NOW YOU LISTEN! - A case study to voice as alternative to exit in the Environmental Council

Abstract

The concerns about EU’s future survival are increasing in the post-Brexit reality, at the same time as global challenges, not least mitigating climate change, test countries’ ability to cooperate. The EU’s ability to function effectively has been put into question by researchers stating that the EU has become adversely politicized, with national-level political battles seeping through in the EU decision-making and weighing it down, and that current scholarship does not understand these disintegrative forces well. Against this background, this case study analyses the Environmental Council’s policy debate on the EU’s strategic long-term vision for a climate neutral economy, and seeks to confirm Stefano Bartolini’s exit/voice theory concepts as useful and relevant tools in analysing the presence of (partial) exit pressures, pressure-relieving mechanisms - venting through exercising one’s voice - or signs of adverse politicization in the debate between the member states. This study shows that while Bartolini’s concepts are highly relevant and present in the member states interactions in analysing a given situation, their ability to describe adverse forms of politization is limited. The study concludes that the large majority of the member states’ interactions is proactive, constructive participation. The most dissatisfied member states take up partial (subject-specific) exit as an alternative mainly for financial reasons rather than out of principle, or for national anti-EU sentiments. In the context of this case study, EU-cooperation is not besieged by adverse politicization but is largely constructive – albeit not unconditional – cooperation.