The Making of Environmental Policy in the European Council

Who Decides in the Council of the European Union?*

“…As noted earlier, this description of the decision‐making process within the Council abstracts from many complications and idiosyncrasies of specific cases. The feedback arrows in Figure 1 originating from the ministerial and the committee level indicate that dossiers can be discussed several times on different levels of the Council hierarchy before they are finally adopted as legislation (Andersen and Rasmussen, 1998, p. 589) 8 . In addition, a decision might not be reached at all when the Member States and the Commission cannot agree on a compromise.…”

“…The analyses by van Schendelen (1996) and Gomez and Peterson (2001) rely on the agendas of ministerial meetings. Andersen and Rasmussen (1998) and van den Bos (1991) also provide important insights through data based on Council documents and expert interviews, respectively. Recently, Hayes‐Renshaw and Wallace (2006) provided new figures in the second edition of their book, which are also based on an analysis of the agendas of ministerial meetings.…”

“… Sources : Hayes‐Renshaw and Wallace (1997, 2006); Andersen and Rasmussen (1998); Gomez and Peterson (2001); van den Bos (1991); van Schendelen (1996). …”

“…Based on a sample of 74 legislative ‘decisions which are important for the Netherlands’ (van den Bos, 1991, p. 62), the results of van den Bos' (1991) expert interviews also indicate that in almost half of all cases the most important decisions are taken by ministers. Tracing the history of the decision‐making process on 43 environmental policy acts adopted during 1993 and 1994, the study by Andersen and Rasmussen (1998) even finds that about three‐quarters of the acts were discussed at the ministerial level. Interestingly, the only two sets of estimates that distinguish between working groups and committees on the administrative level (van den Bos, 1991; Hayes‐Renshaw and Wallace, 1997) largely agree in that 15 to 20 per cent of decisions are ascribed to the committee level.…”

Editorial: Statement

“…The 'new governance' school offers an alternative vision. It focuses firmly on the 'sub-systemic' level of decision-making that has grown up out of the Monnet method of integration (see Majone et al, 1996;Kreher and Mény, 1997;Beyers and Dierickx, 1998;Hix, 1998;Wessels, 1998;Skou Andersen and Rasmussen, 1998). The 'new governance' literature assumes, first, that European regulation becomes 'positive sum' when policy responsibility is delegated to independent institutions that act in the public interest, but at 'arm's length' from majoritarian institutions.…”