The Implementation Deficit of the Environmental Policy of the European Union: An Analysis of the Policy Instruments Deployed by the European Commission

Abstract: Despite a relatively highly institutionalized and developed policy field, the EU environmental legislation suffers from a persistent implementation deficit. Although the challenges concern the supranational actors of the EU as well, the academic focus has been on the Member State level and in attempts explaining the challenges the national authorities face while implementing the EU environmental legislation. Since a rather comprehensive understanding of the problems on the Member State level exists, the focus of this thesis is on the less researched aspect of the implementation phase of policy processes: the role of the supranational level. The analysis concentrates on categorizing programs and instruments deployed by the Commission while attempting to improve the implementation of the environmental policy. The categories include concepts from the enforcement, management and Implementation-Management Capacity approaches. The findings suggest that although the Commission is using a variety of strategies, the infringement procedure remains as the key instrument in ensuring proper implementation. The alternative instruments mainly represent problem solving strategies and are used to support the infringement procedure. Furthermore, this thesis includes general reflections about the Commission’s role and possible vulnerability in the complex EU policy process.