TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental governance of a Belt and Road project in Montenegro – National agency and external influences

AU - Coenen, Johanna

AU - Newig, Jens

AU - Meyfroidt, Patrick

N1 - We are grateful to our interviewees for sharing their valuable insights, and we warmly thank the Euraxess Service Centre at the University of Montenegro for providing logistical and organizational support during the first author's research stay in Montenegro. We also thank the participants of the 2020 European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference (section on Chinese-European relations) for their valuable comments on the draft version of this article. This work was funded by the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie actions (European Union/MSCA grant agreement No 765408) from the European Commission: COUPLED "Operationalising Telecouplings for Solving Sustainability Challenges for Land Use". The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis or preparation of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors

PY - 2022/8/1

Y1 - 2022/8/1

N2 - China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious effort to increase trans-continental connectivity and cooperation mainly through infrastructure investments and trade. On the one hand, this globally unparalleled initiative is expected to foster economic growth, but on the other hand, it can have substantial environmental implications. The BRI creates new challenges and opportunities for environmental governance as new actor constellations emerge in BRI host countries to plan and construct large infrastructure projects. Although China has outlined its vision of building a “green Belt and Road”, it remains unknown how it unfolds on the ground.As an example of a BRI project with clear environmental implications, we present a case study of the Bar-Boljare highway in Montenegro. Based on expert interviews, we elucidate the complex web of actors and contractual arrangements involved, and demonstrate how internal and external actors exert influence on domestic environmental governance in this EU candidate country in the Western Balkans. We find that Montenegro has substantial agency over the environmental governance of this BRI project, but shows little concern over the environmental impacts of the project. Environmental issues could have been prevented during the spatial planning phase, but important governance instruments such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) were of limited effectiveness due to its fast and late completion, lack of assessment of alternative routes, and the limited enforcement of the provisions therein. International institutions like the EU or UNESCO have drawn on their normative power in environmental governance to demand greater environmental safeguards from Montenegrin authorities. This case is illustrative of a larger set of BRI projects which run the risk of falling short on sustainability due to a lack of environmentally sound and transparent planning and implementation.

AB - China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an ambitious effort to increase trans-continental connectivity and cooperation mainly through infrastructure investments and trade. On the one hand, this globally unparalleled initiative is expected to foster economic growth, but on the other hand, it can have substantial environmental implications. The BRI creates new challenges and opportunities for environmental governance as new actor constellations emerge in BRI host countries to plan and construct large infrastructure projects. Although China has outlined its vision of building a “green Belt and Road”, it remains unknown how it unfolds on the ground.As an example of a BRI project with clear environmental implications, we present a case study of the Bar-Boljare highway in Montenegro. Based on expert interviews, we elucidate the complex web of actors and contractual arrangements involved, and demonstrate how internal and external actors exert influence on domestic environmental governance in this EU candidate country in the Western Balkans. We find that Montenegro has substantial agency over the environmental governance of this BRI project, but shows little concern over the environmental impacts of the project. Environmental issues could have been prevented during the spatial planning phase, but important governance instruments such as the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) were of limited effectiveness due to its fast and late completion, lack of assessment of alternative routes, and the limited enforcement of the provisions therein. International institutions like the EU or UNESCO have drawn on their normative power in environmental governance to demand greater environmental safeguards from Montenegrin authorities. This case is illustrative of a larger set of BRI projects which run the risk of falling short on sustainability due to a lack of environmentally sound and transparent planning and implementation.

KW - Sustainability Governance

KW - Sustainable development

KW - Environmental Governance

KW - Environmental planning

KW - Land use

KW - Southeastern Europe

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/bbf51f99-a171-3bf8-9e6a-d5357d02ea1d/

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85129493617&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106136

DO - 10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106136

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 119

JO - Land Use Policy

JF - Land Use Policy

SN - 0264-8377

M1 - 106136

ER -