ABSTRACT
Implementation is very much at the ‘sharp end’ of the EU policy process. The success of EU policies – and with them the whole European integration project – are often judged by the impacts they have on the ground. If, however, the acquis is not fully implemented, EU policies risk becoming paper exercises with little tangible effect on environmental quality but serious distorting impacts on the Single Market. On the face of it, all is not well in the environmental field. At the end of 2009, 451 of the 1860 infringements (i.e. 24.3 per cent) of EU policy related to environmental legislation (CEC, 2010a: 79). Moreover (according to the Commission (CEC, 2010b: 3)), the number of petitions to the European Parliament raising issues concerning the incorrect application of environmental law were higher than in any other policy area. Speaking in 2011, the then Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocˇnik argued that improving this situation represented one of his main priorities:
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The implementation of policy in the EU is widely regarded as being problematic. Yet, both public and academic understanding of this crucial stage of the EU policy process remains relatively limited. Indeed, for a long time, a number of factors kept the whole issue of poor implementation down or off the political agenda, but today it is much more politicized, pushed along by the campaigning activities of NGOs and pro-integration actors such as the European Parliament. A whole host of solutions to the EU’s implementation problems have been offered, some of which could, if deployed, even compound the problem. But in many respects, the causes of poor (or at least imperfect) implementation reside in the very structure of the EU. Consequently, there are likely to be no panaceas.
