Transition and sustainability : actors and interests in Eastern European environmental policies

Abstract

This study links two of the main themes in European Social Science in the 1990s. The transition of Eastern Europe and the question of sustainable development. In an interdisciplinary approach, both viewpoints are analysed: Eastern Europe as a case of environmental development and the environment as an example of the difficulties of the Eastern European transition. This study argues that sustainable development takes on a specific meaning in the context of transition. After documenting the history of environmental policy in Bulgaria based on both western and eastern sources, the relevant actors for the Eastern European environment and their interests are identified. It is recognised that in the course of post-Communist transition other issues like the emergence of parties, privatisation or restitution of property were given higher importance. Both in Eastern and Western Europe the environmental question was also overshadowed by economic constraints and came low on the reform agenda. Nevertheless, concrete policy recommendations point to ways in which sustainable development might be aimed at also in transition economies.