PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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regions in the world and the general role of the EU in the global marketplace are areas
of concern for the EEB;
The European office of Friends of the Earth is also typical for the special lobbying
offices NGOs have opened to monitor EU environment activities. 54
FoEE is the largest environmental network in Europe working at grassroots level,
consisting of 31 independent national groups in 30 countries with over 3000 local
chapters. FoEE coordinates and supports the campaigns and projects of its member
groups, which deal with a large variety of subjects such as traffic, waste, EUenlargement,
EU structural funds, trade, tourism, climate change and biotechnology.
Through these activities, FoEE aims to raise public awareness, enhance the
participation of people and environmental citizens' organisations in political processes,
and influence political decision-makers, especially at the European level.
The European Policy office of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has even
launched a special Accession Initiative seeking to “raising awareness of the threats and
opportunities for nature conservation and sustainable development connected with the
historic enlargement of the European Union.” 55
Given these broadened agendas, we can conclude that the explicit eco-centrism of
the discursive framework of renunciation really has no direct policy outlet in the
European institutional landscape. Nature protection and conservation have mostly
become mainstreamed into human-centric environmental discourses. 56
What remains
strong among environmentalists, however, is the view that human resource consumption
has to be limited.
54 Also, Climate Network Europe (CAN), the European Federation for Transport and Environment, the
International Friends of Nature, WWF’s European office, the EEB, BirdLife International, Friends of the
Earth and Greenpeace have formed the so-called “Green G8”, an alliance formed by eight of the largest
European environmental organizations that have as many as 20 million individual members through various
national organizations in Europe. They coordinate joint responses and recommendations to EU decision
makers. For an overview brochure on their joint activities, see http://www.te.nu/Temp%20info/GreenG8Brochure.pdf.
55 See http://www.panda.org/resources/programmes/epo/accession/
56 This fits well with the historical explanation of the concept of ecological modernization Hajer presents.