Det bästa för miljön, det bästa för Europa?- Europeiska kommissionens argumentation i frågan om EU-harmonisering av miljöskatter The best of the environment, the best for Europe?- European Commission' s official arguments on EU hormonisotian of environmental taxes

Abstract

This thesis tackles the subject concerning arguments as a conceptual basis for understanding the general strategy of the European Union Commission on issues concerning EU-harmonized environmental taxes, politically delicate and intergovernmental dependent. The Commission's official proposals, communications and other relevant documents are subject to inquiry, where the theoretical bases are that harmonized environmental taxes in the EU is an issue conceived as supported by academic debate, and where the institutional arrangement in relation to an European-national dimension alongside the discursive context, allows meaningful space for arguments. The study makes a distinction between substantial (environmental cancerns in itself) and instrumental (other benefits, mostly economic ones) rationality as a foundation in various types of arguments. The study's main findings are that the Commission's official documents over the past 20 years, have been trying to keep a strong image of reason and knowledge based arguments for an EU-wide environmental tax reform. In particular, the types of arguments tend to appeal to the Member States by stressing the instrumental rationality in a European environmental tax reform, indicating the value of good arguments as a part of the Commission's main strategies. In sum, this may have further theoretical suggestions concerning questions of environmental and elimate change policies in a European context or other more general studies relying on theoretical assumptions of logics of argument, legitimacy or studies of motives behind action strategies in politically sensitive issues such as taxation at supranational level.