Sustainable development ‘outside’ the European Union: what role for impact assessment?

Abstract

Sustainable development is a cross-cutting issue par excellence that necessitates a very high degree of policy coordination. This is especially true considering that the European Union's 2001 Sustainable Development Strategy demands that all European Union (EU) policies actively support the sustainable development of other countries, particularly those in the developing world. In order to fulfil this ambitious obligation, the EU has pledged to consider the impacts that all new policies have within and outside the EU as part of a new impact assessment (IA) regime. This paper aims to evaluate how well the new IA regime has helped address the 'external' dimensions of sustainability through the analysis of potential effects of EU policies on non-EU countries. It finds that the IA procedure does not currently function as an effective instrument for the implementation of the Union's commitment to promoting sustainability in the developing world. Other coordination mechanisms need to be considered, given the horizontal and vertical complexity of this challenge. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 1 June 2005; revised 2 November 2005; accepted 16 November 2005Keywords: policy coordination; European Union; networks; impact assessment; sustainable development; developing countries Introduction S USTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IS A QUINTESSENTIALLY CROSS-CUTTING ISSUE THAT NECESSITATES A HIGHdegree of policy coordination. It certainly does not fit neatly into any of the established remits of individual sectors or agencies. Sustainable development is, of course, now a fundamental goal of the European Union (EU) (Jordan, 2005). This includes certain social, environmental and economic objectives within the Union, but also makes it necessary to take into account the effect of EU policies on the ability of other countries to develop sustainably. The EU Sustainable Development Strategy recognizes this obligation and demands that all EU policies 'must actively support efforts by other * Correspondence to: Camilla Adelle, Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE), School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK. E-mail: c.opoku@uea.ac.uk 58 C. Adelle et al.countries -particularly those in the developing world -to achieve development that is more sustainable ' (COM (2001) 264, p. 9). The EU has argued that it is 'well placed to assume a leading role in the pursuit of global sustainable development ' (COM (2001) 264, p. 6).This link between the external and the internal dimensions of sustainability represents a hugely ambitious policy objective, which sets the EU apart from other broadly comparable political entities such as the United States (US) (Vogel, 2005). The EU has made numerous, if not always successful, attempts to address internal environmental issues such as pollution and biodiversity loss, as well as problems such as climate change and ozone depletion that have global consequences (Coffey and Baldock, 2003;Jordan, 2005). ...

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“…and sustainable development (e.g Martinuzzi 2004;. EEAC 2006;Adelle et al 2006;Nykvist and Nilsson 2009). …”

The unsustainable rationality of Impact Assessment

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Impact Assessment and the Liberalization of the EU Energy Markets: Evidence‐Based Policy‐Making or Policy‐Based Evidence‐Making?

“…Indeed, the performance of IAs at the EU level in most cases did not fulfil the expectations (Löfstedt, 2007). A number of evaluative studies, based on various scorecards, content and function tests, underline that existing IAs do not sufficiently quantify the benefits and costs of future legislation (Vibert, 2004; Torriti, 2007a); do not include sustainable development issues (Kirkpatrick and Franz, 2007; Adelle et al ., 2006; IEEP, 2004); and do not take into consideration a sufficiently wide range of policy options (Renda, 2006; Cecot et al ., 2009).…”