The European Union and Sustainable Development: Internal and External Dimensions

Apart from the editing work, my contribution to this book consists in a chapter and co-authorship of the introduction. The chapter deal with the impact of EU accession on sustainable development in the post-communist countries. I argue that factors such as market opening, economic liberalisation, weak state capacity for policy planning and implementation, as well as the particular form of civil societies in Eastern Europe (the union between employers and workers interests against costly environmental standards) have considerably minimised the positive impact of EU accession.

The volume provides the most comprehensive study, so far, on EU Sustainable Development policy. My co-editor is a renown scholar in the field of Environmental policy.