No / The European Union (EU) is an evolving system of multi-level governance (MLG). For scholars of the EU, a critical question is which level of governance has the most decisive influence on the integration process? Some studies of EU regional policy claim that subnational actors, using channels of interest representation that bypass national officials, interact directly with EU policy-makers generating outcomes that are neither desired nor intended by national executives. This article examines the development of EU biodiversity policy over a thirty-year period (c. 1970-2000) and finds that environmental groups, who were generally marginalized at the national level in Britain, have learnt to use EU opportunities to outflank the government, resulting in policy outcomes that they would be unlikely to secure through national channels of representation. However, the evidence presented suggests that supranational actors were the major cause of these unintended consequences, not environmental groups.

No / What role do individual member states play in the continuing development of European Union (EU) environmental policy? Are they capable of successful intervention in the process of joint rule making to maintain their preferred national policies? On the basis of a detailed analysis of EU environmental pollution control measures adopted in the period 1972-86, some observers have argued forcefully that the United Kingdom (UK) Government successfully defended its sovereignty by systematically manipulating national and European political arenas in order to maintain its pre-existing policies. However, when other aspects of EU environmental policy are analysed over the full policy cycle, the extent of national control appears much more circumscribed. A comparison of UK Government aims with long-term political outcomes in the sphere of EU biodiversity policy (c.1970-2000) reveals evidence of firm state control in the short-term, but significant unintended consequences in the medium to long-term. These findings raise doubts about the explanatory power of intergovernmental accounts of EU environmental policy making.