Involvement of Non-EU Countries in EU Law- and Policy-Making: A Research Agenda

The EU has recently strengthened its global profile. Accordingly, researchers have begun exploring the role of the EU as a global actor and the global reach of its law and policies. Looking at the EU as a missionary of an economic and political order (inside-out), however, manages to overlook the role that non-EU actors play vis-à-vis the development of EU law and policy-making (outside-in).

This paper analyses the challenges and opportunities that arise from the involvement in EU law- and policy-making of non-EU actors. It does so by looking firstly into the different ways in which non-EU actors influence the development of EU environmental law and secondly analysing how the EU takes into account these views in its internal decision-making processes. Just to give one example of questions involved in the analysis: Participation is usually considered in its territorial context. As a result, non-EU actors have no recognised space to proffer their views. Given that most environmental problems are transboundary, this view is limited. Indeed, the preliminary analysis suggests that third country actors have made inroads into new areas, for instance during policy implementation.

The main aim of the paper will be in laying out the research agenda for analysing the role of non-EU countries and in providing some observations for what this means for a future EU, i.e. whether the latter is resurrecting itself through cooperating with others and building alliances in the process. Some initial empirical observations will also be provided in the area of EU’s chemicals policy.