Shifting or sharing the burden? The implementation of EU environmental policy in Spain and Germany

This paper argues that implementation problems in European policy‐making are best analysed and understood in a framework of multi‐level governance. Although multi‐level governance does not have any explanatory power itself, it allows us to conceptualize certain features of European policy‐making which set the parameters for effective implementation. The paper develops a model of multi‐level governance which is used to analyse the implementation of five different EU environmental policies in Spain and Germany. The results of the case study appear to confirm the argument of northern leaders and southern laggards often made in the literature. Yet, a multi‐level governance approach to EU implementation, which does not simply attribute implementation problems of the southern member states to a ‘Mediterranean Syndrome’ but conceives implementation failure as a function of adaptational pressure and lacking the capacity to share adaptational costs, has policy implications which reach beyond the rather simplistic North‐South dichotomy.