The EU's Environmental Policy: A Neo-Medieval Empire (of norms) in Retreat?

How do we make sense of the EU's environmental policy after 40 years of expansion, now perhaps consolidation, if not stagnation? This paper extends the literature on the 'EU as neo-medieval empire' (Bull, 1977, p.254-255; Rennger, 2000, Zielonka, 2006) to EU environmental policy. What does this analysis offer of value? Firstly, it suggests that the EU environmental policy will be hobbled by weak-state features. Notably, fiscal transfers between the EU centre and peripheral states to fund environmental transitions will continue to be meager. Secondly, environmental norms and law remain central, but also that the EU is hardwired to over-legislate. Thirdly, this approach draws attention to the expansionary, if not missionary, quality of EU environmental policy, directed at imposing EU environmental norms upon other global environmental regimes. However, it is at these limes of external bureaucratic entrepreneurship that EU environmental policy success or failure will increasingly be defined. Recent Chinese-US Climate Change negotiations, together with the rout of the EU on the question of Aviation Emission Trading, suggest an EU empire of environmental norms in retreat. Fourthly, the weakness of the EU environmental regime to translate norm-making power into solid territorial authority over national sub-units will become more serious than the euphemism 'implementation deficits' suggests. Political challenges to the authority of EU environmental policy have grown to become a structural feature. From the 'bottom up' across Europe, the reality of environmental policy practice and conflict remains stubbornly localistic and national. This paper then draws attention to a number of critical fault-lines for the EU's environmental future. Moreover, it challenges assumptions of policy stability that pervade some recent literature.