Old wine in new bottles? The Commission and the use of environmental policy instruments

In this article, we address two main questions. First, we ask whether the alleged shift in the Commission's environmental ‘policy style’ from a traditional regulatory style towards a new style based on less impositional, more market‐based and co‐operative instruments has actually occurred in practice. We seek to answer this question (a) by employing content analysis to assess the policy instruments propagated by the Commission in both the Fourth and Fifth Environmental Action Programmes (EAP); and (b) by analysing legislative proposals introduced by the Commission in designated environmental policy fields (atmospheric pollution, waste, water). On the basis of the findings we argue that there is a discrepancy between what the Commission declares in the EAPs and what it proposes in practice. Moreover, in a second step, we highlight the factors which might make any major shift in the Commission's policy style difficult to achieve in order to account for this discrepancy.