The Growing Remit of the EU in Environmental and Climate Change Policy and Citizens’ Support Across the Union

Abstract

In a first step, we reconstruct the emergence and content of European Union climate and environmental policies. These policies have become increasingly important such that today the EU expects member states actively to protect the natural environment even at the price of less economic freedom and higher financial costs. Using 2006 Eurobarometer data, we then analyze the extent to which citizens support this normative idea of environmental protection. Overall, the approval rating for the EU ecological idea is high, and environmental protection is an integral component of European citizens’ value system. Nevertheless, not all countries support this to the same degree. Citizens of EU-15 countries show higher levels of support for the environment to take precedence over economic claims than citizens in Accession I and II country groups and in Turkey. As regression analysis show, the level of support depends on several factors. The most important ones are the country’s level of economic modernization, and the citizens’ generalized political orientations.

Keywords: EU, climate, climate protection, climate change, greenhouse effect, environment policy, environment protection, citizen, citizen participation, public opinion