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Is the European Parliament an Environmental Champion?
IES March 2010
Dr Charlotte Burns (University of Leeds)Professor Neil Carter (University of York)
Dr Nick Worsfold (University of York)
http://www.polis.leeds.ac.uk/research/projects/eu-environmental-champion.php
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Championing Europe’s Environment?
• The European Parliament often sees itself, and is seen
by others, as the defender of environmental interests
(Weale et al. 2000: 91)
• But portrayal based upon partial evidence and
potentially outdated assumptions about EP behaviour.
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Research Questions
• Is EP really an environmental champion?
• How environmentally stringent are its amendments?
• How successful are they?
• Is there a relationship between the strength of an amendment and its chance of adoption?
• Has the EP’s behaviour changed over time? If so, how?
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Methodology• Mixed approach employing qualitative and quantitative
methods
• Coded 7,094 amendments made to 113 proposals adopted under codecision by the EP plenary between 1999 and 2009
• Coding relies on qualitative judgements and data analysis
• Also gained practitioner feedback at seminar in EP and used elite interviews
• Case study analysis
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Methodology
• Legislative proposal classified according to the stage at which it was concluded and the policy area that it addressed.
• Each amendment was classified according to
– the reading at which it was proposed;– its environmental ambition; – its importance; – and the degree to which it was adopted by the
Council of Ministers.
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Environmental Ambition Typology
• Negative (-1) – overall negative impact
• Neutral (0) – no environmental impact
• Marginal (1) – rhetorical commitment to environment, vague, limited impacts and costs
• Weak (2) – tightens limits and standards, some costs and new policy instruments
• Strong (3) – stronger, binding, sanctions, costs
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Importance and Adoption Typologies
Importance 1-5 from insignificant to highly important
Multiplied with environmental ambition to give a score for overall environmental importance
Adoption• 0 = not adopted• 1 = <50% adopted• 2 = >50% adopted• 3= fully adopted• M = text changed so amendment no longer relevant
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Is the EP’s plenary adopting environmentally important amendments?
-1 0 1 2 30
10
20
30
40
50
60
%
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Distribution of strong and negative amendments
1996/02001998/02471999/00682000/01692001/01072002/00262002/03042003/02052004/02182006/00182007/02952008/01650
5
10
15
20
25
negativestrong
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Distribution of strong and negative amendments
• Air quality proposals attract 26% of the amendments
• But 47% of strong and 42% of negatives
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Importance of EP amendments by session
-1 0 1 2 30
10
20
30
40
50
60
EP5EP6
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Is the EP Successful?
OVERALL• 35% rejected• 8% partially adopted
BUT
• 48% fully adopted• 8% largely adopted
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Success by Session
0 1 2 30%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
EP5EP6
Adoption
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Is the EP Successful?
Hypothesis: Adoption of EP amendments by the Council of
Ministers is affected by the amendment’s environmental importance, the reading at which the amendment was introduced and the session of the EP.
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Testing the Hypothesis• Generalized linear model, fit by maximum likelihood,
binomial error structure and logit link function
• Response variable: adopted/not adopted
• Explanatory variables: envimp, session, and reading
• Tested for interaction
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Findings
• More environmentally important = less likely to be adopted
• Second Reading amendments were more likely to be adopted
• Amendments introduced in EP6 more likely to be adopted
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Interactions
• Effect of reading on likelihood of adoption strongly dependent on session in which amendments were introduced
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Summary• EP is trying to strengthen legislation
• Adopts disproportionately more strong and negatives in some policy fields
• Success depends on strength of amendment, reading and session
• Differences between EP5 and EP6 – latter less ambitious but more successful
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Explanations• Nature and costs of regulation
• Shifting norms of decision-making
• Enlargement
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Co-Decision• Commission proposes
• EP 3 readings, conciliation and veto
• EP and Council = co-legislators
• Increasing pressure to agree at first reading or second reading
• Informal meetings used to reach agreement
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Evolving Procedures
Stage at which legislation was concluded• EP5 (1999-2004)
– 47% cases concluded after conciliation
• EP6 (2004-2009) – 16% cases concluded after conciliation, – 56% concluded via fast track 1st reading
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What is fast track 1st reading?
• Commission proposes legislation• Legislative proposal goes to Environment
Committee• Committee adopts its opinion, which becomes the
mandate for rapporteur to open informal negotiations with Council
• If agreement is reached the plenary endorses the joint text
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Success by Session
0 1 2 30%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
EP5EP6
Adoption
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Explanations• Nature and costs of regulation
• Shifting norms of decision-making
• Enlargement
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Enlargement
• New states less developed. Focus on economic prosperity.
• Weak environmental movement. No green MEPs 2004-09.
• EU saw political centre of gravity shift ‘to the Right and to the East’
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Enlargement
• EPP position consolidated and EPP regards environment as less salient
• Increasingly heterogeneous political groups affect distribution of positions of power.
• EP Groups still cohesive but some evidence of national blocks amongst new states.
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Conclusions
• EP is an environmentally benign actor, but it is no longer championing the environmental cause.
• Unlikely to become more radical
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Future Directions
• Rapporteur – longevity/group
• Committee amendments
• New EP – patterns persisting or shifting?
• Commission – nature of environmental legislation