The European Union’s early environmental legislation has led to the development of a Brussels-based community of environmental non-governmental (NGOs) individually aiming to advocate for the environment across a continent (Berny 2008). These ENGOs’s capacity to represent their membership over organization maintenance considerations or decision-makers’ expectations has been questioned in the wider context of the participation of civil society organisations in the EU’s governance (Kröger 2016), while their influence on policy-making has been debated among scholars from interest group studies (Dür et al. 2015).

The paper will reconsider these two questions in the light of the growing diversity of organisational forms that came to characterize collective action in the name of the environment in Brussels. Indeed, the multiplying of organisations by definition deprived of membership, such as foundations and thinks tanks and, especially recently in the field of climate change policy (Schonefeld 2013), has renewed the landscape of organisations advocating for the environment in Brussels. Despite the lack of the empirical studies in terms of ecology of population (Berkhout et al. 2017), the increasing number and diversity of organisations, in terms of topics covered, modes of action and resource mobilisation in the field may reflect new ways to adapting to the Brussels multilevel policy games. Considering this phenomenon offers an opportunity to reflect on the link between organisational forms and modes of action, the importance of coalition politics, and finally the competition for access to decision-makers.

The EU’s environmental policies not only have an impact on its member states, but also on third countries and the wider world. This paper examines the external dimension of EU environmental policies by analysing how the EU pursues environmental objectives towards third countries and international institutions. It does so by exploring four venues through which the EU conducts its external environmental policy. For each of the four venues, the paper not only discusses the theoretical concepts and developments, but also critically assesses the opportunities and limits of each venue by presenting policy-relevant examples. First, via the enlargement venue and the related ex ante conditionality dynamic, the EU spreads its environmental regulatory framework towards candidate countries. Second, the unilateral venue consists of internal policies that have an impact on third countries. That external effect can be either deliberate (such as with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) or unintentional (usually referred to as the ‘Brussels Effect’). Third, the EU’s external environmental policies in its bilateral relations with third countries contain sustainability clauses in trade agreements as well as follow-up dialogue mechanisms; capacity building and support provided to third countries on environmental matters; and bilateral diplomatic outreach. Fourth, at the multilateral level, the EU has presented itself as a leader in international institutions and global environmental governance. Yet, the extent to which the EU has succeeded to deliver on this ambition has evolved over time and its international leadership has become increasingly contested.

The relationship between EU environmental policy and the Single Market is complex and has changed throughout the course of European integration. This paper demonstrates that environmental policy often turned out more dynamic and independent from market forces than presumed. Although the Single Market unmistakably nudged environmental policy developments, it never imposed firm constraints. We review the strengths and weaknesses of established arguments on the relationship between EU environmental policy and the Single Market with historical hindsight, using prominent empirical illustrations. We find that early fears about the lowest common denominator dynamics associated with negative integration proved to be exaggerated, partly because the Single Market also required the kind of positive integration that led to the emergence of the European regulatory state. At the same time, the response to the recent economic crises is not merely regulatory, as member states have created joint fiscal capacity that was earmarked for environmental protection to some extent. Although environmental legislation has decreased in the wake of the polycrisis, so far there has been no systematic deregulation, and the extent of delegated law-making by the European Commission has even increased. Moreover, there are also qualitative differences, as some important crisis responses allowed the EU to promote a “green recovery” using genuine fiscal capacity, green monetary policy, and development banks.