European Integration and the Europeanization of British Environmental Governance

Abstract

The empirical chapters of this book confirm that the EU has fundamentally and irrevocably transformed the main elements of British environ-mental policy, namely the underlying philosophies or paradigms of action, the tools of policy and the precise setting of those tools (see Table 11.1). However, these are, as explained in Chapter 1, only the long-term manifestations of Europeanization, which the prevailing literature presents as the final products, or outcomes, of European integration. The broad purpose of this book is to investigate how and why these out-comes emerged in the form that they did. In other words, it tries to understand what actually drives Europeanization at the European level, namely the negotiation, adoption and implementation of EU environmental policies, and to analyse its long-term impact in Britain as it fits or misfits with pre-existing British institutions, practices and policies. Chapter 1 identified central government departments as the chief (though not the only) mediators (or ‘fitters’) of Europeanization and integration. The purpose of this final chapter is to review the seven case studies and assess the extent to which the DoE shaped, guided and steered the Europeanization of British environmental policy to suit its own (or the British Government’s) purposes.

We shall have full opportunity to make our views heard and our influence felt in the councils of the Community … The practical working of the Community … reflects the reality that sov-ereign Governments are represented round the table.

(White Paper on The UK and the European Communities: HM Government, 1971, p.8)