Abstract
Tackling diffuse pollution from agriculture is a key challenge for governments seeking to implement the European Union’s Water Framework Directive (WFD). In the research literature, how best to integrate and align effective measures for tackling diffuse pollution, within the context of the EU’s multilevel governance structure, remains an open question. This paper focuses on the first and second implementation cycles of the WFD to explore how national governance arrangements either facilitated or hindered the adoption of effective policies, especially with regards to the delivery of agricultural and water policies on the ground. It draws on data collected through systematic document analysis and interviews with key experts, policymakers and interest groups, and presents a comparative analysis of two case studies: England and Scotland. The case studies show that Scotland’s joined-up governance structure, which enabled policymakers and interest groups to work together and to build trust and cooperation, facilitated the adoption of stricter measures for tackling diffuse pollution. In contrast, in England institutional fragmentation prevented a meaningful engagement of all parties and acted as a barrier. The analysis unpacks the design of policy mixes and the conditions that allow national governments to pursue more holistic and integrated governance approaches to overcome opposition from interest groups and gain their support.
Highlights
Despite ambitious targets set in the EU by the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/European Commission (EC), WFD), to date few water bodies have achieved good water quality status [1]
This paper focuses on the governance structures put in place by EU Member States (MSs) to show how these were more or less conducive to effective policies to reduce diffuse pollution from nutrients and pesticides, an issue that remains understudied [11]
While the issue of political ambition could be explored from many different theoretical perspectives, for the purpose of this paper we look at how governance arrangements led actors to prioritise the likelihood that policies achieve the WFD environmental goal over other criteria, and how policymakers maintain a relative prioritisation of water quality over other contingent issues
Summary
Despite ambitious targets set in the EU by the Water Framework Directive In the context of EU environmental policies, national governance arrangements involve the interaction of policymakers and policy actors at different institutional levels [13,14,15] In this regard, while MSs are free to choose their institutional approach and interventions, the WFD text incorporated the key principle of integrated water resource management (IWRM), which promotes a more effective approach to tackling diffuse pollution as one of the main pressures on water quality [16,17,18]. England did not modify its existing water governance arrangements to implement the WFD [22] In this case, a lack of shared responsibilities, together with less effective stakeholder engagement practices, resulted in a political preference for voluntary approaches. By understanding the pathways that lead policymakers to choose a certain policy mix, we can advance our understanding of the barriers to successful policy implementation as well as the links between the EU policy implementation theory and IWRM [11]
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