The EU and multilateralism in the environmental field. UNEP reform and external representation in environmental negotiations

Delreux, Tom
(2014) The EU and Effective Multilateralism. Internal and external reform practices — ISBN: [978-0-415-71311-5], p. 66-83, published

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This chapter studies the impact of internal and external institutional reform debates on the EU’s external environmental governance. It examines how the EU positioned itself in discussions on strengthening the institutional framework for environmental governance and sustainable development (the ‘external reform’ debate) and how the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty (the ‘internal reform’ debate) affected the representation of the EU in multilateral environmental negotiations. First, reform of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and a strengthened institutional framework for sustainable development are debated since the early 2000s. These discussions culminated in a decision of the Rio+20 summit (June 2012) to strengthen some features of UNEP (but not to upgrade it to a UN specialized agency) and to replace the UN Commission on Sustainable Development with a ‘High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development’. The chapter discusses the EU position in these debates, the rationale behind, the evolution it has gone through and the extent to which the international reforms agreed upon in Rio+20 provide an answer to the concerns raised by the EU. Second, the chapter shows that the status-quo has largely remained in place in the external representation of the EU in international environmental negotiations after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Empirical evidence from climate change and biodiversity negotiations (both within the UN framework) demonstrates that the rotating Presidency of the Environment Council, as well as a system of informal division of labour with lead negotiators, are still used to represent the EU internationally. Furthermore, the chapter also discusses the inter-institutional tensions in the EU (mainly between the Commission and the Council) on the question of external representation in the environmental field that to a large extent dominated the agenda after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty.
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Delreux, T. (2014). The EU and multilateralism in the environmental field. UNEP reform and external representation in environmental negotiations. In Drieskens E., van Schaik L. (ed.), The EU and Effective Multilateralism. Internal and external reform practices (p. p. 66-83). Routledge. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/29137