Business, environmental policy and the European Union: Deep politics with major impacts

Résumé :

Within the European Union (EU), the depiction of ‘business’ as uniformly opposed to environmental policy oversimplifies a complex landscape of economic actors and activities. This chapter explores corporate engagement in EU environmental policymaking, highlighting firms and interest groups as significant policy actors.It reviews the literature on business strategies toward policy and the role of institutional contexts as political opportunity structures. Such research shows the influence of business on environmental policy through long-term relationships with EU administrations and politicians, including interactions with the Commission, European Parliament and national governments. However, we argue that the influence of firms and their representatives on European environmental policy can be more finely assessed by focusing on specific industries, their respective political economies and how their institutions and organizations frame ‘the environment’ at different stages along the value chain.