Abstract
This article is a first attempt to examine the effectiveness of EU water policies in a comparative perspective. It provides a systematic analysis of the relationship between EU water policies and the quality of national water resources for 17 EU member states over a period of 23 years (1990–2012). The analysis reveals that EU policies have contributed to the water quality in the member states. Moreover, it finds that decentralized implementation processes enhance the effectiveness of top-down policy instruments while not making a significant difference for bottom-up policy instruments. Administrative capacities and (neo-)corporatist arrangement seem to play some, yet only minor, role in determining the effectiveness of EU water policies. This way, the article speaks to the literature on EU compliance and implementation and the broader public policy literature.
Highlights
Water is one of the sectors with the most comprehensive coverage by European Union (EU)environmental policy
By means of quantitative analysis techniques, it was detected that EU policies have helped to improve the water quality of member states’ rivers
The analysis revealed that the effectiveness of water policies is not the same everywhere in Europe, but varies by the national implementation context
Summary
Water is one of the sectors with the most comprehensive coverage by European Union (EU). It speaks to the well-established literature on policy compliance and implementation in the context of the EU [1] While this strand of literature has concentrated on the national impediments to the timely transposition and proper application of EU policies, it has not examined to what extent EU legislation affects the environmental quality in the member states. The approach chosen in this article, by contrast, takes a broader perspective on the linkage between EU water policies and the quality of national water resources. This way, it allows to identify theoretical patterns that go beyond the scope of single policies. The final section summarizes the article’s main findings and presents some concluding remarks
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