Agenda Setting

Abstract

This chapter looks at the formation of the EU’s environmental policy agenda. After discussing what is meant by the term ‘agenda’ and what types of agenda can be discerned at EU level, it presents a theoretical framework for understanding agenda-setting processes. This framework highlights the interplay of issue frames and institutional venues as the main driver of agenda formation. It then discusses seven key characteristics of EU environmental agenda setting, which help to understand why issues come onto the EU agenda and what challenges and opportunities political actors face when they try to push an issue onto it. Although agenda-setting processes are relatively unstructured, agenda-setting processes do exhibit a number of regularities which reflect the characteristics of the EU’s political system. It concludes that the analysis of agenda-setting dynamics has implications for the strategies that are used by prospective agenda setters to shape new EU policies.