Between Europeanisation and politicisation: wolf policy and politics in Germany

ABSTRACT The impact of Europeanisation on domestic policies is often associated with the alignment of European policies and discourses with national ones. The Habitats Directive mandating wolf protection entailed heated debates across the EU, suggesting diverging values and interests at various levels of policy-making. I present an analysis of wolf policy and politics in Germany, where wolves have returned after a long period of extinction. Tracing the dynamics of institutions involved in wolf management in 2000–2021, I identify key groups involved, their activities and positions as well as the impact of European rules and discourses. Unlike in some other Central in Eastern European countries, German wolf policy was strongly influenced by Europeanisation that helped to sustain the institutional path of wolf conservation, despite criticism from dominant land-use actors who politicised the issue to relax conservation rules. I suggest adding safeguarding of latent policies to the catalogue of outcomes of Europeanisation.


Introduction
For the European rules and discourses to influence national policies, politics, and polities there is a certain level of incompatibility required between the former and the latter (Börzel and Risse 2003). This incompatibility creates both top-down and bottom-up adaptation pressure exerted by interested actors that can stimulate change (Börzel and Buzogány 2010). The scope of outcomes of Europeanisation can range from various levels of policy change along European lines (major transformation, moderate accommodation, minor absorption), through inertia characterized by delays and resistance, and ending with retrenchment that renders national policies less European than they were initially Risse 2003, Radaelli 2003). The implementation of the EU's biodiversity policies, institutionalised in Birds and Habitats Directives, provides numerous examples of domestic responses leading to more-or-less effective institutional arrangements (Ferranti et al. 2010, Grodzińska-Jurczak et al. 2012, Borrass et al. 2015. Literature analysing these impacts tends to focus on Natura 2000 areas. Wildlife conservation, another important area of EU biodiversity policymaking, has received less attention, despite significant conflicts involved in Europeanisation of national wildlife policies. These conflicts have been particularly serious with regard to the wolf. The wolf's European come-back was facilitated by numerous discursive and legal changes since the 1970s with a more ecological perspective on wolves replacing their traditional image as vermin. This was accompanied by legal changes strengthening wolf protection, including the EU Habitats Directive (1992) rendering the wolf a priority species requiring strict protection. Expanding populations triggered various social conflicts that, in some countries, became politicised. In this way, wolves became proxies for wider social tensions between and winners and losers of economic transformations (Skogen et al. 2017). Consequently, the debates about wolves tended to be much more heated than one would expect considering the impact of wolves on human safety and economy.
The influence of the European rules and discourses was country-specific. The resulting institutional arrangements depended on the history of wolf presence, the importance of hunting and pastoralism and political influence of hunters and farmers, political opportunity structures of environmental NGOs, the inclusiveness of governance mechanisms, the legitimacy of wolf management, and the effectiveness of compensation systems. Consequently, wolf expansion in Europe constitutes an interesting case to analyse humanwildlife interactions across various socio-political contexts and across time. Despite this potential, longitudinal analyses of wolf policy and politics remain scarce and geographically skewed. I aim to fill in this gap by exploring the institutional dynamics of wolf governance in Germany in 2000-2021 and analysing the role of Europeanisation in this process.
The first German wolves reproduced in eastern Saxony in 2000. The population has grown quickly reaching 157 packs, 27 pairs and 19 individuals in 2020/2021 (DBBW 2021), and repopulating almost all German federal states (Figure 1).
The wolf enjoys comprehensive legal protection in Germany. It is included in Annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive (1992), which means it is strictly protected to attain favourable conservation status. Wolves are also strictly protected according to the German Nature Conservation Law, the stipulations of which are incorporated into the legislation of federal states authorised to issue regulations operationalising wolf management. Wolf governance includes diverse legislative and executive authorities at various levels of decision-making: from European to subregional (Stöhr andCoimbra 2013, SMUL 2014). Formally, wolf management is the domain of the federal states, which develop their own models of regional wolf governance centred on the implementation of wolf management plans (Ansorge et al., 2010). Apart from public administration, wolf governance involves key groups of stakeholders: scientists (especially wildlife biologists), hunters, farmers (particularly pastoralists), environmental activists, local residents and the general public (Gross 2008).
The paper suggests that despite strong pressure on policy change, wolf governance remained very stable and was dominated by the vision of wolves as an adaptive, self-regulating species that can be accommodated within cultural landscapes with very limited lethal control. This stability resulted from the choices taken in the formative period of the policy, before wolves appeared in Germany, particularly when classifying the species as strictly protected under EU legislation. The Europeanisation of the policy field was critical for sustaining the policy path, despite strong pressure from land-use groups and the resulting politicisation of the issue. While the role of Europeanisation on nature conservation in Germany (Borrass et al. 2015), and wolf policy in particular have been recognised (Stöhr and Coimbra 2013), the underlying processes through which European rules influenced local practices and resulted in the growth of wolf populations have been unexplored. To fill this gap, I look at the policy dynamics through the theoretical perspective of institutions.

Wolf policy as an institutional phenomenon
Wolf policy can be interpreted as a system of formal and informal rules regulating human activities connected with the species. It is shaped through the process of governance -'the taking of collectively binding decisions in a community by a diversity of actors, inside and outside government, with formal roles and without formal roles' (Beunen et al. 2015, p. 339-340). Governance and policy then shape wolf management, that is, operational decisions regarding the species to achieve particular outcomes that reflect 'human needs, desires or goals' (Armitage et al. 2012, Conover 2002. The common thread linking governance, policy and management of wolves consists in institutions, which 'comprise regulative, normative, and culturalcognitive elements that, together with associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life' (Scott, W. R 2014, p. 56). Institutions are crafted within social fields that encompass various actors interested in a particular issue and their relationships (Fligstein and McAdam 2012). Fields constitute arenas of struggles between actors who, using their resources, pursue their interests, beliefs, and values through 'institutional work": creating, maintaining or disturbing institutions (Lawrence et al. 2009). Usually, fields include incumbent coalitions controlling the field and challengers aiming at changing its structure and logics (Sabatier 1998).
The institutional interpretation of policy dynamics points to the tendency of institutional arrangements to reproduce themselves, thus contributing to the stability of policies. This stems largely from a mechanism of path dependency (Pierson 2004). Early policy choices determine the development of policies, characterised by minor changes implemented by established actors in response to the changing socio-political context and the pressure of challenging groups. Usually, these incremental changes do not amount to paradigmatic transformation of policy goals, which requires critical external events influencing balance of power within a policy field and creating opportunity for a new group of actors to become authoritative (Hall 1993). Ideas play a central role in institutional dynamics (Blyth 2002). As policy paradigms, they inform the understanding of a particular policy problem and guide policy-making (Hall 1993). Consequently, institutional change requires agents who produce new ideas regarding what should be done and how, and persuade others to do so (Schmidt 2009, p. 533). Niedziałkowski and Putkowska-Smoter (2020) proposed an institutional model of policy development to be used as a heuristic tool to analyse the dynamics of wildlife policies ( Figure 2). It was used to interpret the development of wolf policies in Poland (ibid.) and in Belarus (Niedziałkowski et al. 2022). Within the model, policy is initiated by a group of actors (thick white arrow) and starts in the formative moment (T1). Over time, its development (thin black arrow) follows a path (grey field) responding to changes in external context and to internal pressure exerted by various groups of actors. The policy path is guided by a certain paradigm and limited by available policy adjustments within normal policymaking. A critical event at T2 provides an opportunity for challenging actors (thick grey arrow) to stimulate a major policy change and set a new policy path. Sometimes critical events fail to produce a paradigmatic policy change (as in T3), because such windows of opportunity need to be skilfully used by actors with appropriate resources. A major transformation of policy can also proceed gradually, even without external shocks (as in T4). This model will be used in the following sections to interpret the development of wolf policy in Germany.

Methods
Data collection focused on written and visual materials connected with wolf management in Germany between 2000 and 2021 and included policy documents, parliamentary proceedings, reports, statements, petitions, scientific papers, magazine and newspaper articles, web-sites, leaflets, videos and photos. Particular attention was devoted to the federal state of Saxony, where wolves have been present the longest. These materials were collected until (1) it was possible to reconstruct a detailed timeline of wolf governance in Germany ( Figure 3); (2) a point of saturation was reached, that is, new documents did not bring new substantial information regarding key events, actor's positions and activities. Altogether, this corpus included 220 items. The collected data was analysed via Atlas.ti software. First, the data was coded inductively to identify themes, actors, and events. During this process, the codes were repeatedly analysed and organised to group emerging issues and create more informative categories. In the next step, the codes were assigned to thematic networks to analyse relations between codes addressing similar themes and to identify discursive patterns among stakeholders. This enabled a comprehensive reconstruction of the evolution of wolf governance in Germany, as presented below.

Results: wolf policy and politics in Germany (1990-2021)
Formal rules concerning wolf protection were developed in Germany a few years before the species reappeared. Therefore, strict protection, introduced in 1980 (West Germany) and 1990 (unified Germany), which implemented the 1979 Bern convention, did not cause social controversy. The 1992 Habitats Directive provided an additional layer of legislation, specifying the goal of conservation (favourable conservation status), prohibitions and derogations. Its stipulations remained latent until the late 1990s, when wolves appeared in Saxony. Still, the period between 1979 and 1992 could be interpreted as formative for wolf policy, setting fundamental institutional and discursive parameters of wolf management. Importantly, it tied decision-making to the European level of governance, which provided key rules and control mechanisms.
These early policy choices influenced wolf governance and the instruments used nationally and regionally: monitoring, management plans, support for farmers to protect livestock, compensation for wolf-related damages, information campaigns, and removal of individual wolves. The dominant discourse of public administration and other organisations formally involved in wolf management viewed the recovery of the species as a positive contribution to biodiversity that should be promoted. Implementation of the policy was also supported by environmental NGOs and individual activists. However, with growing wolf numbers, wolf policy was increasingly criticised by some hunters, farmers, and other local land users. Rural residents were expressing their concern regarding personal safety, while farmers, especially those with pasture animals, feared attacks on their livestock. Hunters were also apprehensive of wolves due to their perceived impact on game and on the quality of the hunting experience. Private forest owners viewed wolves critically too, concerned about the prices of hunting ground lease. Through individual and collective actions, these actors attempted to influence decision-making at local and regional levels. For instance in 2005 a hunter from Saxony filed an unsuccessful court case demanding a permit to hunt a few wolves due to alleged overpopulation posing threat to wildlife and humans. In 2006, hunters from eastern Saxony formed 'Action Group Wolf' demanding the lethal regulation of wolves.
These early tensions exposed key discursive differences between two emerging coalitions of actors -those supporting existing wolf policy and those against. For the former, the wolf played an important role in ecosystems and its range should be expanded to all suitable habitats. They perceived wolf expansion as a natural phenomenon that should not be disturbed by human interventions. In their view, wolf numbers within new territories would stabilise naturally. Therefore, management should be focused on creating space for the natural processes to unwind. Coexistence between wolves and humans was possible and required policy instruments mitigating conflicts to be applied by trained public officials assisting local people in adaptation to the presence of the wolf. Lethal removal of wolves should be limited to exceptional cases of animals that specialised in livestock predation or became habituated to humans and posed a potential threat to human safety. 'Preventive' lethal control by hunters might exacerbate the problematic behaviour of wolves, particularly livestock predation. This integrative model of human-wolf coexistence informed existing German wolf policy.
In contrast, the 'land-use coalition' opposed existing wolf policy and shared a vision of the local environments managed by land users in line with their interests. According to this perspective, uncontrolled wolf expansion would lead to dramatic consequences for local people and the environment. Coexistence would entail excessive costs to the rural communities, particularly farmers, and would not be a viable option. Therefore, wolves should be removed from most human-dominated landscapes through intensive preventive lethal control exerted by hunters under hunting law to achieve 'appropriate' wolf density. Wolf range should be restricted mainly to specified natural areas. This separatory model of 'active wolf management' constituted an alternative policy paradigm promoted by the coalition of land users.
Species conservation was administered by the federal states, which were establishing their own administrative structures and procedures, and at their own pace. However, despite considerable efforts to consult policy-making with interested groups, the range of potential policy options available at local and regional levels was strongly limited by supranational and national regulations. Particularly, frequently advocated preventive lethal control was legally not permissible. Consequently, many local land-users felt disappointed with the results. At the federal level, existing wolf policy was facilitated by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) that published reports and guidelines to inform regional management (e.g. Reinhardt and Kluth 2007). These reports also mitigated challenges connected with the diversity of policies and procedures at regional levels that hindered nationallevel collecting and analysing of monitoring data, coordination of wolf policies, and cross-regional learning (Schoof et al. 2021). The implementation of wolf policy in Germany was also supported by non-governmental actors, particularly the biggest German nature conservation organisation NABU. In 2005, NABU initiated a national information campaign 'Welcome wolf' to promote coexistence. It also established a network of more than 400 honorary wolf ambassadors to support the federal states in providing information about wolves. NABU also followed the activities of the opponents of wolf conservation and organised protests when the dominant policy path seemed threatened. Furthermore, it pressured federal states to develop comprehensive regional wolf policies and proposed establishing a national expert centre to coordinate regional management plans (NABU 2014). Such federal documentation and advisory centre concerning the wolf (DBBW) was created by the Federal Ministry for the Environment and the BfN in 2016. Project partners included two expert organisations from Saxony (Senckerberg Museum for Natural History Görlitz and LUPUS Institute), and Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. Some of the wildlife biologists from these organisations also co-authored guideline documents published by BfN. Consequently, they constituted the key authoritative group in the policy field.
These forms of institutional work oriented at maintaining existing policy path have been accompanied and stimulated by institutional work of hunters and farmers who undermined dominant institutions and discourses and supported a lethal regulation of wolves. In 2004, representatives of these groups (DJV-German Hunting Association, German Association of Farmers) and of other land-users (e.g. Association of Forest Owners, German Equestrian Federation), formed an umbrella lobby organisation Action Alliance Forum Nature (AFN) to represent their interests in nature conservation policy-making at multiple levels. Land-use actors attempted to change the regional and national legal status of the wolf. However, due to the European legislation, this would not necessarily transform wolf management. For instance, in Saxony a formal transfer of the wolf from the nature conservation act to the hunting act in 2012 and the adjustment of wolf's status from strictly protected to game species with year-round protection, did not influence management practices -much to the dissatisfaction of local supporters of 'active management'. This did not discourage representatives of hunters to advocate a similar change nationally -in 2018, DJV called for the wolf to be included in the Federal Hunting Act to develop uniform nationwide regulations for handling of wolves. Representatives of landusers also opposed institutionalisation efforts that might have affected their role in wolf management and their control over the local environment. For instance, in 2018, a regional hunting association and DJV criticised plans of nature conservation authorities from four southern federal states to cooperate more closely on wolf management and to establish intervention teams that would 'hunt problem wolves over our heads in the territories we have leased' (DJV 2018a).
Although hunters were arguably the most influential group in the landuse coalition (Wotschikowsky 2006), their case against the wolf, difficult to prove scientifically and scarcely engaging emotionally, was not at the centre of the debate. Instead, the dominant social conflict concerned wolf predation on pasture animals (particularly sheep and goats). Pastoralism (i.e. extensive livestock husbandry based on grazing) had been affected by the structural changes in the agricultural sector that seriously limited its economic viability and forced many farmers to give up their herds (Schoof et al. 2021).
Consequently, pastoral farmers constitute only about 1% of the country's farmers in Germany and manage up to 70% of the sheep, less than 0.5% of the cattle, and some goats (Czerkus et al. 2020). The wolf became an emotional symbol of these problems, perceived by many farmers as 'the last straw' (Schoof et al. 2021). Apart from additional financial resources and labour required to protect herds, farmers underlined the emotional toll of apprehending potential attacks and finding dead animals. They argued that farm animals had the right to be free from suffering from wolf attacks. Pictures displaying mutilated bodies of sheep and goats became a staple of protests against wolf policy. Additionally, farmers and their supporters highlighted the contributions of pastoralism towards sustaining the qualities of the German landscape and achieving the biodiversity conservation goals of the Habitats Directive concerning open habitats (Schoof et al. 2021). Consequently, the need for better support for farmers became recognised practically by all groups engaged in wolf politics. The problems of pastoralism that, according to breeders, politicians had ignored, entered political debate. For instance, the 2018 federal government coalition agreement quoted pastoralism's contributions to sustaining biodiversity and the cultural landscape as the main reason for reconsidering the lethal control of the wolf.
To protect the existing policy path, the dominant groups in wolf policy advocated comprehensive support systems for farmers including herd protection and damage compensation. They, however, saw lethal removal of damage-causing wolves only as an ultimate measure. Gradually, almost all federal states introduced financial support for the protection of sheep and goats and enclosed game (mainly fallow deer), as well as compensation for killed animals, but the parameters of these instruments differed among the states (DBBW 2020). Still, farmer representatives criticised existing support as too bureaucratic and covering only some of the costs incurred by livestock owners. Many of the farmers' postulates could be accommodated within the dominant policy paradigm and they resulted in policy adjustments, such as expanded compensation programmes. However, some claims of land-users regarding human-wolf coexistence challenged the existing policy path: for example, that pasture animals cannot be protected effectively without regular lethal control of wolves, that installing protection on large areas of pastures was unrealistic, or that predators were able to overcome practically all protection measures. Furthermore, critics argued that increasing protection measures created new problems, such as fragmentation of the environment, decline of ecotones, and excessive grazing of extensive pastures (Schoof et al. 2021). Some local people expressed their discontent with 'living behind security fences' that also compromised landscape qualities. These arguments led to the conclusion that these were not humans that needed to learn to live with wolves but wolves that had to be taught to avoid human settlements and livestock. Referring to countries such as France and Sweden, representatives of land-users argued that coexistence required 'active' lethal measures.
Apart from farmer support, lethal control proved to be another key area of policy adjustment, accompanied by multi-level political struggles. Killing wolves was tightly regulated, following the EU rules, and limited to 'problem individuals' that were bold towards humans or repeatedly attacked properly safeguarded livestock. For instance in Saxony, potential methods to deal with problem wolves (deterring, capturing or lethally removing) were to be decided by wolf experts on an individual basis. Lethal removal was possible only when other methods had been exhausted or there was a danger for humans. Also, the problem wolf had to be clearly identified (e.g. using genetic methods), which proved very difficult -in Lower Saxony a wolf could not have been found and lethally removed for more than 2 years since the shooting permit was issued in 2019. Each intervention had to be thoroughly documented 'to comply with the reporting obligation to the European Commission' (SMUL 2014). Still, there was some room for negotiation, e.g. stakeholders agreed that wolves could be removed when they overcame recommended herd protection twice and killed or injured grazing animals (Schenk 2019). Furthermore, application of various methods required learning on the part of administrators and considerable expenses, for example, employing experienced specialists from abroad. The activities of public authorities were also challenged legally by conservation organisations, which further extended the procedures. Finally, some activists tried to impede capturing and killing wolves by direct protests, obstructing wolf tracking or even by burning hunting towers.
The procedures of lethal control were criticised by the land-use coalition as too bureaucratic. To change them, hunters and farmers organised numerous activities (petitions, protests, consultations, lobbying) at various levels of policy-making. They stimulated some formal adjustments regionally (e.g. transferring wolves to hunting legislation in Saxony) but barely influenced the practical rules of lethal control. The key initiative in the analysed period concerned an amendment of the Nature Conservation Act streamlining lethal control. The 2018 federal government coalition agreement stipulated that the government would urge the EC to adjust the wolf's conservation status to prompt 'the necessary reduction of population numbers'. It also urged the government and the federal states to develop appropriate criteria and measures for removing 'problem wolves'. In response, German Hunting Association (DJV) called for the wolf to be transferred to the Federal Hunting Act to 'develop nationwide regulations for future handling of wolves' (DJV 2018b) and rejected attempts to establish wolf response teams without local hunters, as infringing property rights.
In December 2018, the federal states appealed to the government to fulfil the coalition agreement and streamline wolf control. However, two federal ministries responsible disagreed on whether wolves could be lethally removed only after livestock predation (option supported by the minister of the environment from SPD) or also preventively when they approach settlements and livestock (option supported by the minister of agriculture from CDU). The minister of environment criticised the ministry of agriculture suggesting that instead of insisting on shooting wolves it should provide farmers with adequate direct payments. The prolonged discussions provoked the intervention of the Prime Minister's office. In the meantime, wolf management became politicised in advance of regional elections in Saxony (September 2019), where populist parties (AfD, the Blue Party) included active wolf regulation in their political agenda and demanded an upper limit of wolf numbers in the region. In May 2019, the federal government proposed a new amendment cancelling the requirement to identify an animal responsible for attacks on livestock. Lethal control could be applied until the damages stopped, even if that meant removing the whole pack. NABU criticised the proposal and started its 'Hands off the wolf!' campaign collecting signatures against lethal wolf regulation.
During the proceedings of the amendment and during the election campaign in Saxony and Brandenburg in Autumn 2019 two positions of political parties towards wolves crystallised, mirroring the discourse within the policy field. The position supporting the dominant policy path, represented by leftwing parties (SPD, Alliance 90/The Greens, and The Left), perceived wolves as a natural part of the environment that required protection and could be lethally removed only selectively in particular cases. Coexistence was possible through balancing interests, herd protection, and compensation. The counter position, represented by conservative and liberal parties (CDU, FDP, and AfD), saw the wolf as an intruder and a threat alien to the German cultural landscape. Coexistence was unlikely and therefore wolf-free zones were required. Lowering the protection status and introducing non-selective hunting to reach regional limits of wolf numbers would prevent conflicts. Both groups recognised the value of pastoralism and the need to support farmers.
The planned changes of wolf policy activated the representatives of landowners. In January 2019, their umbrella organisation AFN published a comprehensive action plan proposal with active lethal control. It implicitly recognised that supranational rules and their national and regional adaptations had proven difficult to transform. Particularly, the fitness check of the Habitats Directive in 2015-2016 did not transfer the wolf from Annex IV to Annex V as lobbied by some representatives of land-users. Therefore, actors supporting a major policy change focused on reinterpreting the European rules, particularly those defining populations and their favourable conservation status (2019). AFN claimed that: (1) German wolves belonged to two meta-populations -Baltic-East European (northern Germany) and Abruzzo-Alpine (southern Germany); (2) wolf management in Germany should contribute to a favourable conservation status assessed at the level of these metapopulations and not at political levels (nationally, in federal states) or in biogeographic regions; (3) the Baltic-East European population with more than 8,000 individuals had reached a favourable conservation status, which justifies relaxing protection in Germany; (4) the contribution of the German wolf population to the conservation of the meta-population, including the minimal contribution of the federal states, should be established scientifically; (5) the final population level in federal states ('acceptance level') should be determined socio-politically ensuring minimal contribution, considering social acceptance of wolves and the costs of preventive measures and compensation; (6) regular lethal control ('protective hunting') by hunters would keep the population within the 'acceptance level' (around 30% of the population to be hunted annually). According to AFN, as in Sweden, 'protective hunting' would not require transferring the wolf from Annex IV to Annex V of the Habitats Directive, otherwise needed for regular hunting independent of damages in livestock. However, for legal certainty, German law should clearly admit 'protective hunting', while the wolf should be transferred to hunting law. Consequently, hunters could implement new rules within existing hunting regulations. In 2019, to promote its action plan the AFN started the 'Wolf remains wolf' campaign.
Parliamentary proceedings of the governmental project in late 2019-early 2020 did not involve major changes to the proposal of May 2019. According to its final version, adopted in March 2020, 'problem wolves' could be removed without identifying individuals responsible until damages cease. Lethal control covered also damage not threatening the economic viability of people affected, including hobby herders. Preventive wolf regulation was not introduced. Also, each removal still required an individual permit from the regional authorities. Consequently, the key legislative change in the analysed period adjusted existing policy path without transforming it. As commented by DJV it was 'a step in the right direction, nothing more' (DJV 2019). The amendments were followed by further minor adjustments maintaining the path -establishing a federal expert centre to support farmers in safeguarding herds (March 2021) and preparations to introduce direct payments for sheep and goats in 2023. This did not stop further protests of farmers in Saxony against 'excessive' wolf protection and AFN demands to implement 'active' wolf management. Before the general elections of September 2021, the political parties reaffirmed their positions towards wolf policy. Elections led to the formation of a coalition government of SPD, the Greens and FDP, with ministries of agriculture and environment controlled by the Greens. The coalition agreement stressed the need of coexistence despite the growing numbers of wolves. It also recognised the potential of federal states to shape regional wolf management, however, within the existing European rules. Consequently, the existing wolf policy path was strengthened.

Discussion
The development of German wolf policy during the last 40 years can be visualised as depicted in Figure 4.
The development of wolf policy in Germany has been shaped by two interconnected processes aimed at institutional maintenance and disruption. Firstly, it has been increasingly institutionalised through (1) legal acts, (2) establishing administration responsible for wolf management and multilevel networks of wolf managers and advisors, (3) new policy instruments (e.g. compensation, preventive measures), (4) changing of policy instruments' settings (e.g. the level of compensation, conditions of removing habituated wolves), (5) new administrative procedures, guidelines, etc. Secondly, it has been challenged by institutional work oriented at changing existing legal rules, transforming their interpretation, and directing institutionalisation towards solutions that protect the position of dominant actors in the land-use sector. Despite these tensions, wolf policy in the analysed period consistently centred on protecting wolves, following obligations from international agreements and national regulations developed until 1990. The reappearance of wolves in Germany in the 2000s tested existing institutional arrangements and provoked opposition to wolf protection. Since the mid-2010s, with the expanding wolf populations and increasing pressure of landusers to regulate wolves lethally, several minor policy adjustments were introduced concerning support for farmers and organisation of administration responsible for wolf management. The struggles over the authority in the policy field included questions of whose expertise should guide the policy and who should be authorised to intervene in populations. The elections in 2019 politicised the wolf issue and increased pressure on policymakers, which resulted in further minor adjustments but without undermining the policy path. The 2021 general elections strengthened the favourable political context for the existing wolf governance.
Europeanisation, particularly European biodiversity conservation rules, proved fundamental for stabilising wolf policy in Germany. Although power relations, particularly in the south-eastern federal states, seemed to favour policy change, the demands of land-use actors were consistently rejected as allegedly non-compliant with EU rules. Actors supporting wolf conservation recognised this -e.g. a NABU representative suggested that 'for the survival of the wolf (. . .), EU nature conservation legislation is crucial. Only because of it, the wolf in Germany enjoys the highest protection status and cannot be hunted or captured' (NABU 2015). European rules also proved difficult to change. Therefore, challenging actors engaged in 'institutional conversion' (Mahoney and Thelen 2010), trying to interpret and enact them in new manners. This impact of Europeanisation distinguishes Germany from other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, managing the same metapopulation of wolves, where three approaches towards wolf management can be identified.
In post-Soviet, non-EU countries with stable wolf populations throughout the 20 th century, the wolf has been treated as a pest and persecuted. Wolf management fell within hunting policy, dominated by hunters and game specialists. Europeanisation, occurring since the late 2000s in the form of more conservation-oriented discourse and individual conservation initiatives financed by European actors, entailed only minor policy adjustments, for example, in Belarus (Jedrzejewski et al. 2010, Niedziałkowski et al. 2022 and could be classified as 'inertia' (Radaelli 2003). A second approach developed in the post-Soviet countries that joined the EU: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Europeanisation modified the traditional view of the wolf as vermin to be culled without limits. To respond to the external shock to the policy field of the EU accession in 2004, and comply with the Habitats Directive, these countries introduced national wolf management plans with closed seasons, annual hunting quotas and enhanced monitoring (Ozoliņš et al. 2001, Jedrzejewski et al. 2010. These measures sustained a favourable conservation status required by the Habitats Directive, but used management interventions stipulated in the Annex V. Consequently, these countries 'accommodated' European rules (Börzel and Risse 2003) introducing moderate policy changes, while retaining a policy path of lethal regulation of wolves and the dominance of hunters in the field.
A third approach to wolf management developed in Poland. Wolf policy was transformed in 1998, when the government introduced strict protection of wolves supervised by nature conservation authorities, replacing intensive lethal regulation controlled by hunting administration (Figura andMysłajek 2019, Niedziałkowski andPutkowska-Smoter 2020). Here, EU accession in 2004 involved only minor adjustments connected with monitoring and lethal removal of 'problem animals'. Although the wolf was listed in the Annex V to the Habitats Directive, which allowed regular lethal control, this option has not been used and conflicts were mitigated through compensation and lethal removal of problematic individuals. Despite growing wolf numbers, strict protection was sustained, suggesting a strong social support for the policy path and relatively limited social conflicts. The economic transition of 1989 reduced sheep numbers from 5 to 0.5 million in 1985-1995(Bański 2010, and to 0.29 million in 2021 (GUS 2021a). This left hunters as practically the only group opposing wolf protection. However, constituting only 0,33% of the Polish population (GUS 2021b), their political influence was limited. European rules, emphasising expert monitoring, sustaining favourable conservation status and the scientific justification for lethal control (Sills et al. 2019), strengthened the conservation paradigm. This effect of the Europeanisation in Poland might be seen as 'absorption', when European requirements match domestic policies requiring a low degree of policy change (Radaelli 2003). In Slovakia, the Europeanisation contributed to the 'transformation' of wolf policy (Radaelli 2003). After joining the EU, limited lethal regulation by hunters was allowed, similar to the Baltic states (Finďo et al. 2008). However, this was criticised by the environmental actors, governments of Poland and the Czech Republic, and the European Commission as violating the Habitats Directive (Friends of the Earth 2013). Consequently, the government restricted wolf hunting territorially and in 2021 banned it altogether, despite criticism of hunters and farmers (Slovak Ministry of Environment 2021).
In Germany, unlike in its eastern neighbours, the legal rules of wolf management were established in the absence of wolves. Hence, their functioning within the existing balance of power in overlapping policy fields of nature conservation, hunting and agriculture could not be politically tested. Migrating wolves activated latent regulations and quickly stimulated controversy, particularly among sheep farmers, managing around 1.5 million animals (DESTATIS 2022), and hunters, influential despite being a relatively small percentage of the general population -0,47% (DJV 2022). Despite a significant bottom-up pressure and organised lobbying, far outreaching those in countries to the east of Germany, only a few minor adjustments were introduced. The Europeanisation of wolf policy in Germany thus led to the formation and maintenance of a policy field that otherwise would most likely have fallen into the hunting field, as in the Baltic states. Similar patterns can be identified in the Czech Republic. The wolves stared repopulating this country in 2014 and have been strictly protected following the Habitats Directive (Annex IV). Increasing damages sparked protests from hunters and farmers. However, the government insisted on the hunting ban invoking EU rules (Lososová et al. 2021). This outcome of Europeanisation does not easily fall into any of the Radaelli's (2003) or Börzel and Risse's (2003) categories. Although the EU rules matched domestic laws and brought modest regulatory change, their impact is considerable because they safeguarded the latent policy area activated by migrating wolves. Therefore, safeguarding should be identified as another outcome of Europeanisation regarding domestic policies.
The impact of Europeanisation on wolf policies in Europe has been mediated by the balance of power between conservation advocates and land-use groups at national and sub-national levels. The case of Finland and Sweden is illustrative here. Despite low human density (15 and 22 people/km2 respectively), and relatively low wolf numbers compared to Central Europe, rural residents, particularly influential hunters (5.8% of Finnish and 3.22% of Swedish populations) and reindeer herders, deemed wolf populations to be excessive and strongly opposed their expansion (Bisi et al. 2007, Hiedanpää et al. 2016. Bottom-up protests and lobbying contributed to a regular lethal control of wolves. These arrangements have continued despite their alleged non-compliance with the Habitats Directive (Annex IV) and legal challenges in national administrative courts and in the Court of Justice of the European Union (Darpö andEpstein 2015, Epstein andKantinkoski 2020). What connects the German and Nordic cases is the politicisation of the wolf as a proxy for wider conflicts between the urban and rural areas and a symbol of socio-economic decline of the latter. Since the German reunification, Eastern Germany, where most of the German wolves reside, has witnessed particular socio-economic challenges (Pates and Leser 2021). Rural residents used wolf politics as a platform to criticise urban 'balcony environmentalists' and Western Germans who forced wolf protection and compromised the traditional rural way of living (ibid., p. 102). Therefore, wolf poaching was seen as a justified resistance towards disempowering arrangements (Pates andLeser 2021, p. 107, Stöhr andCoimbra 2013). Similar sentiments were identified in Norway (Skogen and Krange 2020), Finland (Pohja-Mykrä 2017) and Sweden (Sjölander-Lindqvist 2008). In Central and Eastern Europe this dimension is less pronounced, which may result from the relative improvement of rural life in the region following EU accession and the financial assistance involved (Stanny et al. 2016, Némethová 2020, Grodzicki and Jankiewicz 2022. Unlike in Germany, these benefits of Europeanisation might have offset inconveniences of expanding wolf populations and prevented the politicisation of wolf policy.

Conclusions
Wolf policy and its formal framework was established in Germany before the restitution of the species. Migrating animals activated latent institutions, which were then tested during social conflicts around wolf management. Institutionalisation efforts of public administration, experts in wildlife biology and NGOs were challenged by a land-use coalition advocating intensive lethal control under a hunting regime. Despite considerable socio-political pressure for a major policy change, wolf policy in Germany underwent only minor adjustments regarding lethal control of individual animals and support schemes for farmers. Europeanisation in the form of European biodiversity conservation rules proved crucial for safeguarding the new policy field even in the context of politicisation of the wolf issue during regional electoral campaigns. This impact on wolf policy in Germany, distinguished this country from its eastern neighbours where wolf policies had developed with existing wolf populations. In Germany, similarly to Nordic countries, the wolf became a symbol of wider social conflicts between rural and urban populations but, unlike in Sweden or Finland, this did not translate into compromising the EU conservation rules. Observed differences in Europeanisation of wolf policy in Europe can be associated with the mediating role of the power relations between conservation advocates and land-use groups at national and sub-national levels.