Globalisation, trade and the environmentco-operation to resolve transboundary problems such as acid rain. The suc-
cess of green parties, both domestically and in elections to the European
Parliament (see Chapter4), and the growing influence of environmental
groups in Brussels, brought growing pressure on member state governments
to respond. So, apart from delivering the level playing-field necessary for the
single economic market, EU elites identified the development of a progres-
sive environmental policy as a source of legitimacy for the EU and a strategy
toencourage political integration. A crucial enabling factor has been the
willingness of all the key actors in the EU policy process, at various times,
toplay a proactive role in EU environmental policy.
Probably the key actor is the European Commission, which is responsi-
ble for initiating most environmental legislation, primarily through the
Directorate-General for Environment. Historically, the Commission was often
prepared to take a proactive role promoting tougher environmental rules
than many member states wanted to accept, ‘thus seeking to conflate ‘‘Euro-
peanness” and ‘‘greenness”’ (Lenschow 2005 :313), although in practice it
could do so only with the support of key member states who have been
prepared to grasp the environmental baton. The EU has traditionally tended
todivide roughly on North–South lines, with the group of richer ‘pioneer’
countries – Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, and, after becoming EU
members in 1995, Austria, Finland and Sweden – seeking to persuade the
poorer ‘laggards’ from Southern Europe – Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain –
toadopt tougher environmental measures (Andersen and Liefferink1997a).
Often, pioneer states, encouraged by an environmentally concerned elec-
torate,haveintroduced stringent regulations at home so they are keen to
reduce any competitive disadvantage by requiring all member states to adopt
them. A further reward for the proactive member state is that implemen-
tation costs are lower if its own national model is adopted as the Commu-
nity standard. One example of such ‘regulatory competition’ (Heretier 1996 ;
B ̈orzel 2002 )inthe mid-1980s saw the German government lobby hard to
ensure that the EU car emissions directive reduced emissions by requiring
new cars to be fitted with catalytic converters (which German car manufac-
turers had invested in) rather than the lean-burn engine technology (cham-
pioned by the UK) (Weale et al. 2000 : 397–407). By contrast, in Southern
Europe the environment generally has lower political salience, with public
concern focused primarily on economic development. To ease the compli-
ance burden on the Southern states, the EU set up a Cohesion Fund in 1993,
with about half its budget spent on environmental projects. Of course, this
simplistic North–South characterisation is not always accurate; in particu-
lar, on issues where environmental protection might impose domestic costs,
pioneers can become laggards (Weale et al. 2000 :ch.14;B ̈orzel 2003 ).
As the European Parliament has acquired more formal powers and greater
influence, it has developed a reputation as an ‘environmental champion’,
particularly through its Environment Committee, and is widely acknowl-
edged to have played a constructive role in pushing the EU’s environmental