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Reviews
To write a book on EU environmental policy appears to be a more daunting task than one might at first think. While environmental policy used to be little more than an appendix to the common market policies of the European Union, it is nowadays not only a comprehensive body of several hundred directives, but also a policy that stretches into most other sectoral policies of the European Union. The interwoven character of environmental policy lies not only in the implications that various sectoral policies could possibly have for the environment, but also with the Treaty obligation since Amsterdam, to integrate environmental concerns into the traditional European policies in other sectors, such as agriculture. Since this is what EU environmental policy is about, writing a book on EU environmental policy becomes close to writing a book on overall EU policy, although with a ‘green’ perspective.
In addition to the amorphous character of EU environmental policy, it is also one of the most popularly researched policies of the European Union, as seen in the various specialist journals that relate to this area. Still, while publishers have been searching for a general book on EU environmental policy for more than ten years, most authors have preferred to take a partial approach, focusing on specific issues or mechanisms. Barnes and Barnes deserve credit for their courage in approaching the beast from ‘head to tail’ in a 300-page volume. The book starts with a brief account of the history of EU environmental policy, and then moves on to explain the complex policy-making process of the EU and its main institutions as it works in environmental affairs. Many would have been exhausted by this task, but Barnes and Barnes move on to address the crucial implementation and enforcement issues. In three subsequent chapters on market policies, trade and competitiveness, the interface with the economic and single market policies of the EU are uncovered. Finally, in four concise chapters, the sectoral policies of agriculture, energy, transport and tourism, as well as the efforts to integrate environmental concerns into these, are introduced.
Barnes and Barnes are well informed about EU policies and institutions, and give the reader a lucid presentation of the key issues and problems. The focus of the book is empirical, with a clear exposition of the official EU policies and the main controversies surrounding them. What the book does not do, is to address the recent literature on EU policy analysis, nor does it deal with the different theoretical explanations of the emergence of EU environmental policy. These range from conventional neofunctionalist theories of a ‘spill-over’ from economic co-operation, to more recent debates on the ‘push-pull’ dynamics of policy making among member states with different domestic levels of environmental protection. Confronting them with the empirical insights of the book could surely have produced some interesting qualifications to the premises and hypotheses of these theories. However, the purpose of the present book appears to be more introductory, and to address EU environmental policy as such.
It also strikes the reader that references to the academic literature, where different aspects of EU environmental policy have been discussed, are somewhat limited. In addition, some key aspects of the policy-making process among the EU institutions, which are quite contested in the scientific literature, for example the role of the Commissions versus the Council, are not addressed in the chapter on the policy-making process. Another, although not significant critique, is that, unfortunately, important details of the history of EU environmental policy included in Harald Bungarten’s 1978-volume have not passed the language barrier from German to English.
The volume by Barnes and Barnes on EU environmental policy nevertheless deserves reading. It is likely to be of particular interest to academics, students and practitioners in search of a comprehensive introduction to EU environmental policy. Readers who are officials in the administration, business representatives or NGOs, and who are confronted with EU environmental policy in their daily work, will be particularly pleased with the comprehensive and clear exposition of the main issues and policy-making mechanisms in a single volume.
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