Challenges to Europeanization: the Transposition and Implementation of EU Waste Acquis in Bulgaria

The main objective of this research is to explore the process of formal and practical transposition of European Union waste management acquis (selected directives). The discussion focuses on the experience of Bulgaria as a former candidate country and a new EU Member State in adopting and applying EU waste legislation. The research analyses the policy adjustments undertaken by Bulgaria towards complying with EU environmental and waste rules and the extent to which these adjustments have translated into actual change in the Bulgarian waste sector. Drawing on the specificities and the pace of the EU-driven transposition process before and after accession, the research considers the quality and type of change that Bulgarian waste policy has undergone since the country’s engagement with the European Union. Further to examining the intensity of the Europeanization dynamics in this case, the discussion identifies and explains the workings of other endogenous factors intervening in the Europeanization process. Alongside the domestic variables proposed and tested in existing academic work, this research puts forward for examination a test variable reflecting the existence of policy interactions at EU level, which once ‘domesticated’ in the national arena, can have significant implications for implementation performance and policy change. This research posits that policy interactions, featuring as a ‘domesticated’ variable, have to be considered in the context of EU adaptational pressures and in conjunction with the workings of domestic variables. Therefore, this research contributes to existing theory by analysing the effects of EU policy interactions in the domestic arena as part of the overall Europeanization dynamics. At an empirical level the research addresses the gap in existing studies of the processes of Europeanization and implementation of EU environmental and waste acquis in the EU new Member States and ex-candidate countries. More specifically, the thesis contributes to research on Bulgaria and on Bulgarian environmental and waste reforms.