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This contribution addresses questions regarding the future of European environmental policy after the EU has been enlarged to include a number of Central and Eastern European countries. The existing literature, based mainly on EU-related 'top-down' variables such as status of harmonisation, availability of pre-accession funds, and future Council voting dynamics, predicts a largely negative impact of enlargement for progressive environmental policy. However, based on extensive survey data from within the candidate countries, this contribution asserts that this prediction should be qualified. It was also found that current theories in respect of national integration deal poorly with such 'bottom-up' perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution focuses on the limits of European Union programmes and accession practices on environmental policies and performance in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, we document some of the ways in which state socialist and post-socialist environmental conditions, practices and policies are shaping, and in turn being shaped by, the path of accession and integration. We focus on the diverse and changing patterns of air, water and soil quality in Central and Eastern Europe, the contested nature of new environmental policies, the environmental consequences of economic change, and the sustainability of emerging environmental regimes. The contribution concludes with several questions about the consequences of new state membership for future EU environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution assesses the impact of market liberalisation on the sustainability of the transformation in ten Central and East European countries (CEE10). Although a significant body of literature assesses economic and social consequences of the transformation, there are limited numbers of investigations that examine the impact of liberalisation on the environment. For CEE countries, assessing environmental effects of structural change in the economy, rising personal consumption, rapid transition to market-oriented economies, and dramatically increased liberalisation is critical. Equally important is assessing the outcomes of environmental and other policy and institutional reforms. To assess these changes, a set of sustainability indicators is used to estimate an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) and sustainability trends. The EKC concept assumes that environmental pressure rises initially with an increase in income but declines beyond some estimated level or 'turning point'. The question is how market liberalisation has affected this observed relationship. This study demonstrates the progress of the CEE10, relative to other CEE and new independent states (NIS), and how much progress is still needed to secure more sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central and East European (CEE) states are implementing sweeping environmental policy reforms as they gain EU membership. This concluding chapter draws attention to key arguments in the volume and elaborates on four key themes that enrich conventional notions about Europeanisation and challenge prevailing views about the impacts that CEE states are having on environmental quality in an enlarged EU: the importance of capacity limitations and efforts to address them, the pesence of mixed messages and conflicting EU priorities, the importance of non-state actors, and the need for multi-directional exchange of ideas and information. These themes suggest, among other things, that EU officials and programs are capable of greatly improving some areas of environmental policy in CEE countries even as they make some areas of policy and societal behaviour less sustainable. This essay includes discussions of some possible ramifications of a larger EU for global environmental governance and some lessons from the 2004 enlargement that may inform understanding of future rounds of EU expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU has transformed environmental policymaking for the states of Europe. In many environmental policy areas the EU now plays an international leadership role. How will the planned accession of ten Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, where environmental capacity is still weak and environmental problems are serious, affect environmental policymaking within the EU? This contribution seeks to answer this question from a comparative perspective by looking at past cases of accession to the EU, with particular attention to the accession of the southern European states that are economically less well off than their northern neighbours and where environmental protection has a weaker tradition in national policy. It argues that a variety of changes to EU institutions and norms have helped to strengthen the EU's capacity to protect the environment, mitigate against moves towards the least common denominator, and aid weaker states in coming into compliance with EU regulations. Particularly important in this regard are the influence of the relatively strong and increasingly widespread voices of environmental advocates in Europe, the greater variety of environmental policy instruments available to member states that should make implementation more flexible and cost-effective, institutional reform that has addressed the EU's 'democratic deficit', and the importance that environment has taken on as an arena for foreign policy leadership by the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the challenges that the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe must address in order to fulfill the environmental policy requirements of the European Union. Fiscal challenge; Administrative challenge; Environmental challenge; Democratic deficit challenge.