Int Environ Agreements (2011) 11:341–360 DOI 10.1007/s10784-010-9135-5 ORIGINAL PAPER

The European Union as a negotiator in the international climate change regime Stavros Afionis

Accepted: 8 September 2010 / Published online: 26 September 2010  Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract While the leadership role of the European Union (EU) in the climate change regime has been largely acknowledged, less attention has been paid to identifying the reasons why the EU often fails in climate change negotiations. Such an undertaking is deemed imperative following the negative for the EU turn of events at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit. There is sufficient literature to be found on the link between the Union’s unique and complex organizational structure and its inability to act cohesively and purposefully. This study seeks to add to this corpus by looking at the extent to which the EU has been able to learn from its mistakes and incorporate timely remedial action. Even though important, the EU’s failures as a global actor cannot be explained by only looking at its ineffective institutional architecture. A more systematic understanding of the reasons behind EU’s failures in climate talks is in fact needed. By using Underdal’s theory of ‘negotiation failure’, this study tries to explore the extent to which negotiation theory could help with better comprehending the obstacles that prevented the Union from getting more out of the climate negotiation process. Keywords European Union
Copenhagen
Kyoto Protocol
Negotiator
Climate change

1 Introduction During the course of the past two decades, a plethora of scholars and practitioners has written extensively on the European Union (EU) as a leading force in the development of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime. A central protagonist in the climate regime saga, the Union has gained significantly in stature and international recognition, especially since 2001. The rescue of the Kyoto Protocol following the 2001 US exit, the 2004 EU-Russia deal on Kyoto and, very importantly, the introduction of the ETS in 2005, all testify to the validity of the above statement. S. Afionis (&) Keele University, Keele, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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Thus, many consider that EU leadership in this field has been unequivocally demonstrated. The EU, writes Yamin (2000, p. 47), ‘‘considers itself to be a ‘leader’ in international climate negotiations and has been widely regarded as such by others’’. Gupta and Ringius (2001, p. 294), note that ‘‘undoubtedly, the EU has been quite successful as an international leader’’. This almost universal praise is, if anything else, rather intriguing, with the Union being often portrayed as the spearhead of world efforts for the development of an effective and comprehensive regime on climate change. Granted, had it not been for the EU, it is likely that Kyoto targets would have been less ambitious and that the Protocol would have never been ratified. Positive as it may appear, there still exist a good number of instances where the EU has markedly failed to achieve its climate change objectives. It is imperative therefore that the reasons behind these failures are thoroughly investigated and that the Union uses the conclusions drawn to improve on its shortcomings as a climate negotiator. The need for such an undertaking is made extremely pertinent by the Union’s unconvincing performance at the 2009 Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC. In Copenhagen, the EU found itself largely marginalized when the US took over the initiative and reportedly struck a deal directly with China, India and a handful of other major developing countries. The inability of the Union to decisively influence Copenhagen’s outcome on the issue of target-setting has since then led a number of analysts to talk of the coming of a new world order, one that will increasingly see climate diplomacy being shaped by cooperation between the United States and China (e.g. Egenhofer and Georgiev 2009, p. 6; Rankin 2010b). It should be stressed at this point that being a leader does not automatically imply that an international actor is also an effective and successful negotiator. While its leadership role has been largely acknowledged, the EU has not escaped severe criticism for its limitations as a negotiator. Sufficient literature is to be found on the negotiating problems resulting from the complex organizational structure of the Union (e.g. Vogler 1999; Elgstro¨m and Stro¨mvik 2003; Van Schaik and Egenhofer 2003, 2005; Jordan et al. 2010). Even though structural deficiencies are indeed an important explanatory factor for a good number of the difficulties the EU has been experiencing, they do not fully account for its negotiating (under)performance in the course of the two decades of climate negotiations. Thus, EU-specific explanations need to be complemented with additional factors that could further understanding of the reasons why the EU occasionally fails to put up convincing performances during the course of climate talks. In this regard, looking at the role played by problematic strategic planning could prove highly instructive. Why do parties develop flawed negotiating strategies that often lead to ‘negotiation failures’? What are the principal obstacles that impede them from searching for mutually advantageous solutions? Answering these rather vague and general questions is by no means an easy task, but thankfully enough the work of Underdal (1983, 1994) does provide some guidance for analyzing the principal obstacles to negotiation success. Even though interests naturally play a leading role, a number of other intervening factors (e.g. dubious credibility, cultural backgrounds or inaccurate information) often hinder parties from making collective choices where otherwise they could have resulted in an agreement (Underdal 1983, p. 184). These obstacles often occur in some kind of combination and provide for a major part of the explanation of why parties are often largely reluctant to contribute toward cooperative and efficient negotiations. The EU is no exception, with these intervening factors having often hindered its own potential to advance climate negotiations. The aim of this article thus is to examine the reasons why the EU occasionally fails in climate negotiations. Section 2 will discuss existing EU-specific explanations by

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scrutinizing the manner in which structural deficiencies have had a negative effect in allowing the Union to appear as a unified negotiating block in the international arena. Effort will also be directed toward highlighting and evaluating the effectiveness of the Union’s remedial measures. Section 3 will provide additional explanations for EU performance related to strategic planning. The aim here will be to determine whether Underdal’s theory of ‘negotiation failure’ could help with understanding the reasons that have often led the Union to pursue in the past a number of external climate strategies that would ultimately prove inadequate and counter-productive. Section 4 will in turn investigate prospects for betterment of the EU’s performance by looking at the various proposals that have been circulated over the years on how to make improvements on the Union’s incomplete or ineffective institutional architecture. At this point, and before moving on, it should be clarified that the two different explanations offered in this study for why the EU fails as a climate negotiator are by no means in conflict, but are in fact complementary and do often overlap. For instance, an actor as complex as the EU is far more likely to be susceptible to the dangers suggested by Underdal when negotiating. Thus, taken together these two alternative explanations could immensely enhance our understanding of the weaknesses of the EU as a negotiator in the climate regime.

2 Structural explanations for the EU’s performance Over the years, a multiplicity of terms has been used in an attempt to somehow categorize the Union. As McCormick (2001, p. 5) notes, Charles de Gaulle called the then EEC a ‘‘concert of states’’, while Margaret Thatcher referred to it as a ‘‘family of nations’’. Scholars, on the other hand, have labeled it ‘‘a proto-federation, an organization with supranational tendencies, a partnership, a consociational democracy, and an experiment in ‘cooperative federalism’ or ‘collective sovereignty’’’ (McCormick 2001, p. 5). Delreux (2006, p. 237) calls it a hybrid ‘‘in-between an international organization and a state’’. Not being able to compare the Union with any other entity in the international system, Vogler (2003, p. 69) concludes that it should be treated as sui generis. Unraveling this Gordian Knot is not, of course, the aim of the present study. What needs to be stressed though is that the Union is a rather puzzling entity unlike anything the world has ever known, and as such it is bound to be facing a unique set of problems when negotiating that are EU-specific and are not to be found in other Parties. What is especially confusing about the Union is that it puts on a different hat depending on the issue under negotiation. It can either appear as a single actor, in which case the Commission is in charge, or as a group of sovereign states represented by the Presidency. In the case of international environmental diplomacy, the Union can be seen wearing both hats simultaneously, on occasion changing its ‘‘shape virtually by the hour’’ (Vogler 1999, p. 24). Unlike other areas, such as trade, water quality or hazardous waste disposal, where competence1 lies with the Union, climate change is an area of ‘‘shared competence’’ between the EU and its Member States. In international climate change negotiations, therefore, common EU positions have been agreed in advance by the Member States, with the participation of the Commission. The country holding the Presidency of the Union—a 1

Competence is the EU term for ‘powers’ or, in other words, who has authority to undertake negotiations and initiate policy (the Commission, the Member States or both). For further analysis, see Vogler (1999) and Delreux (2006).

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position that rotates every 6 months—is responsible for coordinating the other members and presenting the EU position at the international negotiations (Oberthu¨r and Ott 1999, p. 14). In other words, the Presidency, which since the Amsterdam Treaty is assisted by the Commission and the next Member State to hold the presidency (the ‘troika’2), has assumed the leadership role. There exist a number of problems that result from the fact that due to the EU’s institutional set-up, there have been too many actors involved in the whole process (currently 27 Member States plus the Commission). This crowdedness has not only substantially complicated the formulation of a coherent EU strategy but has also had negative effects on the EU’s image among its UNFCCC partners. To its credit, the Union has acted with great resolve to enhance the organization and coordination of both its external and internal climate policies. The following section aims at exploring the extent to which the EU’s negotiation performance can be explained by looking at structural issues, as well as outlining the steps for corrective action taken over the years by EU authorities. 2.1 The Presidency The first relevant area is the system of the half-yearly rotating presidency. A major criticism up until the significant institutional reform of 2004 was that this arrangement not only did not allow for continuity in the EU’s negotiating strategy and the formulation of a long-term strategic perspective, but also resulted in a loss of ‘‘institutional memory’’ (House of Lords 2004, p. 56). Van Schaik and Egenhofer (2003, p. 4) noted prior to 2004: ‘‘Since the Presidency is changing every half year, there is a relatively high chance of inconsistencies in performance and actual positions. This semi-annual change in leadership can also be a constraining factor regarding the formulation of a long-term strategic perspective’’. Indeed, given the rapidly expanding UNFCCC negotiating agenda, this set-up meant that each Presidency was tasked with appointing a team of about 20 negotiators that would need to quickly become familiar with the situation before handing over to the next team in just 6 months time—a heavy burden, especially so for the smaller Member States. No wonder why the EU had ‘‘become increasingly known for its failure to deploy capable and experienced negotiators with institutional memory as well as for its navel gazing and bunker mentality resulting in a lack of outreach activities to others’’ (Oberthu¨r and Pallemaerts 2010, p. 40). As noted, the Union took remedial action that has greatly improved the Presidency’s performance. One important measure to this end was the reorganization of the Working Party on Climate Change by the Irish Presidency in the first half of 2004, through the introduction of a system of ‘lead negotiators’ and ‘issue leaders’. Nowadays a branch of the Working Party on International Environmental Issues, it was established after COP-1 in Berlin in 1995 and is further divided into a number of expert groups that deal with and prepare reports (so-called ‘submissions’) on several technical issues (e.g. sinks, technology transfer, national communications, etc.). Small Member States’ Presidencies in particular tend to rely extensively on its assistance and expertise. Until 2004, expert groups had been mainly led by the Presidency’s representatives, but as a result of the coherence problems related to the system of the half-yearly rotating Presidency, the decision was made to assign ‘lead negotiators’ and ‘issue leaders’ on a more permanent basis for specific fields (Van Schaik and Egenhofer 2005, p. 8). A great advantage of this innovation is that 2

Prior to this Treaty the ‘troika’ consisted of the previous, the current and the subsequent Presidency.

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‘‘different EU member states thereby will obtain the possibility to specialize in specific issues, leaving the Presidency more space to focus on the overall strategy’’ (Van Schaik and Egenhofer 2005, p. 8). A second improvement involved the Presidency per se, with a new, slightly altered rotating system being introduced in 2007, which does seem promising but needs to be tested in practice for a protracted period before safely passing judgement. According to this new arrangement, every 18 months the three Presidencies due to hold office negotiate a common agenda and work together over this period to accomplish its objectives, always led by the Member State holding the Presidency at the time. In the context of climate politics, the new ‘troika-like’ system will enable Member States with a greater interest in this policy area to relieve smaller ones of the burden of conducting negotiations in which they have no actual interest (Afionis 2009, p. 46). 2.2 Climate policy integration A second complication relates to the predominance of environment ministries and the under-representation of economics and trade ministries in climate change negotiations. Environmental policy integration (EPI) has become a leading concept in global environmental governance, and the literature on the need to ensure integration of environmental concerns into other policy areas has been rapidly expanding since the term was first popularized in 1987 with the publication of the Brundtland report (see e.g. Jordan and Schout 2006; Biermann et al. 2009). In the EU, discussions on a proposal for a negotiating mandate or a ‘common platform’ for a UNFCCC conference will take place first in the relevant Council Working Group, then in the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) and finally in the Environment Council of Ministers (Delreux 2006, p. 239). Admittedly though, climate talks have somewhat ‘outgrown’ the environmental ministries, as they involve not only environmental but also—and increasingly so—economic, trade, development, energy and transport issues and concerns (Van Schaik and Egenhofer 2003, p. 1). It is thus felt that closer cooperation between the environment, trade, and economic ministries ‘‘would do more justice to the economic realities of climate change policy’’ (Egenhofer and Cornillie 2001, p. 9). In the US, for example, it is the State Department that takes the lead in the negotiations, with the Department of Commerce being responsible for the overall coordination of the US position (Egenhofer and Cornillie 2001, p. 9). Achieving the goal of coordinating your actions is a daunting task for any government, let alone for an international actor comprising 27 of them. For sovereign states, coordination is the process whereby officials from different departments and agencies meet to cooperate on a given issue. For the EU, on the other hand, the same process involves officials from the 27 departments of 27 different governments, not to mention the Commission. Complicating matters even further, of the large EU Member States, only a few (e.g. the UK) possess an actively coordinated system of national government and can boast that their departments ‘‘sing from the same hymn sheet’’ (Jordan and Schout 2006, p. 95). The rest (e.g. Germany) struggle to speak with one voice in international negotiations, even though in the case of the Netherlands the environment is a notable exception as it is coordinated by the department of foreign affairs (Jordan and Schout 2006, pp. 90–94). In the Commission, despite a positive drive toward a constant upgrading of its coordination capacities, DG Environment has been unable thus far to follow suit and be better informed

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about developments in other sectors (Jordan and Schout 2006, pp. 226–227). Hopefully, the newly created DG Climate Action will perform better in this area. Following the flawed performance of the EU at the COP in The Hague in 2000, the Union tried to address this issue by allowing for greater flexibility in the common position, strengthening the role of COREPER, and having economic, trade, and foreign ministries more involved in the climate change decision-making process (Van Schaik and Egenhofer 2003, pp. 1–2). In the last few years, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) has taken a leading role in deciding upon the EU position regarding the financial parameters of the climate change regime. Turning to foreign policy professionals, the Directorate-General (DG) for the External Relations (DG RELEX) has appointed two policy coordinators to act as a link between climate change and external relations experts (Schunz et al. 2009, p. 9). In a similar fashion, Javier Solana, former EU High Representative for CFSP, appointed in 2008 a personal representative for energy security and climate change (Van Schaik 2010, p. 268). Very important in this respect has been the establishment in 2003 of the Green Diplomacy Network, which consists of diplomats working at the foreign ministries of the Member States and whose task is inter alia to report the substance of climate-related exchanges with third countries back to the relevant EU bodies (Schunz et al. 2009, p. 6). The Commission too, through members of its delegations in some 20 countries (including the US, China and India), has also started to encourage outreach on climate change (Schunz 2009, p. 5). Finally, two more actions merit mention. First, the Union has made certain that climate change features high on the agenda of many international organizations and bodies (e.g. G-8, G-20, World Bank, UN Security Council and General Assembly, World Health Organization, etc.). Second, it has strived to ensure that climate change is included in a wide range of bilateral meetings (e.g. EU-China, EU-US, EU-Russia, etc.) and that it is used as a vehicle to address foreign policy and energy security concerns. Involving experts from other departments in climate diplomacy is generally viewed positively in the literature, as it could enable the EU to use existing networks to disperse its position outside the circle of climate negotiators and tie climate issues to other international agendas (Schunz et al. 2009, p. 6; Van Schaik 2010, p. 268). 2.3 The EU ‘bunker’ Finally, a third complication confronting the EU during the course of international climate change negotiations is known as the ‘EU bunker’. Changing positions and agreeing on new proposals by other international actors generates the need for internal consultations that can be a ‘‘major source of delay and frustration, with endless co-ordination meetings and the inflexibility of Council Mandates’’ (Vogler 2003, p. 70). Creatively put, the amount of time and diplomatic effort that is required for these intra-bloc negotiations often means that the Union is conducting ‘‘a conference within a conference’’ (Barston 2006, p. 87). Known examples abound. It is well known, for example, that in the final dramatic night at Kyoto the EU ministers ‘‘were still locked in internal consultations while the plenary was in session: Chairman Estrada gavelled through the critical text on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), while EU ministers were still trying to establish a common position in another room’’ (Grubb and Yamin 2001, p. 274). When they informed the Chairman of their opposition to the pre-budget crediting of emission reductions, the decision had already been taken and could not be reopened (Oberthu¨r and Ott 1999, p. 90). The same situation reoccurred during COP-6 in 2000, when EU ministers were still debating amendments they wished to propose to the Chairman’s Pronk compromise paper

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after amendments from all the other groups, even the much larger and under-resourced G-77/China, had been circulated and the final night’s crucial negotiations had began (Grubb and Yamin 2001, p. 274). In Copenhagen, the fact that the Union usually fails to speak with one voice played its part in finding itself sidelined. As Giddens (2010) correctly notes, as a result of the ‘‘EU bunker’’, the EU in Copenhagen was unable to ‘‘deliver the very rapid decision-making that had to take place late on in the negotiations to get anything from them at all’’. A taste of what happened in Copenhagen is provided by Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who chaired most of the UN-sponsored climate-change summit in December. As she noted: ‘‘Those last hours in Copenhagen, China, India, Japan, Russia, the US… each spoke with one voice, while Europe spoke with many different voices’’. Later on she added: ‘‘I know very well that it is easier said than done… [but] in an international world Europe must stand more united if we are to be heard’’ (qtd. in Rankin 2010a). Of course, this is not to say that other Parties do not face coordination problems of a similar nature. US delegates, for example, often have to refer back home for instructions when issues arise that are not covered in their brief, thus delaying the work of conferences (Walker 2004, p. 229). The process, however, of renegotiating an issue at EU level is a far more complex and cumbersome one. Of course, in negotiations with weaker Parties (e.g. from Africa or the Caribbean), where the Union appears formidable by virtue of its economic weight, there have been occasions where it has used its structural inflexibility as a negotiating ploy. In such negotiations (e.g. trade or international aid), such Parties might be unwilling to take risks, allowing the Union to adopt a more uncompromising stand: ‘‘there are no free lunches’; ‘we’ve cooked up a deal, take it or leave it’’ (Bretherton and Vogler 2006, p. 34). Such tactics though are of limited value in the context of climate negotiations, given that in this case the Union’s main negotiating partners are economic giants in their own right. When it comes to climate negotiations, the Copenhagen embarrassment clearly necessitates, more than ever before, practical solutions to be designed for dealing with such shortcomings of the EU as a negotiator. Doing so though becomes even more exigent given that the 2004 enlargement has had an inevitable exacerbating impact on the ‘bunker’ phenomenon. It is internally, however, that the addition of 12 new countries has had a greater impression, with the majority of new eastern Member States strongly criticizing or delaying the adoption of highly progressive EU climate policy measures (see e.g. the negotiations in 2007 over the climate and energy package, the December 2008 EU Council, or the internal talks on the level of EU financial assistance to developing countries throughout 2009).

3 Causes of negotiation ‘failure’ Clearly, the Union is far from possessing an ideal decision-making structure. Any structural deficiencies, however, cannot per se explain the EU’s mixed record in climate negotiations. As already noted, there is a tendency in the literature to overstress these organizational problems when explaining the Union’s negotiating underperformances. Such an approach, however, should be looked at as providing only part of the answer. Decisions, both right and wrong, are made by humans, not institutions. Naturally, therefore, EU negotiators have taken wrong decisions and have occasionally exhibited bad judgement during the nearly two decades of UNFCCC talks. As Linnerooth-Bayer et al.

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(2001, p. 281) note, negotiators do not always ‘‘conform to the model of a rational actor at the negotiating table’’. This section explores alternative explanations for the EU’s negotiating (under)performance by identifying the nature of the barriers that prevented EU negotiators from formulating more promising strategic approaches. More specifically, it examines the extent to which Underdal’s theory of ‘negotiation failure’ can be applied to explaining the reasons why the Union was sometimes unsuccessful in getting its climate change message across. It is very often the case in the mass media and in political discussions to associate negotiation failure with outcomes of non-agreement. Underdal (1983, p. 183) dismisses this simplistic definition as inadequate, given that there are times when no agreement is concluded but the progress made on a knotty issue is substantial, as well as times when a contract is indeed signed but is deemed to be disappointing. Underdal (1983, p. 184) instead conceives of negotiation success or failure in terms ‘‘of the distance between what is actually accomplished and what could have been accomplished’’ (emphasis in original). While acknowledging the limitations in attempting to make up an exhaustive list of problems that prevent Parties from concluding negotiations successfully, Underdal (1983, 1994) nevertheless suggests that there exist a handful of obstacles that stand out and thus deserve closer attention: (1) questionable credibility; (2) uncertainty; (3) inaccurate information; (4) process-generated stakes; and (5) politically inadequate solution design models. The latter refers to the distance between a scientifically ‘appropriate’ solution to a problem and a politically ‘acceptable’ or ‘feasible’ agreement. Here, we shall concentrate our attention on the first four obstacles.3 Underdal (1983, p. 192) is swift to note that while the effect on the negotiation process of each individual obstacle may not necessarily be detrimental, their combined net effect could be that of ‘‘disturbing and impeding the search for mutually advantageous solutions’’. 3.1 The EU’s credibility gap 3.1.1 Pushing for overambitious targets Underdal considers of vital importance for the successful conduct of negotiations that the motives of the leading state(s) are not questioned and that some sort of sacrifice is involved for a specific course of behavior to qualify as directional leadership. What Underdal (1994, p. 185) here means is that the actions of the leader(s) have to be viewed as sincere if others are to follow. Close scrutiny of the EU in climate negotiations allows for a few points or observations to be made with relative safety. There is a tendency, both in public opinion as well as in the academic literature (non-American that is) to place all the blame on the US for the problems plaguing the Kyoto Protocol. Closer examination, however, reveals an entirely different picture; one in which the Union is under no circumstances devoid of responsibility for the failure of the international community to honor its obligations under the Protocol. Much of the history of Kyoto Protocol negotiations understandably focuses on the duels between the US on the one hand and the EU on the other. The former is usually painted in negative colors, readily given the role of the ‘laggard’, while the latter is often 3

According to the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), keeping greenhouse gas concentrations to bearable levels would require Annex-I Parties to achieve cuts of up to 40 percent by 2020, plus substantial deviation from baseline in major developing countries (e.g. China, India etc.). No Party has ever argued in favor of such an agreement.

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being portrayed as the champion or defender of the Protocol (see e.g. King 2008; Skodvin and Andresen 2006, p. 23). The EU’s role in the climate regime is largely seen in the literature as an effort of directional leadership (Skodvin and Andresen 2006, p. 22; Oberthu¨r and Roche Kelly 2008, p. 36). In his discussion of leadership theory, Underdal (1994, p. 185) notes that it is vital for potential leaders to abstain from pursuing a self-interested goal by presenting it as a joint purpose. As already noted, it is imperative for some sort of sacrifice to be involved if a specific course of behavior is to qualify as leadership. In other words, ‘‘the persuasive impact of unilateral action depends primarily not on its actual impact but rather … on its moral force and symbolic significance’’ (Underdal 1994, p. 185). This means, Underdal (1994, p. 185) argues, that ‘‘cheap’’ acts may not be enough, as ‘‘the moral significance of a move will often depend … on the amount of sacrifice incurred by the leader’’. To what extent has the Union satisfied Underdal’s criterion? Since the negotiations on the UNFCCC began in 1991, the EU has provided leadership in international climate policy by pushing for stringent international commitments. However, as Oberthu¨r and Roche Kelly (2008, p. 40) note, ‘‘a serious credibility gap existed in the 1990s between the EU’s international commitments and positions and its domestic climate policies’’. By 2005, the GHG emissions of the EU-15 were alarmingly stagnating at two percent below base year levels. Even more problematically for EU officials, establishing a link between leadership and a degree of sacrifice that is so central in Underdal’s analysis seemed a rather challenging task. For the US to implement the Kyoto Protocol, it would require a reduction in emissions of around 30 percent below baseline (adding an estimated 23 percent growth to the 7 percent Kyoto cut). Europe, on the other hand, would need to achieve a reduction of some 17 percent (Jacoby and Reiner 2001, p. 304). Note that the above figure for the EU actually includes UK and German ‘hot air’,4 meaning the burden is in reality substantially lower (much less than a third of that of the US, see Table 1). Looked at this way, even the sacrifice for Japan, Australia or Canada would be much bigger to that of the EU. Given that it would take the US until 2005, at the earliest, to ratify and put in place the necessary federal rules and regulations, Jacoby and Reiner (2001, p. 304) note that ‘‘the notion that a modern industrial state could muster the political will to turn around its heavily capital-intensive energy system and achieve a reduction in emissions of almost one-third within a half a dozen years is simply not credible’’ (emphasis added). Commenting on Table 1, Harrison and McIntosh Sundstrom (2007, p. 5) note that ‘‘the disparity in the depth of anticipated reductions below projected emissions, particularly between the EU and US, prompts one to ask why the US would have agreed to what looks like a rather bad deal’’. Ironically, not even the EU, with its ‘bubble’ and 1990 baseline, would (in all probability) have been able to meet its Kyoto Protocol objectives had it not been for emissions trading, a mechanism of US origin the Union had vehemently rejected in the run-up to Kyoto, but whose development the EU is nowadays spearheading through its internal trading regime. Note that the EU only accepted this mechanism ‘‘after almost everything else had failed and the choice stood between this or nothing’’ (Skodvin and Andresen 2006, p. 23).

4

According to Zhang (2001, p. 63), ‘‘Germany and the UK contributed nearly 30% and 20% of the total GHG emissions in the EU, respectively. Thus, the stagnation in the EU emissions between 1990 and 1996 had been influenced considerably by the substantial decrease in Germany (10% reduction) and the big drop in the UK (5% reduction)’’.

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Table. 1 Comparison of Kyoto targets relative to business-asusual trajectory

Source: Harrison and McIntosh Sundstrom (2007, p. 5) a

Note that Australia ratified the Protocol in December 2007

Ratification Kyoto Anticipated reduction relative target (%) to projected ‘‘business as usual’’ emissions in 2010 (%) [0

Yes

-3 to -9

Yes

Russia

0

EU-15

-8

Japan

-6

-12

Yes

Australia ?8

-17

Noa

Canada

-6

-29

Yes

USA

-7

-31

No

The past ten or so years have clearly shown that the Kyoto targets of most Parties were largely overambitious. While acknowledging EU leadership, the literature also admits that the hurried adoption of the 1997 burden-sharing agreement ‘‘gives credence to the perception of many [UNFCCC] negotiators that the EC’s position on targets was rhetorical, not based on in-depth knowledge of what it could realistically achieve or supported by a credible implementation strategy’’ (Yamin 2000, p. 54). Victor (2001, p. 115) too notes that while European pressure was the main reason for the strict targets adopted in Kyoto, the Union ‘‘had no idea how it would achieve the 15 percent target it proposed’’. It seems plausible to argue that the above problems stemmed primarily from the EU decision to approach the climate change issue in the early 1990s as an opportunity toward the development and reinforcement of an EU foreign policy. Having lagged behind other parties (mainly the US) in the ozone regime-building process, the Community, again as a result of intra-European tensions, had failed to agree on a common line in 1991 during the Yugoslav crisis and had found itself progressively marginalized by the intervention of other international actors, primarily the UN (Bretherton and Vogler 2006, p. 5). Naturally enough, these setbacks had not sat well with European policymakers who had been looking desperately to reverse this unpleasant situation. Climate change, a relatively new policy area, was seen from the outset as representing a very suitable and low-cost candidate for EU leadership. Thus, the EU position was not necessarily only a reflection of concern for an environmental problem, but perhaps ‘‘equally important [seen] as the stepping stone to stand forth as a strong and unified block on the world scene’’ (Andresen and Agrawala 2002, p. 45). However, by embarking on this course of action, the Union failed to satisfy Underdal’s premise for leadership of not pursuing a self-interested goal by presenting it as a joint purpose. As Skodvin and Andresen (2006, p. 22) note: In the 1990s it soon became clear that the basis for the EU’s relatively ambitious climate policy was ‘fortunate circumstances’ unrelated to climate policies. Thus, the economic cost of an ambitious policy was [deemed to be] rather low while the potential political gain was quite high. This indicates that EU climate policy to a large extent was ‘‘based on self-interest and that it represented a mode of behavior it was likely to have pursued anyway’’ (Skodvin and Andresen 2006, p. 22). In any case, the climate strategy of the Union at the time had been clearly problematic. For a start, as mentioned above, it grossly overestimated the level of emission reductions that both it and other Parties could achieve in the course of a decade. The Union went to

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Kyoto with a -15 percent target,5 when 10 years later it is struggling to meet half that figure. Even if one accepts the scenario that the -15 percent target was actually a negotiating ploy on the part of the Union (see Cass 2006, p. 144) aimed at getting other Parties to accept an agreement in the vicinity of -8 percent (the EU’s actually preferred outcome), subsequent EU difficulties in meeting even that target revealed the ploy not to having been a very sound one. Taking Underdal into account, these difficulties also give further grounds for seeing EU climate policy in the 1990s as a ‘‘cheap act’’. 3.1.2 Addressing the credibility gap? As the end of the first commitment period approaches, the debate about post-2012 commitments has once again been formally reopened. Despite President Obama’s announcement of an emission reduction target in early 2009, the Union continued to push the US for taking on even stricter targets in Copenhagen. Still, President Obama was able to withstand—and arguably even ignore—pressure from Europe on this issue. From a US perspective, the Union’s demands in the run-up to Copenhagen on the ‘should be’ level of the US target were again, as in Kyoto, dismissed as hugely unrealistic. As described earlier, back in 1997 several authors questioned the ability of most industrialized countries to meet their Kyoto targets. Nowadays, this puzzlement is once again shared by distinguished analysts when reference is made to the US. As Giddens (2009) notes: In the deeds-not-words world the task of actually reducing American emissions is huge. The American way of life is based upon cheap energy coupled to cheap credit, conjoined to more or less endless suburban expansion. How can these trends be reversed, and in the relatively short-term? Unlike in 1997, the US in Copenhagen was unwilling to allow the EU to pin it down with a target it felt was not conform to reality. In the words of Todd Stern, the American lead climate negotiator, such demands were ‘‘not serious’’, and the US would only ‘‘jump as high as the political system [would] tolerate’’ (quoted in Broder and Ansfield 2009). The US, in other words, was simply not willing to negotiate with the EU on the issue of targets. The EU’s strategy was to ‘lead the way’, but the fundamental weakness of this approach was that simply no one else was interested in following. Back in 2007, the leadby-example approach had been a promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020, or by 30 percent in the case other major emitting countries committed to do their fair share under a future global climate agreement. The bid was meant to entice big emitters to make ambitious matching offers, but in Copenhagen, as European Commission President Jose´ Manuel Barroso himself noted, no one asked the EU to go to 30 percent (Rankin 2010c). Even those countries that did up their pledges during 2009, such as Japan or Australia, did so for domestic reasons (e.g. due to the drought in Australia), and not because of solidarity to the EU (see e.g. Luta 2009). One cannot therefore but agree with Blyth (2010) who notes: The tactic that the EU was trying to play—using the promise of a shift from 20 percent to 30 percent cuts to lure other major economies into a deal—clearly failed. In the end, the other major parties did not care very much. The negotiations between 5

Another key weakness of the EU approach was that in reality the combined commitments of the Member States only added up to a reduction of 9.2 percent, with Policies and Measures (PAMs) expected to cover the difference. See Council of Ministers (1997, para. 16).

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the US and China were largely about making sure they were not seen to be stepping too far ahead of each other. Since the EU is already ahead of the game (at least in policy terms), the 20 percent versus 30 percent ploy was largely irrelevant from an international negotiating perspective. To the EU’s credit, a major difference between the Kyoto and Copenhagen eras is that the Union is adopting the climate policies that could eliminate the credibility gap witnessed during the 1990s. The Union, despite Kyoto’s beneficial provisions, has so far been the only Annex I Party to have seriously poured immense amounts of energy and resources into meeting its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. Most other Kyoto Annex I countries with targets actually requiring action to be met are remarkably well off (e.g. Canada, Japan). In addition, in March 2007, it adopted a package of measures (collectively known as the 20–20–20 targets), the successful implementation of which should provide credibility for the EU’s post-2012 international leadership on climate change. Of course, it should be noted that due to the impacts of the economic recession, meeting its unilaterally adopted reduction target of 20 percent becomes a much easier task for the Union (Sterk 2009, p. 2). Thus, the unwillingness of several Member States (e.g. Germany) to raise the Union’s ambition level by adopting the 30 percent reduction target is seen in many quarters as undermining EU climate leadership and credibility, especially when in the build-up to the Copenhagen summit Japan announced a 25 percent cut in emissions and Norway a 40 percent cut (see Leinen 2010; Sterk 2009, p. 2). 3.2 Uncertainty According to Fisher et al. (1991, p. 23), ‘‘each side in a negotiation may see only the merits of its case, and only the faults of the other side’s’’. Lack of trust—or uncertainty as Underdal (1983, p. 186) terms it—is a perfectly normal feature of international negotiations, although its amount may vary considerably. Contributing factors are: Cultural or ideological differences; a tendency to assume that the opponent understands one’s own problems better than he actually does; the fact that … states frequently do send ambiguous or inconsistent signals to their environment; and the fact that … concealing one’s real preferences or actively misleading the opponent about them is a much-used bargaining tactic… (Underdal 1983, p. 186). Uncertainty seems to have played a major role in the course of climate negotiations, with the Union proving unable on several occasions to reduce the doubts of its negotiating opponents and vice versa. Messages from either side where far too often looked upon with scepticism and disbelief. To offer but a few examples, the Union has frequently failed to convince developing countries of the sincerity of its intentions and ease their fears that the ulterior motive behind a number of its proposals had been to raise the issue of developing country commitments (see e.g. the 2002 COP-8 in New Delhi, the 2004 COP-10 in Buenos Aires or the 2005 COP/MOP-1 in Montreal). In a similar manner, proposals made by the Clinton (e.g. on emissions trading) or the Bush (e.g. the Major Economies Meeting) administrations were categorically rejected from the very outset as suspicious by Union officials. So were the attempts made by US negotiators following Kyoto and up to The Hague to maximize the use of flexibility mechanisms, especially that of sinks. This was met with fierce EU resistance, with the Europeans accusing the Americans of being unfair and trying to undermine the environmental integrity of the Protocol. The Americans, on the other

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hand, argued that the EU had benefited enormously from internal ‘hot air’ and, therefore, had no right to complain or refuse another Party a similarly favorable treatment. The EU answer that the UK’s fuel switch had led to unemployment and that Germany’s unification had been an extremely expensive affair, failed entirely to convince (Gupta and van der Grijp 2000, p. 74). Summing up, the high amount of uncertainty or distrust in climate negotiations contributed to slowing down the negotiation process and disturbing the search for mutually advantageous solutions. On the other hand, this was to be somewhat expected since, as Underdal (1983, p. 186) notes, uncertainty seems ‘‘most likely in negotiations dealing with issues that are technically complex, and for solutions that are novel or pertain to a distant future’’. 3.3 Inaccurate information The literature on negotiating techniques stresses very heavily the importance of having gathered in advance the pieces of information that will allow a Party in a negotiation to know when the right time to compromise has arrived. Starkey et al. (1999, p. 111), note the centrality in international negotiations of having or trying to create a ‘zone of agreement’—an overlapping area of acceptable outcomes for Parties. For this zone to be established, it is of vital importance for a Party to be in a position to accurately estimate the preference structure of its opponent(s). According to Underdal (1983, p. 188), negotiations occasionally fail when a Party (a) overestimates or underestimates this preference structure, or (b) a Party believes the opponent to misperceive its preference structure. Having prepared in advance such a zone also allows a Party’s negotiating team to know when the right time to compromise has arrived. Since it is practically impossible to achieve the entirety of objectives when negotiating at such high level, an international actor must be prepared in advance to make timely compromises. UNFCCC negotiations have been ongoing for some 20 years now and it is therefore reasonable to expect that there must have been a good number of instances when the Union has over- or underestimated potential zones of agreement. COP-6 (The Hague 2000) undoubtedly serves as an illustrative example, since—given the expectations of what that meeting was tasked to achieve—it represents by far the greatest failure (up until Copenhagen) of the international community to reach agreement in a climate conference. In The Hague, the Union arguably overestimated the preference structure of the US. When this happens, Underdal (1983, p. 189) notes, chances are that a Party ‘‘may optimistically insist on a solution that actually falls outside the Opponent’s acceptance zone, thus contributing to deadlock’’. There is also a slight chance, Underdal adds, that overestimation may lead to a Party obtaining a deal that is ‘‘marginally better for itself than what it would have settled for’’. Unfortunately for EU interests, it was the former scenario that materialized. The Union adopted a rigid bargaining approach and adamantly refused to compromise its positions on supplementarity and the flexibility mechanisms until the very end. The failure to reach agreement in The Hague—despite the UK’s6 best efforts—only served to give President Bush an additional reason or excuse for withdrawing his country from the Kyoto process. If the Union was looking for a compromise at The Hague, it should have been more than obvious to its delegation that it could not possibly have its way 6

British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott reached a last-minute deal with the US that was rejected by several other EU Member States (see Dessai 2001, p. 142).

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on both supplementarity and the flexibility mechanisms. We knew back then for instance what the US and the UK were willing to accept, but for the French EU Presidency, Germany and other supporting Member States this was rather unclear. In other words, a positive ‘zone of agreement’ was either lacking or the Union had not exerted much effort into establishing one. Apart from overestimating the preference structure during The Hague COP, the Union also believed the US to misperceive the Union’s own. When this happens, Underdal (1983, p. 190) writes, there are two eventualities: (a) either your Opponent believes that you (the EU in our case) demand more than you actually do—an image with which you are obviously satisfied with and will try to confirm or reinforce, or (b) you are under the impression that the Opponent (e.g. the US) perceives you to be ‘softer’ than you really are—an image you are unhappy with and will try to modify by at least being ‘‘very reluctant to make accommodative moves that might strengthen that image’’. Looking at the period between Rio and The Hague (1992–2000), it is obvious that it is the latter case that best holds. As Ott (2001, p. 175) points out, past experience had taught the Americans that the EU would eventually ‘‘budge and give its consent to a complete erosion of its position’’. Unfortunately for them, it did not work that way in The Hague. Obviously, there will be several more cases in the history of EU participation in climate negotiations where overestimation and misperception played a crucial role in determining the final outcome. One could arguably even apply Underdal’s theory to Kyoto’s COP-3. The period between Bali and Copenhagen offers another such example. Following Bali, the Union started to exert pressure upon the US for adopting an ambitious binding reduction target. As already explained, it soon became apparent that the solution the Union rather optimistically proposed fell well outside the preference structure of the US. During the Bangkok and Barcelona climate talks (October and November 2009 respectively), it became clear that Copenhagen would end without a binding Protocol, but with the adoption of a political declaration at best. Later on, the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting in Singapore in late November 2009—including Presidents Barack Obama of the US and Hu Jintao of China—bluntly stated that it would not be possible to reach a binding climate change deal in Denmark. Accepting the harsh truth, Stavros Dimas, the EU Environment Commissioner, lowered the EU’s expectations and stressed that the EU would go for ‘‘a substantial deal in Copenhagen’’, one that would include pledges on emission reduction targets from rich countries and finance for poor countries (quoted in Rankin 2009). Dimas also noted that countries would need to set a timetable and process for agreeing the legal text in Mexico in 2010 (in Rankin 2009). 3.4 Process-generated stakes Another possible obstacle to negotiation success could be labeled ‘‘process-generated stakes’’ or, put differently, the manner in which pressure on a Party to live up to its reputation could prevent it from capturing the bigger picture of the negotiation process. Until 2001, there were two Parties in contention for the title of ‘leader’ in the climate regime. President Bush’s decision that year to withdraw his country from the Protocol presented the EU with the unique historical opportunity to exert leadership without the pressure of having to compete against the US for primacy. Even though the purpose of the current study is not to examine the leadership credentials of the EU, a point needs to be made here that there is a connection between leadership and negotiating ability.

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Underdal (1983, p. 190) notes that any party entering into negotiations enters in reality ‘‘a game that has certain bearings on its own image and reputation’’. He clarifies this point by saying that ‘‘negotiations is not only a decision-making process, it is also to some extent an unofficial game of performance and reputation’’. A major problem with this antagonism can be that Parties may often be inclined to reject a promising solution they themselves might have been willing to propose simply because it originated from a foe rather than from an ally (Underdal 1983, p. 190). Here again, the case with emissions trading serves as a prominent example. The situation with the EU is inherently more complex. Its structural inflexibility does have an effect on both its leadership ambitions and negotiating performance. The Member State holding the Presidency has to take into account these special characteristics of the EU before it decides on both the level of leadership it will exert and the negotiating strategy it will pursue. Insisting on a very progressive proposal, for example, could lead to the alienation of some of its fellow EU partners, both in the domestic field (e.g. the CO2/energy tax7) and/or in the international arena (e.g. The Hague COP). Apart from potentially alienating fellow EU Member States in the domestic front, leadership ambitions may also lead to undesired outcomes in the international negotiating arena. The example of pushing for overly ambitious targets that had no chance whatsoever of being accepted by the US in the run-up to, and during, Copenhagen has been already illustrated. Accordingly, the leadership aspirations of France during The Hague COP resulted in the adoption of a progressive strategy characterized by its rigidity of views, with the known consequences for EU unity. Back then, several EU officials had referred to the French strategy as having been ‘‘counterproductive’’ and had thought of it as having ‘‘inhibited a constructive evolution to a final agreement in the last night’’ (Egenhofer and Cornillie 2001, p. 10). Another example is offered by Denmark’s Presidency during the 2002 COP-8 in New Delhi. In its determination to leave its mark, Denmark selected the wrong time period to push for developing countries’ commitments. The strategy of the Danish Presidency only succeeded in pushing the G-77/China, the EU’s closest and most valuable ally during the previous two COPs, into the arms of the US. Several analysts had noted at the time that the Union ‘‘might have been better advised to remain calm and to allow COP-8 to have been turned into a forum for developing country concerns’’ (see e.g. Ott 2003, p. 268). As a concluding remark, far too often has leadership become an end in itself, thus preventing the Union from critically weighing the pros and cons of its selected negotiating approach. By focusing too much on itself and the US, the Union has largely neglected developing countries, even though alliances between the two have often proved instrumental in the past. The inexplicable tendency of the Union to dissolve its vital alliances with the G-77/China for reasons that were often largely unimportant is striking. For Richard E. Benedick (1993, p. 239), the U.S.’s chief negotiator of the Montreal Protocol, allying with developing countries (coalition-building) in environmental negotiations should always comprise a top priority. Such an alliance, as he notes, also serves the additional function of actually preventing the G-77/China from forming a blocking coalition with your opponents. Therefore, it is rather difficult to comprehend the reasoning that led a number of EU Presidencies to pursue strategies that would inevitably lead to the

7

Of course, the carbon/energy tax was a Commission proposal. Here, however, we refer to the several unsuccessful attempts made under the Danish, Belgian and eventually German Presidencies to promote or revive the CO2 taxation proposal, before it was all but abandoned at the Essen summit of December 1994.

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breakup of such a crucial and laboriously forged alliance over questions such as, for example, the nature of a largely insignificant seminar (referring here to COP-10).8

4 Future prospects So far, it has been indicated that there are at least two distinct reasons for ‘EU failure’: the EU’s complex institutional architecture and its problematic strategic planning. The two are of course not fully independent, but feed into each other. For an actor with the special characteristics, strengths, and vulnerabilities of the Union, negotiating effectively with third parties can at times be a tough challenge. Thus, given the complexities of climate negotiations, the EU’s negotiating capabilities could in theory clearly benefit from institutional reforms. Even though the Union has taken important steps to enhance the manner in which it negotiates in climate talks, the Copenhagen experience vividly demonstrates that much more needs to be done. Commentators over the years have made a number of proposals aiming at bettering the EU’s operational functioning. This trend has continued at an accelerated pace following Copenhagen with several new proposals being put on the table. It has been widely suggested, for instance, that the performance of the EU would improve dramatically if the Member States allowed the European Commission to take over the coordination of the EU negotiating position from the Presidency (Grubb and Yamin 2001, p. 275; Egenhofer and Cornillie 2001, p. 9; Lacasta et al. 2002, p. 413; Kaczyn´ski 2010, p. 5; Van Schaik 2010, p. 270). Resorting to such a model, which would look quite similar to the way the Union is conducting its trade negotiations, would substantially increase its consistency and reduce the coordination problems stemming from the need to have negotiators employed in different Member States and the Commission (Van Schaik 2010, p. 271). In other words, the Commission would be allowed to lead the Union and work toward formulating strategies with a long-term vision. This could also put an end to the occasional phenomenon of having EU Presidencies focusing all their attention in solely ensuring the success of the COP that happens to fall during their time in office. Another proposal involves delegating authority to a number of ‘‘lead countries’’ that would prepare, in close cooperation with the Commission, ‘‘draft common negotiating positions to be decided by the Council’’ (Lacasta et al. 2002, p. 414). These lead countries together with the Commission would be responsible for the formulation beforehand of commonly agreed ‘fallback’ positions that would allow for greater EU flexibility in the decisive phases of UNFCCC talks (Lacasta et al. 2002, p. 414). Apart from substantially reducing the effects of the EU bunker phenomenon, such a model could simultaneously address Underdal’s ‘inaccurate information’ obstacle. A third option would be to hand authority on external representation to the High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security—a post created by the Lisbon Treaty. Doing so would mean that climate policy would become part of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, thereby hopefully bringing diplomatic muscle and finesse to Community actions (Afionis 2009, p. 45). Like in the Commission takeover model, this alternative would in theory allow the Union to evolve into a more strategic and flexible 8

Even though COP-10 had no mandate to discuss the way forward of the climate regime after 2012, the EU’s proposal to hold one or two official UNFCCC seminars on the topic prior to the 2005 COP/MOP-1 in Montreal alienated developing countries who feared that these seminars would lead to an early debate on new commitments for them (see Ott et al. 2005).

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negotiator (Schunz et al. 2009, p. 8). Similar is a proposal by Van Schaik and Egenhofer (2003, p. 9), who propose that the Foreign Affairs Council be responsible for the formulation of climate policy, thus ‘‘offering a possibility for more integration of the EU’s position in climate negotiations with other external policies of the EU’’. In this case, Environment Ministers, whose expertise is deemed essential, could second their Foreign Ministers during sessions of the Foreign Affairs Council in which external climate policy negotiating positions are debated (Van Schaik and Egenhofer 2003, p. 9). A final hybrid model, proposed by Kaczyn´ski (2010, p. 4), calls for a Commissionrotating Presidency duo that would manage the negotiations on behalf of the EU. In this case, the Commission would take the lead to ensure stability, while the Trio Presidency could be represented for example by the Member State most interested in climate policy. The benefits of having either the Commission or a small number of Member States leading the EU’s climate cause have already been touched upon. A major problem though with most of the above models is that they involve leadership being assumed by the Commission, through the newly created DG Climate Action. This, however, is a highly unlikely future prospect, as several Member States (i.e. the UK) are vehemently opposed to any further expansion of the Commission’s competencies. A recent non-related example concerns the Commission vs. Council competence-related conflict on who should represent the Union during the 2010 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) negotiations for a global agreement on mercury (see Eckstein 2010). In a similar manner, Member States have proved rather adamant in their refusal to abolish their tight control and effective veto power over the entire climate negotiating process, partly because climate change is closely linked to energy and energy security policy, a key element of national security in the view of many sovereigns. Member States are willing to accept the Commission’s role as a strong partner in the troika and as a supplier of qualified lead negotiators on specific issues, but are vehemently opposed to the Commission taking over the negotiations (Van Schaik 2010, p. 271). In other words, Member States are fine as long as the Commission acts like a 28th Member State and tries not to further limit their sovereignty in international affairs. As further evidence of this conflict, despite the explicit acknowledgement of climate change in the Lisbon Treaty, actual climate-related changes there are rather limited. The majority of the institutional changes that were implemented during the past few years involved the Presidency giving up power and the Member States taking up additional work. The Commission was largely excluded (or purposely treated as another Member State) from this informal division of labor in the context of international negotiations on climate change. However, while the role of the Commission in international climate change negotiations is limited, this is not the case with respect to domestic EU climate change politics. Apart from being responsible for the operation of the ETS, the Commission is now actively involved in burden-sharing negotiations and has since c. 2001 designed and successfully pushed for a wide array of politically ambitious policy proposals (e.g. on biofuels, car emissions or carbon capture and storage) (see Jordan et al. 2010, p. 99 and pp. 188–189).

5 Conclusion This article has sought to explain the reasons for ‘EU failure’ in climate change talks over the years by focusing on both institutional/organizational factors, as well as strategic/ tactical choices. Regarding the former, we have seen that the Union has been quick to learn

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and has successfully implemented an array of institutional reforms concerning its external representation arrangements that have had a positive impact on its functioning. Turning to the latter, it should be noted that the literature has long ago suggested that a main reason the EU occasionally fails is because it pursues the wrong recipes and initiatives, thus preventing its policies from succeeding or creating suboptimal results (Archer et al. 2010). While we know well what went wrong in, for instance, The Hague, New Delhi or Copenhagen, a theoretic approach aimed at explaining the reasons why the Union has not been always successful has received far less attention in the literature. In this regard, turning to the works of Underdal on negotiation theory could prove a useful exercise in further unpacking and exploring the whole idea of negotiating performance of the EU in climate negotiations. Understanding why the latter has failed in the past is not only instructive, but also indispensable. As Archer et al. (2010, p. 7) note, doing so ‘‘represents a necessary exercise in self-reflection that is unavoidable to allow the EU to succeed in the future’’. Put differently, knowing what went wrong is important; knowing why is crucial. The Union has to urgently and seriously reflect on this, given that the list of instances in which it has been accused of having failed is by no means short. To name but only the most recent, it failed to get a deal at Copenhagen, it failed to rescue Greece and it failed to do enough to provide humanitarian aid to Haiti. The urgency of this reflection task is all the more pressing, given that the election of Barack Obama and the rapid rise of China have seriously accentuated the EU’s impotence as an international player in climate politics (Archer et al. 2010, p. 7). The evidence suggests, however, that despite the important institutional reforms the bunker mentality is here more or less to stay. So will several of the problems that were highlighted in this study. The EU needs to be aware of the factors that contribute to its occasional failures, accept them, and objectively study them. The literature on negotiation theory such as that formulated by Underdal has lots to offer in this respect by providing an additional lens through which a deeper understanding of the shortcomings of the Union as an international climate negotiator can be obtained. It represents an undertaking that needs to be taken into consideration by European officials if the EU is to continue having high aspirations on climate policy.

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