The Evolving Role of Industry in European Union Environmental Governance

Abstract

Large firms have played a crucial role in the process of European integration. The European Round Table of Industrialists, for instance, provided important inputs to the Single Market Programme in the early 1980s.¹ At the level of day-to-day policy making, firms and industrial associations act typically as pressure groups promoting their particular interests. But increasingly, industrial actors perform direct regulatory functions that have been delegated to them by the European Union (EU) authorities, hence shifting the public-private relationship in EU governance.² This shift is particularly interesting in the field of environmental policy. In the context of the traditional legislative approach, that is, producing binding environmental directives and regulations, industries stereotypically lobbied against costly standards. In the new governance context, industries are invited as partners in formulating and implementing environmental policy.