the EU's Natura 2000 network in Hungary, Poland and Romania further reinforced endogenously driven professionalisation and institutionalisation of civil society groups. While EU accession benefited from the expertise of professional ENGOs, the logic of the accession process together with the weakness of both state actors and civil society has not led to the development of sustainable cooperative state–society relations in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Keywords:

• Europeanisation
• EU accession
• ENGO
• civil society
• CEE
• state–society relations
• Natura 2000

Acknowledgements

We thank Sonja Guttenbrunner, whose research built the basis for our study on Poland. We are also grateful to Miranda Schreurs, JoAnn Carmin, Adam Fagan, Guy Peters, Guido Schwellnus and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions. The research is based on the project ‘Coping with Accession. New Modes of Governance and Eastern Enlargement’, part of the Integrated Project ‘New Modes of Governance in Europe’, funded by the 6th Framework Programme of the EU (CIT1-CT-2004-506392).

Notes

1. In Hungary, state secretaries in environmental policy were often recruited from two major ENGOs: WWF Hungary and the Hungarian Friends of the Earth affiliate umbrella organisation, National Conservationist Alliance. This cooptation strategy is not a one-way street: WWF Hungary has also chosen to appoint high-ranking public servants as its country director.

2. An example from EU biodiversity governance is GreenForce, a platform that regularly brings together experts on nature conservation and forestry from the member states.

3. An example within European biodiversity policy is the European Habitat Forum. EHF is an umbrella of nature conservation networks that provide input and advice to DG Environment and the Nature Directors in EU member states relating to the establishment of the Natura 2000 network.

4. Owing to the global financial downturn the new government suspended the project in late 2008.