Environmental Policy and the Challenge of Accession

Abstract

Accession significantly reinforced the processes of democratic transition and socioeconomic modernization in the Southern and Central and Eastern Europeancountries that had applied for EU membership. The conditions for accession, however, differed significantly between the Southern and Eastern enlargements. The acquis communautaire doubled over the 20 years that laid between the two accession processes. When Greece, Portugal and Spain joined the EC, there was no enabling legislation related to the completion of the Single European Market, not to mention the Common Currency, political cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs or the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Moreover, accession conditionality was introduced only with the Eastern enlargement. Finally, the EC was much more generous in granting temporary derogations than the EU. Despite these differences, Southern and Eastern candidate countries faced similar challenges in coping with accession because of their limited governance capacities. Greece, Portugal and Spain only felt the main burden after they had joined the EC. The CEE countries, in contrast, had to do their homework first before they were allowed in. The time elapsed in the case of the three Southern accession countries allows for a more dynamic perspective tracing of changes over time, particularly with regard to the impact of EU push and pull factors.