Still Making their Voices Heard within the EU? The Nordic States' Experience of the Effects of the Financial Crisis on their Environmental Goals : The Nordic States' Experience of the Effects of the Financial Crisis on their Environmental Goals

AbstractThe Nordic EU members, Sweden, Denmark and Finland have a well-established reputation as environmental forerunners (Magnúsdóttir 2009, 2011, Liefferink and Andersen 2005, Ingebritsen 2002, Kronsell 2002). Hitherto they have on various occasions been able to act as “eco-entrepreneurs” within the EU and have actively used their reputation and strong image to promote their environmental objectives (Kronsell 2002, Magnúsdóttir 2009, 2010, Ingebritsen 2006). Today however, much of the world´s attention is still focused on the extensive effects of the global financial crisis and solutions for recovery. Consequently the crisis put economic concerns at the top of the agenda of most states at the expense of environmental issues. The poor results of the COP15 climate summit, in December 2009 and the succeeding COP summits indicate that advocates of a progressive climate policy, such as the Nordic states, are still met with skepticism. In the light of the present state of affairs we want to shed light on the current environmental reputation or image of the Nordic EU member states within the EU and ask; how, if in any ways, has the self-image and/or the international image of the Nordic EU members in environmental politics been affected by the crisis? Furthermore, we ask; how, if in any ways, have the environmental goals and preferences of the Nordic EU members been affected by the crisis? Accordingly, the article explores the reputation and preferences of the Nordic EU member states within the Environmental Policy of the EU in 2011-2014. We make use of our own previous research on the images and preferences of the Nordic EU members in the pre-crisis period of 2002-2008 for comparative purposes. The first preliminary findings of the article indicate that the crisis has to some extent affected the preferences of the Nordic EU members and also had some effects on their self-images. Key words: Nordic EU members, environmental politics, normative power, images, and preferences