Governance
2007-2008: Governance of long-term decision-making
Chair: Roel in ‘t Veld, Chair of the Dutch Advisory Council for Research on Spatial
Planning, Nature and the Environment (RMNO)
Working Plan 2008
The WG Governance is contributing this year's EEAC Annual Conference focusing on the
question: “What
can be learned from best practices and worst cases about the conditions under
which governments may take wise decisions with a long term perspective?”.
- February 2008: the WG Governance met in Brussels, kindly hosted
by the Belgian FRDO-CFDD, and the members discussed the draft of the paper on 'Governance of the long-term decisions'.
- December 2007: the WG Governance met in The Hague, kindly hosted
by the Dutch RMNO, and discussed the
second draft of the paper 'Governance of the long-term decisions'. The
target is to produce a paper on the conditions and
trade-offs related to long-term decision making, and from which actor
perspectives and action strategies for the different actors involved
(governments, private sector, civil society, knowledge institutes) can be
obtained. A number of ‘good’ and ‘worst’ cases will be presented as
illustrations of the conditions and trade-offs related to long-term decision
making. A similar course of action was taken in an earlier EEAC study that
compared the governance of SD strategies in 9 European countries. One of the
key conclusions of this study was that in ‘complex SD processes with a
holistic claim’ a balance needs to be sought between three so-called
governance poles, namely the poles of leadership – ownership,
bottom-up – top-down, and firmness/planning – flexibility/learning.
Variants of these governance trade-offs can be found in this paper.
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2005-2006: WG Governance Statement on Impact Assessment of European Commission Policies
Chair: Susan Owens, Council Member, Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP)
Main outcomes 2005-2006
- October 2005: the WG Governance met at the Annual Conference in
Oxfordshire and
decided to prepare a statement on the system impact assessment applied by the European
Commission, as performed for major policy proposals since 2004. The WG members questioned the approach of having
"integrated" assessments.
- April 2006: The WG Statement: "Impact
Assessment of European Commission Policies: Achievements and Prospects",
accompanied
by a Background Paper, was released. The paper also scrutinised the
Commission's Impact
Assessment Guidelines, from June 2005, with regard to SD as
objective and principle. Based on
an analysis of meta-studies, the Commission's Guidelines and some case
studies, the WG Governance set out some core principles to guide future
Impact Assessments, including transparency, quality control, and a process
of integration that clarifies, rather than conceals, important political
choices.
Download
WG Governance Statement on Impact Assessment
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2004: Aftermath of the publication of EEAC Statement on
"European Governance for the Environment"
Chair: Susan Owens, Council Member, Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP)
Main outcomes 2004
- June 2004: The WG Governance looked into how further develop its
activities after the publication of the EEAC Statement on Environmental
Governance. It was decided that the WG should focus on giving input on (Environmental) Impact Assessment and
Appraisal, the discussion on governance related to the marine environment at
the EEAC Annual Conference 2004 in Berlin and look into governance for Environmental Policy Integration.
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2003: Annual Conference on "European Governance for the Environment"
Chair: Christian Hey, Secretary General, German
Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU)
Main outcomes 2003
- October 2003: The EEAC
Annual Conference 2003 on Environmental Governance, hosted by the Dutch RMNO took place
in Florence and the EEAC Statement on European Governance for the
Environment was presented. With
this statement, EEAC cautions the EU and national governments against an
imbalanced move towards devolution and deregulation in environmental
policy. It calls for a differentiated, problem-oriented choice of
strategies and instruments.
Download here the EEAC Statement on "European Governance for the
Environment"
-
December 2003: the background study of the EEAC
Statement on "European Governance for the Environment, together with
the EEAC Annual Conference 2003 proceedings and contributions from member
councils and individuals from within the network, were compiled in the
book Environmental
Governance in Europe. Meuleman/Niestroy/Hey
(eds.)(2003): Environmental Governance in Europe. RMNO Background
Studies (V.02, 2003).
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2002: From Result to Process-Oriented Environmental
Policy: WG Governance establishment
Chair: Christian Hey, Secretary General, German
Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU)
Main outcomes 2002
- September 2002: The SRU organised a workshop on environmental
governance that triggered the setting up of the EEAC WG Governance. The
SRU developed a strong
criticism to the new architecture of environmental strategy development
in the EU. One of the core points was observing that there was a
shift of policy approach from a target led one (management by
objectives) back to "open-ended incrementalism". Among lawyers this
observation was seconded by the criticism of the "decline of law". The
EU Commission's White Paper on Governance went into a similar
direction. There was the call for framework directives, which
consolidated existing fragmented law and which were supposed to reduce
the work load of the political levels, while delegating key policy
questions to technical or the national levels. The Water Framework
Directive for many reasons represents a pilot project in this respect. The WG
Governance was set up to tackle the following key questions:
- What does the new governance approach imply for the
effectiveness and the enforceability of environmental legislation?
- What implications on the level of ambition and protection can
be expected by delegation to technical levels?
- Under which conditions can re-nationalisation (or
re-regionalisation) undermine or enhance the level of environmental
protection in the EU?
- How is it possible to ensure democratic legitimatisation and
control, when delegating key issues to committees?
- What are the implications for the balance of represented
interests if the arena shifts from the political sphere to the
technical sphere?
- Is the new governance approach better adapted to an enlarged
Europe than a target -led or a traditional regulatory approach?
- Does it offer more opportunities for stakeholder consensus,
negotiated solutions and a changed role of government from regulator to
facilitator?
Download
the discussion paper "Environmental Governance and the Commission White
Paper"
Download
the Portuguese CNADS's comments to the discussion paper
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Last update on 20 February 2008