GEPS No 04/17: German Interests and Priorities in European Environmental Policy
This paper by Helge Jörgens, visiting professor at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE) and senior lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin, and Barbara Saerbeck, research fellow at the Environmental Policy Research Centre and lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin, studies the typical interests which shape Germany’s environmental foreign policy in Europe: victim, polluter and third-party interests as well as the state’s interest in a stronger role in international politics and its interest in shaping policy within the European Union. It demonstrates that Germany’s interests are diverse and characterised by interactions between the national and European policy levels, and how the country plays a particularly active role in European and international environmental policy when different types of foreign policy interests are combined. The paper concludes that Germany will likely extend its international activities in this area, both within the European Union and beyond in global negotiations, in the medium to long term.