Abstract
This paper examines the forms and roles of stakeholder involvement and public participation in the EU environmental governance.
The Commission adopted the White Paper on European Governance in 2001. It concerns the way in which the Union uses the powers given by its citizens because the Union is often seen as remote and at the same time too intrusive. The White Paper, therefore, proposed “Better involvement”, “Better policies, regulation and delivery”, “The EU's contribution to global governance” and “Refocused policies and institutions”, and defined five principles underlying European governance of openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence.
On the other hand, the “participation” is one of the indispensable conditions in the sustainable development as Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration defines “Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level”. It is recognized that the EU environmental policy has been legitimized by the policy effectiveness since its beginning and later required the democratic procedures which strengthen democracy and also ensure efficient policy implementations.
The EU has adopted a lot of directives including provisions on public participation, e. g. the EIA directive. And the Commission adopted legislative instruments in order to apply the Århus Convention-access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters-to the European Community institutions and bodies, e. g. “general principles and minimum standards for the consultation of interested parties”. The EU opens up the policy-making process to get more people and organizations involved in shaping and delivering it's policy. However, it is to be understood that the EU institutions and bodies remain the decision-making authority and the representative democracy is essential in the EU political systems.
These systems and measures seem to institutionalize the “deliberation” in the EU environmental policy process, which allows for the information provided by those concerned and their views to be taken into account at the earliest possible stage in the political decision-making process and is believed to contribute to solve the problems mentioned in the White Paper. The successful environmental policy needs the interaction and partnership among all levels and all sectors with democratic process. The deliberative arrangements cannot always lead to the ecologically rational policy output, but the deliberation is expected to play an important role in the democratic legitimacy of EU environmental policy.
