Harmonization and asymmetry: environmental policy co-ordination between the European Union and Central Europe

Abstract

This article focuses upon the problem of policy co-ordination and employs an account of co-ordination between technical systems developed by Fritz W. Scharpf (Scharpf 1994) as the framework within which to explore multi-level environmental policy-making between the European Union (EU) and the countries of Central Europe (CE). Current EU-CE environmental policy co-ordination is characterized as relying upon techniques of technical unification (or ‘one-way harmonization’) and processes of hierarchical imposition (reflected in ‘asymmetrical policy relations’). The article concludes by reviewing the potential advantages of ‘policy interface’ techniques and ‘negotiation-based’ co-ordination processes within the EU-CE environmental policy relationship.