THE IMPACT ON UK ENVIRONMENTAL ADMINISTRATION

Abstract

This chapter seeks to identify some of the broader and longer-lasting effects of EU membership on the traditional principles, structure and style of British environmental administration. Along all three of these dimensions, the administration of environmental policy in the 1990s is manifestly different from what it was in the 1970s. The chapter tries to assess the relative influence of the EU in bringing about this transition, bearing in mind the various ‘domestic’ level factors which also modify policy. This in no way assumes a simple dichotomy between the ‘national’ and ‘European’ levels, for disentangling their respective influences upon the development even of a single Directive can be exceedingly difficult. For instance, European tools and concepts have been taken up by the UK Government and applied in areas not subject to EU policy. Nor does it imply that the flow of influence is necessarily from the EU downwards because British initiatives have on occasions helped fundamentally to shape EU policy. Rather, it provides a useful perspective for thinking about the impact of the EU on national political and administrative systems. When Britain acceded to the Treaty of Rome in 1973 it accepted a body of law which formally commits all member states to certain common policies, to defined procedures for reaching decisions on these policies and to enforcing their implementation in a consistent and coherent manner. What impact has this discipline had on the manner in which British officials enunciate and put into effect policies to protect and conserve the environment? The quotations aboveprovide two helpful benchmarks although they say nothing about the intervening processes. The first, written by a leading academic analyst of European political affairs, describes the situation just prior to Britain’s entry into the then EEC, which at the time had no environmental policy. While noting that the Community had eroded the traditional distinction between foreign and domestic policy, Helen Wallace concluded that ‘European issues have…tended to be regarded [in Britain] as one bundle of issues rather than as a new dimension pervading the political spectrum.’ ‘Changes at the national level’, she continued, ‘have not been extensive’ (1971:538). The second statement, which is drawn from the UK Government’s strategy for sustainable development, issued in 1994, suggests that by then it had become increasingly difficult to conceive of or identify a freestanding entity called ‘British environmental policy’ distinct from EU policy; the two had become coterminous. Sbraiga (1996:254) asks rhetorically how many other supranational organisations involve themselves in ‘domestic’ concerns like a country’s sewerage system, its drinking water or the health of its trees. One is reminded of the prescient comment made by Lord Denning in 1974 in which he likened the Treaty of Rome to an ‘incoming tide’ which ‘flows into the estuaries and up the rivers’, and ‘cannot be held back’. To carry this analogy further, if the effects of the EU are as profound as some commentators allege, we should be able to detect them not only in the rivers and streams of policy, but also in the creeks and rivulets that make up the British administrative system.