(1) European Commission, European Governance, A White Paper, COM (2001) 428.Google Scholar

(2) Moellers, C., Policy, Politics or Political Theory. This webpaper (http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/01/012801/rtf) is a part of contributions to the Jean Monnet Working Paper No. 6/01, Symposium: Responses to the European Commission's White Paper on Governance. If not indicated otherwise, the following citations also refer to contributions to the Jean Monnet Working Paper 6/01.Google Scholar

(3) Scharpf, F. W., European Governance: Common Concerns vs. the Challenge of Diversity, contribution to the Jean Monnet Working Paper No. 6/01, at 3-5 (http://www.jeanmonnetprogramorg/papers/01/010701.rtf). The author argues that the White Paper is generally not interested in discussing the substantive problems confronting the EU and its Member States at the present time. Such a substantive problem would be the asymmetric political economy of Europe. While the pressures of regulatory and tax competition give rise to increasingly urgent demands for more effective market-correcting policies at the European level, agreement on effective European solutions is most difficult precisely for those problems about which the citizen of the Member States care about most.Google Scholar

(4) Moellers, C. (note 2) at 4.Google Scholar

(5) Eriksen, E. O., Governance or Democracy? The White Paper on European Governance, contribution to the Jean Monnet Working Paper No. 6/01, http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/01/011201.rtf at 4.Google Scholar

(6) Council Directive 90/313, 1990 O.J. (L158) 56.Google Scholar

(7) Demmke, C., Die EG-Informationsrichtlinie und die Vollzugsdefizite in der EG-Umweltpolitik, in UMWELTSCHUTZ DURCH UMWELTINFORMATIONEN – CHANCEN UND GRENZEN DES NEUEN INFORMATIONSANSPRUCHES 38, 46-48 (Dorothea Hegele & Ralf Röger eds., 1993) (making the argument that the Environmental Information Directive constitutes an important step towards the European ambition to introduce new instruments in environmental law).Google Scholar

(8) See Masing, J., Die Mobilisierung des Bürgers für die Durchsetzung des Rechts: Europäische Impulse für eine Revision der Lehre vom subjektiv-öffentlichen Recht, at 19-53.Google Scholar

(9) At the same time, the public is given the opportunity to make an input at several intermittent stages throughout the process. Examples of this new risk communication approach include the “Seveso-II Directive” (Council Directive EEC 96/82) and the European Environmental Impact Assessment Directive (Council Directive 97/11/EEC amending Directive 85/337/EEC, O.J. No. L 73/5).Google Scholar

(10) See Weiler, J.H.H./Haltern, U./Mayer, F. (1995), European Democracy and Its Critique – Five Uneasy Pieces, HARVARD JEAN MONNET PAPERS 5, at 32.Google Scholar

(11) Kux, S. and Allmen, U. von, Pushers, Laggards and Free Riders: Explaining the international framework and the domestic bases of climate politics, Paper prepared for the small Group Session Environmental Governance 1997 Open Meeting of the Human Dimension of Global Change Research Community, 1997, at 11.Google Scholar

(12) Danwitz, T. von, Verwaltungsrechtliches System und Europäische Integration, 1996, at 253. The German administrative system would loose its ability to guarantee a high standard with respect to the protection of basic laws.Google Scholar

(13) The following description relies on the arguments of E.W. Böckenförde, Die verfassungstheoretische Unterscheidung von Staat und Gesellschaft als Bedingung der individuellen Freiheit, GEISTESWISSENSCHAFTLICHE VORTRÄGE 6183 (1973). He criticizes efforts to blur the distinction between state and society and explains in a historical overview that the separation of state and society was a crucial precondition for the emergence of a social sphere of freedom.Google Scholar

(14) Id. at 26-28.Google Scholar

(15) Id. at 36/37, underlining that the use of the word democracy is ambivalent: if democracy is understood as the subjection of all areas of societal freedom under the power of partial collectives, the danger of a totalitarian development exists.Google Scholar

(16) Vierhaus, H.P., Umweltbewusstsein von oben – zum Verfassungsgebot demokratischer Willensbildung (1994), who points out that the distinction between a state sphere and a social sphere is a necessary one in order to preserve the ability to identify in an clear manner a state intrusion in one's right. (at 277, note 167).Google Scholar

(17) Ladeur, K.H., Öffentlichkeitsbeteiligung an Entscheidungsverfahren und die prozedurale Rationalität des Ordnungsrechts – Selbstaufklärung der Verwaltungsentscheidung im öffentlichen Diskurs?, in REFORMPERSPEKTIVEN IM UMWELTRECHT, 171, 172-173 (Rossnagel/Neuser eds., 1996).Google Scholar

(18) It is telling that in German administrative law, the very notion of public interest is often used to justify the protection of secrecy interests. This differs from countries like the U.S. where the same notion is always used in the sense of demanding a greater openness of administrative procedures and a furthering of public participation.Google Scholar

(19) Börzel, T. A., Pace Setting, Foot-Dragging, and Fence-Sitting. Member State Responses to Europeanization, Queen's Paper on Europeanisation No. 4/2001 (Webpaper, available under http://www.qub.ac.uk/ies/onlinepapers/poe4-01.pdf). She argues that member states seek to shape European policy-making according to their interests and institutional traditions since it lowers the cost of adaptation in the implementation process. She demonstrates that the new approach to environmental regulation at the level of the European Union was caused by a successful push for “British-Style” procedural regulation (at 3-5).Google Scholar

(20) Breyer, S. G. and Stewart, R. B., ADMINISTRATIVE LAW AND REGULATORY POLICY-TEXT AND CASES 926 (1992), 26-29.Google Scholar

(21) See, for this view from a sociological perspective, Jepperson, R. L. and Meyer, John W., The Public Order and the Construction of Formal Organization, in THE NEW INSTITUTIONALISM IN ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS, 220 (1991).Google Scholar

(22) From the equation of state and societal interests follows as well that there is no perceived need – contrary to the German case – to protect the individual from state intrusion that endangers individual liberty.Google Scholar

(23) It is interesting to note that German administrative law with its described characteristics has been criticised for not being able to cope with the complex regulatory tasks that arise in areas that are characterised by uncertainty and a changing knowledge base. Due to the described historical developments, a universal rationality of law would be upheld. A substantive rationality would prevail, based on “if/then” relationships and a stable knowledge base. The mode of decision-making would be based on a stable pattern of causality and experience. See for this criticism K.H. Ladeur (note 17) at 173.Google Scholar

(24) See, note 11 and the corresponding text.Google Scholar

(25) Kux, S./von Allmen, U. (note 11) at 13.Google Scholar