The challenges of policy convergence: the Europeanization of biodiversity governance in an enlarging EU

With this paper we address the problems of institutional changes in governance and the framing of biodiversity conservation policy at the level of the enlarged European Union (EU). Results are demonstrated from selected examples of institutional adaptation to EU biodiversity policy from five Central and Eastern European countries, characterized by different socialist regimes and different transition processes from hierarchical to democratic and market governance. The theoretical basis of this paper is institutional rebuilding in the context of the emerging multilevel environmental governance of the EU. The paper demonstrates that successful institutional coevolution of EU institutions with preexisting institutions is a precondition for synchronization of biodiversity policies. The emergence of multilevel governance with multiple actors' participation is prone to creating tensions, but evidence from the countries studied indicates that this is not necessarily a disadvantage.