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The European Union has become an important leader in international environmental affairs - particularly through the negotiation of multilateral environmental agreements ( MEAs) with favourable terms. In this article, EU environmental leadership is studied from a new perspective, focusing on the ratification stage of environmental regime formation. Specifically, it investigates whether the EU is also capable of motivating third states to join its preferred MEAs. It is argued that third states join the EU's preferred MEAs to signal their compliance with EU environmental standards in an effort to become eligible for various rewards that the EU could potentially offer, including a credible membership perspective, access to its lucrative markets, and aid and assistance. The argument is tested by examining the ratification behaviour of 25 non- EU Member States with regard to all 21 MEAs negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe ( UNECE). The results provide robust support for the theory that EU rewards motivate third states to ratify these treaties. The results withstand a number of statistical tests, even when alternative explanatory factors such as trade intensities, transnational communication and geographic proximity are controlled for. The study is the first large-scale demonstration of the EU's external influence at the ratification stage of environmental regime formation. By identifying three different channels of EU influence, the research permits a more refined understanding of the EU's role as a promoter of environmental protection standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the ever growing body of scholarly work on policy developments in the post-communist New Member States of the European Union (NMS), systematic comparisons of policy outcome performance and its determinants are still scarce. This article identifies patterns of post-communist policy outcomes across the fields of economic, social and environmental policy. By employing pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis with a Fixed Effects Vector Decomposition (FEVD) estimator it investigates to what extent policy outcome performance is determined by differing policy efforts (outputs or reform tracks), transitional conditions and international influences. Although citizens are still negatively affected by the initial economic recession, especially in the social domain, policy reforms and efforts are decisive in determining the outcome performance of the NMS relative to one another in the longer run. Successful and comprehensive market reforms and steering capabilities prove to be particularly important in this regard. Furthermore, internationalisation has an important, albeit ambiguous, impact. While exposure to the world market is reflected in negative policy performance, interaction with and financial commitment from Western European Union countries promote positive policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]