PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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Union transport decision-making, both inside the EU and in future candidate countries. 10
Why does the EU not “put its money where its mouth is,” to put it colloquially?
Generally speaking, there are two possible explanations: either the EU does not
want to implement its own sustainability agenda - which raises fundamental questions
about the EU the “true” motives of EU decision-making, i.e. its rationality - or the EU is
not able to implement its own sustainability agenda - which raises fundamental questions
about the EU’s function as a modern planning and policy-making body, i.e. its power and
legitimation. Note that such an (in)ability to “implement sustainability” in turn has
several dimensions: First, there is the issue of “democratic legitimation” in the narrower
sense, i.e. the fact that within the currently prevailing context of multi-level, democratic
governance in Europe, the EU’s decision-making powers are limited by issues of national
sovereignty and subsidarity. Second, there is a procedural dimension focusing on the setup
and the (in)efficiency of those institutions actually implementing environmental and
transport policies. Finally, there is a more structural dimension concerning the
fundamental incompatibility of “sustainability” ideals with competing development
goals, e.g. enlargement (“goal incompatibility”). As subsequent sections will show, all
three dimensions provide partial explanations as to why the EU is fundamentally
“incapable” of implementing sustainability.
Taken together, the “rationality” and the “power/legitimation” explanations have
important implications with regard to the institutional nature of the European Union and
to the problem of (sustainable) planning and policy-making at the Pan-European, supranational
level. Let us briefly consider two possible explanatory paths:
10 To be sure, both the “rhetoric” and the “reality” of EU investments are elaborated in much more detail in
the following pages. For a closer analysis of EU policy statements on sustainable transport, see Part II. For