The Study Of EU’s Climate Change Policy-making-in The Perspective Of Multi-level Governance

The main object of this research is the policy-making of EU’s climate change policy,and it aims to solve the problem how to make the climate change policy under EU’s institutional framework of multi-level governance.Specifically,which actors take part in the policy-making process,and what roles they played in the process.Meanwhile,it also discusses the way these actors influence the outcome by interaction.In this thesis,it combined the multi-level governance theory and policy-making analysis theory to solve these above problems.This analysis started from two dimensions--structural dimension and process dimension.The structural dimension focused on the actors from different levels and held variant interests in the policy-making process,and it also discussed their different abilities in the process.The process dimension focused on the ways of these actors’ interaction,and it also discussed how the compromise can be made through the game and balance of power.This thesis aims to do the research on EU’s climate change policy from a comprehensive and integrated perspective.This research is of great significance.From the perspective of theory,the existing literatures mainly focused on the actors from multi-levels,or taking multi-levels governance as a symbol of the mode of EU governance’s changing.There is a lack of analysis on the policy-making process in the current study,and this study prefers to analyze the contribution of one single actor in the policy-making process.At the same time,it also lacks the research on some specific issue areas.The EU’s climate change policy mostly can be seen as a given condition to express the EU’ s performance or position in global climate change governance.The process of policy-making or the way that EU makes its policy is ignored in the current research.Therefore,in this thesis,build the analysis framework by combining the multi-level governance theory and policy-making analysis theory to reflect EU’s practice on policy-making process of climate change policy exactly and provide a comprehensive way in both static and dynamic dimensions to do research.This thesis is of great realistic significance.As two influential powers in global climate governance,both China and the EU have realized the importance and urgency of addressing climate change problems.It can be found that China lacks of experience in the institution building and in the process of taking climate action.The EU is commonly recognized as a leader in global climate change governance and international climate change negotiations,and the influence and leadership mainly come from its excellent experience in internal climate change governance.From this point,researching the EU’s climate change policy making for China is not only good to learn its experience,but also useful to carry out the multilateral and bilateral diplomacy with EU in the field of climate change.As the pioneer in global climate change governance,EU has built a relatively mature climate change policy system after the process of emerging and developing.This process is under multiple dynamic of the global pressure,member states’ requirement and sub-state actors’ promotion.It can be seen two features in this process that one is the increasing actors and the other is the expanding issue areas.These two features also reflect in the policy outcome.On one hand,climate change issue belongs to the policy area of shared competence,and the policy outcome can be seen in both hard laws and soft laws.On the other hand,climate change cannot be simply taken as a environmental problem.In fact,the climate change issue has a stronger relation with economic,security and social issues.According to that,not only environmental department,but also the related departments,such as energy,transport,agriculture and construction departments take part in the process of policy-making.As a result,the EU’s climate change policy outcome is of strong comprehensiveness.Combining the multi-level governance theory and policy-making analysis theory builds the research framework of this thesis.In the field of climate change,the institution framework can be seen as a multi-level governance mode.The theory of multi-level governance can be understood in static dimension and dynamic dimension.In the static dimension,it analyses the structure of EU’s climate change policy making;in other words,it discusses the main actors and their power or the way they show their influence in the process of policy-making.As the shared competence issue,the following actors can be seen as main actors in making EU’s climate change policy.In the level of EU,there are European Commission,European Parliament(EP),Council of Ministers(the Council),European Council,European Economic and Social Committee(ESC),and European Committee of the Regions(CoR).The national government and related department of member states also make contributions to the policy-making process.It cannot be ignored that sub-state actors,such as local or regional governments,experts,think tank,interest groups,and NGOs,can take part in the process through the direct and indirect ways.In the dynamic dimension,it analyses the interaction of diversified actors from different levels in the process of policy-making.The diversified actors play games to make balance of power and aim to achieve a consensus by negotiations and consultations.This kind of interaction can be seen in the actors from different levels and can be reflected as the difference of policy-making modes.Co-decision,extensive inter-governmentalism,open-coordination,and EU regulatory modes are the main policy-making modes in the field of climate change policy.It also can be seen in the actors from the same level and can be mainly reflected as the division of powers among EU’s institutions.In addition,this interaction also can be seen in the interior of one actor and can be seen as the way to vote.In the process of EU’s climate change policy-making,at first,it is setting agenda and presenting a proposal.And then discuss the proposal to adopt it.At last,implementing the policy and evaluating its effectiveness.Making sure those multi-level actors can make contributions effectively and pursuing the basic European norms are the two main principles in the policy-making process.In the process,European Council takes responsibility to make the overall plan for the EU for a long time,and then other EU institutions can do the detailed work under its advices.The European Commission has the only right to present the proposal,which is based on the enough consultation.In the preparation of the proposal,European Commission can introduce the content to the public in many ways,and seek the advices from the stakeholders.Meanwhile,the stakeholders can express their own ideas on the proposal in direct or indirect ways.The proposal will be submitted to the EP and the Council to discuss internally.At the same time,the proposal will be also submitted to the ESC and CoR for further consultation.Most climate change policy has to be adopted by ordinary legislative procedure,and the special legislative procedure also can be used in a few conditions.There is an at most three-reading process in the ordinary legislative procedure.After adopting the proposals,member states have to transfer the EU policy to national policy in a proper way.Member states have to report the implementation to European Commission and accept its evolution.The European Commission has the right to start infringement proceedings to ensure all EU countries properly apply EU law.What the European Commission has done also provides the basis for its proposal in the future.Currently,the EU has made the 2020 climate and energy package,2050 low-carbon roadmap,and 2030 climate and energy framework.These three climate strategies and targets are made under the pressure from global climate change governance,the appeals for norm and the practice of member states.In the policy-making process of these three strategies,it can be seen the multi-level and diversified actors interact in a proper way.They negotiate and make a compromise for a common goal.The outcome reflects the compromise of varied interests.The EU’s climate change policy can be seen as mature,and this field also can be taken as a motivation to develop the further European integration.The policy-making process of EU’s climate change policy can be understood as a process of interaction among multi-level actors with diversified interests,and they work together through playing games and making the balance of power to achieve the common interests and solve the common problems.It also shows two trends of development.One is that the inter-governmentalism will play less important role in the future as the increasing actors have more channels to take part in the policy-making process.The other one is the EU will do more work to make the procedure better to reduce the time for negotiation and push the consensus to be made.Only in this way can the EU advance its policy-making democracy and ensure the effectiveness of the policy outcome.