Agenda-setting theory gives different explanations of the ups and downs in the attention to policy issues. Issues must compete with other issues for attention and priority, and environmental policy in this sense is a ‘classical’ topic for which different types of attention dynamics have been observed. Political systems in which issue competition for agenda space occurs are not closed systems. Policy topics may come from, or move to, another level of governance, as for example in the EU where a number of major topics are addressed in the supranational jurisdiction established by EU treaties. In such a multilevel perspective, issue competition within a national system involves other contingencies as well: the extent to which issues are addressed at the higher level of governance and the way these issues are defined (policy images).
In this contribution we analyze how for the environment as one of the classical topics in agenda setting theory the process of issue competition involves two levels of governance: the EU and its member states. We consider how attention to problems can be substitutive between these two levels of governance in agenda setting or how it can be complementary, with different consequences for issue competition and framing and for the timing of national priorities. We apply mainly a qualitative analysis in which we compare 4 EU member states and analyze how environmental issues are framed and constructed at the national level and how they travel through the different levels of governance. We find that some member states are frontrunners and others are followers to the EU policies. Additionally, we observe that the attention on national political levels has been decreasing since the environment became increasingly framed as an European issue.
