Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecosystem Services
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser

How do ecosystem services perform in enforceable law? Potentials

and pitfalls within regional and national integration
⁎
V. Mauerhofer , I. Laza
University of Vienna, Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: Ecosystem services have constituted a highly discussed topic especially since the Millennium Ecosystem
Ecosystem services Assessment. This is in particular valid for the literature in environmental sciences and related economic
Environmental services sciences. The topic has gained less attention in other social sciences and up until now legal scholars have hardly
Binding law taken up the issue for an in-depth analysis. Moreover in the legal practice the term has not played any
Enforce rule of law, neozoa, neobiota
substantial role apart from its inclusion in soft law documents that lack concrete and effective implementation
including enforcement mechanisms.
This paper addresses the issue of inclusion of the term ecosystem services in legislative documents with such
mechanisms. Starting from a neutral position, it discusses the potentials and pitfalls of such an inclusion in the
light of the ongoing contradictory discourse about the concept of ecosystem services.
This is done by an in-depth review of existing academic literature as well as by empirical quantitative
research on EU-law, and by a case study. This case study concerns the on-going assessment of the inclusion of
the term ecosystem services into a binding legal act of regional integration on the example of the Regulation of
the European Union (EU) on Invasive Alien species. The analysis also covers primary data derived from
questionnaires and interviews completed by a wide range of stakeholders from two member states of the EU.
The results provide an overview of opportunities and challenges of the inclusion of the term ecosystem
services in this particular context of binding and enforceable regional integration law based also on a practical
example. The ongoing implementation of this EU-Regulation can provide a blueprint for similar situations of
coordinated legislative procedures between different levels of law-making and its implementation including
enforcement. These situations can occur beyond a nation's borders or within.
Similar research has not been implemented yet according to the knowledge of the authors. Therefore, the
results of this contribution provide innovative insights into an ongoing legislative procedure with binding rules
on ecosystem services and useful hinds for similar other prospective attempts worldwide.

1. Introduction
The term “ecosystem services” (ES) has been discussed widely since the
late 70 s (see e.g. Gomez-Baggethun et al., 2010; Peterson et al., 2010) and
was defined for example by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA,
2005 p. V) as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (for an
overview on other definitions see e.g. Braat and De Groot (2012) and in
general on the ongoing discussion see e.g. Schröter et al., 2014; Silvertown,
2015). The mainly scholarly dialogue has taken place especially in
environmental and related economic sciences but less in other social
sciences, and in particular legal scholars have hardly concentrated on the
issue (Mauerhofer, this Special Issue). Law researchers have also pointed
out that ES as a term has rarely found entrance into legislation (see e.g.
Mauerhofer, this Special Issue, Pasten et al., this Special Issue,
Stepniewska et al., this Special Issue). In the event that the term has
overcome this hurdle, questions of its further implementation and
enforcement are of particular interest. This is especially the case for
multilevel legal systems of regional integration with enforcement mechan-
isms such as in the European Union. Because here, in the event that the
term is integrated in the higher level rule (e.g. the EU-rule), the
transposition and/or direct application of the term at the lower, national
level are controlled by these mechanisms (Mauerhofer, 2008; Mueller,
2011). This is in particular of interest when the national level has a
different structure such as in more centralized or more federal states.
Thus, the following questions are assessed in this paper:
1. How is the term ES implemented within EU-regional integration law
in enforceable legislation?

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: volker.mauerhofer@univie.ac.at (V. Mauerhofer).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.07.006
Received 26 April 2017; Received in revised form 13 July 2017; Accepted 15 July 2017
2212-0416/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Mauerhofer, V., Ecosystem Services (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.07.006
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza
2. How are enforceable ES-clauses within the EU-Invasive Alien
Species (IAS)-Regulation nationally perceived among different sta-
keholders
a. for the competence distribution in the future regarding Biodiversity
and related ES within a federal (Austria) and a centralized country
(Romania)?
b. for the future work of these stakeholders?
The following chapter describes the wider research context, the
European and country-specific background as well as the different
methods of the assessment. Afterwards the results are presented in the
order of the methods applied. Then, an overall discussion of the results
follows and finally conclusions are drawn.
2. Background and methodology
This paper is based on a much broader research project which
focused on the national and subnational competence distribution in the
two countries Austria and Romania and its influence on the whole
implementation of this regional IAS-Regulation. In the following, only
those methods used and results gained are presented which have a
particular context to and relevance for ES.
2.1. Background
Prior to the description of the two countries selected, a brief
information on the European Union is provided.
2.1.1. European Union
The European Union as a regional integration organization is based on
predecessor organizations founded in 1957 and was repeatedly reorga-
nized since then (Dinan, 2014). Nowadays, it has 28 Member States (MS)
and covers an area of 4407 million km2 with a total population, as of 2016,
of about 510 million people (Eurostat, 2017a, 2017b). The EU globally
constitutes the regional integration organization with the most extensive
legal framework binding in different ways for MS and including suprana-
tional judicial enforcement mechanisms, in particular the Court of Justice
of the EU (CJEU) and the Court (of 1st instance) (see e.g. for more details
Chalmers et al., 2014; Craig and De Burca, 2015).
2.1.2. Brief national background on Austria and Romania
Austria is a member of the EU since 1995 and located in central
Europe, land-locked with a population of about 8 million people and a
size of about 83.000 km2. Romania joined the European Union more
recently in 2007 with an area and a population both about three times
larger than Austria and much more centralized organizational and
normative preconditions for the implementations of norms related to
ES in comparison to the federal structure of Austria (Table 1).
These different preconditions have shaped the distribution of
competences and administrative structures that are now relevant for
the implementation of the IAS-Regulation, also with regards to ES.
Within this organizational and normative structure, the Member States
Austria and Romania are free to use their existing distribution of
competences and administrative structures or to modify them regarding
the implementation of the supranational law of the European Union.
2.1.3. Rationales for the choice of countries
Such as already mentioned, both countries are Member States of
the European Union1 (Treaties - EUR-Lex, 2017) and they must
implement the IAS Regulation which is – as all EU-Regulations –
1
Romania through The Treaty of Accession of the Republic of Bulgaria and Romania
(2005) - OJ L 157, 21.6.2005/CELEX nr. 12005S/TXT and Austria through Treaty of
Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden (1994) – OJ C 241, 29.08.1994.
2
Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
entirely binding and directly applicable in all Member States (Art. 288
Treaty of the European Union).
Thus, the two states are good examples of units with different
organizational systems which face the same challenges in terms of
application of a binding norm containing a supranational enforceable
obligation towards ES.
This study focuses its results on the mobilization of the implementation
of the IAS Regulation with all its mandatory implications. The experience
of the experts and of other stakeholders from the two countries can also be
taken as a case study that emphasises the rich, real-world context in which
phenomena occur. The theory-building process unfolds via recursive
cycling between the case data, emerging theory, and later, via extant
literature (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). There are few studies which
consider arguments for the prevention and management of IAS on a
national or supranational level (Heink et al., 2016).
A further argument in favor of the choice for the two Member States is
the geographical location of the two countries. Romania lies at “the edge”
of the European Union, a border region to non-EU countries, with access
to the Black Sea and hence to Asia Minor. Austria is centrally located in the
EU, surrounded mostly by EU-countries, except Switzerland.
2.2. Methodology
In general, the in-depth literature review was implemented and
empirical data was collected in the two member states of the EU
mentioned, namely Austria and Romania.
2.2.1. Literature review
A literature search was executed in the two largest electronic
databases Scopus and Web of Knowledge by using the terms “ecosys-
tem services”, “invasive species”, “invasive alien species”, “European
Union“, “EU”, “law” and “legal” in different combinations to mainly
find journal and preceding papers. These terms were considered the
most important ones to support the analysis. Furthermore, a similar
search of latest book titles and within edited volumes was undertaken
at major environmental law publishers (e.g. Routledge, Edward Elgar,
Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press) in order to find
contributions (monographs, book chapters related to invasive alien
species) to the recent IAS-Regulation. Additionally, the terms were also
searched for through Google and Amazon with the same reasoning.
2.2.2. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of data from EU-
database regarding term “ES”
Primary data gathering related to the first research question took
place using the database Eur-Lex2 of the European Union where the
term “Ecosystem Services” was inserted into the search mask. The
results were assessed for binding and enforceable norms addressing the
Member States of the EU and the only valid results, the IAS-Regulation
was then selected for further empirical methods applied at the Member
State level such as described in the following.
2.2.3. Stakeholders involved in questionnaires and interviews
At the Member State level, the current study used questionnaires
and interviews in both countries for numerous stakeholders. The
stakeholders came from public authorities and agencies, companies,
the science sector and the civil society including NGOs. Questionnaires
were completed between June 10th and October 19th, 2015 and
interviews were held between June 16th and December 14th, 2015
(for more details see Appendix 1).
Respondents indicated a wide range of areas of competences (see
for details Appendix 2). Austrian respondents gave information about
their personal working area, by choosing competence areas from
Austria that are under the different competences of the federal state
2
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm (assessed at 25th June 2016).
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table 1
Organizational and institutional comparison of Austria and Romania.
Sources: Eurostat, 2017a, 2017b; Mayer, 2007; Romanian Constitution, 2017; Popeanga, 2017.

Austria Romania

EU Membership Since 1995 (12 Council of Regions - CoR members) Since 2007 (9 CoR members)
Inhabitants 8.2 million 21.7 million
Area 83.858 km2 238.391 km2
State system Federal Republic with a Federal Parliament and a Federal Council Unitary Republic
(Bundesrat) respresenting the 9 provinces
Regional level 9 federal/provincial States (Bundesländer, also short Länder), including the 8 development regions, with regional development councils
capital Vienna; regional parliaments (Landtage); regional Gouvernor constituted by counties
(Landeshauptmann)
Provincial level 41 counties (Județe) + Bucharest; elected county council (Consiliul
Județean)- it's president (președinte) appointed by council
Municipal level 2.358 municipalities (Gemeinden); municipal council (Gemeinderat); mayor 2.825 rural localities (Comune), 208 towns (Orașe) and 103
(Bürgermeister) municipalities (Municipii); directly elected local council (Consiliul
Local), directly elected mayor (Primarul).
System of Competences Federal States- legislative + administrative competences; Municipalities only Counties and local government have ONLY administrative
have legislative competences- on small subjects not allocated to others; The competences.
Constitution distinguishes: 1. subjects of exclusive federal powers of
legislation & implementation; 2. subjects where federal legislation is
implemented by Länder; 3. subjects where federal framework legislation is
complemented by Länder legislation; 4. subjects where the Länder have both
legislative & implementing powers
Implementation acts Regulations -Verordnung Ordinances – Ordonanțe
Decision - Bescheid Decisions - Hotârare

or the federal provinces (Art.10, Art.11, Art.12 and Art. 15 of the
Federal Constitutional Law). Romanian respondents chose their per-
sonal working area, after the Classification of Occupations (COR) in
Romania, which are mandatory for all central and local public
administration, budgetary units, economic agencies, employer organi-
zations, trade unions, professional and political foundations, associa-
tions, individuals and legal entities (Table 2).
Initially, the timeframe of the data gathering was set between June
2015 and August 2015, but eventually an extension was needed until
December 2015, because of the time availability of the respondents. In
the following the two methods applied on these stakeholders are
described more in detail.
2.2.3.1. Questionaires. In total, 47 questionaires were completed in
both countries combined (see Table 2 and Appendix 1). The
questionnaires were adapted for each Member State, based on the
knowledge at the time about the different organizational systems. The
selection of the respondents from Austria was made based on personal
contacts by the first author and through internet search, and thereon
based mostly through snowball sampling (Atkinson and Flint, 2001).
In Romania, respondents were found through direct inquiries at
prefectural level to the National Agency for Environmental Protection
(NAEP), and official lists on the website of the Romanian Ministry of
Environment, Waters, and Forests, two lists with contact data of all
Romanian nature protection NGOs and data with all custodians of the
natural protected areas, and based thereon again through snowball
sampling (Atkinson and Flint, 2001)..
After a brief informative presentation of the research approach3 and
its context, respondents were again contacted by e-mail, starting in
May 2015 and asked to complete the questionnaire and if willing, to
schedule the additional interview.
First the survey was sent through e-mail with an added link.
Respondents could access and complete the survey online in their
mother tongues of Romanian4 and German.5 This was possible by
3
See Appendix 1: Brief thesis description for respondents on DE and RO.
4
Survey link sent to the Romanian respondents https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/
Chestionar_EU1143-2014.
5
Survey link sent to the Austrian respondents: https://de.surveymonkey.com/r/
Fragebogen_EU1143-2014.
using the online-tool Survey Monkey.6 Because of the relatively small
and different sample size of the surveys from Austrian (n=16) and
Romanian (n=31) respondents, a more descriptive quantitative analy-
sis was chosen instead of a quantitative data analysis, using counts and
percentages for the responses.
The data collection strategy was to first send the surveys and then
conduct an additional interview. In rare cases, it happened that
respondents first gave the interview and sent the surveys after. In
these cases, sometimes small deviations, misunderstandings, or in-
securities occurred during the interview. This situation was tried to be
avoided by all costs to make sure that respondents would not be
influenced in any way. Only one Romanian respondent (RN) never sent
the completed survey after giving the interview. His data was used for
the qualitative analysis of the interview, because his information
proved to be of value for the results, but was not taken into account
in the survey analysis. This paper covers the results of only the two
questions asked related to ES.
2.2.4. Interviews
At the end of every questionnaire, a question (Q21) requested to the
respondents the participation in an additional semi-structured interview.
For Austria, from 16 respondents, 8 were open to this interview and from
31 Romanian survey respondents, 14 accepted the additional interview,
even though one respondent did not send the completed survey back
(Appendix 1). He was however still included in the interview data analysis,
because he could offer important information about the Romanian control
system. In total, 22 interviews were completed in total in both countries
together (see Table 2 and Appendix 1).
Meetings for interviews were arranged through e-mail or by phone
and usually took place at the work office of the respondent. An
interview lasted between 15 and 40 min, depending on the experience
and knowledge of the respondent. Care was taken not to influence the
respondent during the interview, so the guiding questions were strictly
followed. Sometimes a face-to-face meeting was not possible. For this
case, interviews conducted by phone were organized. All interviews
were recorded, with the prior consent of each respondent and held in
the mother tongue of the respondent, then transcribed as well as
translated into English and further analyzed.
6
www.surveymonkey.com.

3
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

For the qualitative data analysis, inspiration was taken from the step

None (0)
model of inductive category development and deductive category applica-

15
11
tion and from thematic text analysis (Mayring, 2010). A qualitative data

4
analysis with the help of the interviews was needed for covering the two
Both (B)

research questions 2a and 2b of this paper. More useful additional

information was gained through these interviews than just by the

14
7
7
questionnaires alone. For added credibility of the analyzed empirical data
from interviews, interview quotes are used (Stål et al., 2015).
Administration (ENa)

2.2.5. Data processing

Data was processed in such a way that the anonymity of the
responding person remained preserved, therefore each respondent
received a data code, depending on the country and if an additional
interview took place (Appendix 1 and 2). Next to the code of the
9

respondents, important information such as the level and type of

Control (ENc)

competence and the work place of the stakeholder was added as a

support of the analysis.

3. Findings
5
Enforcement (EN)c
Jurisdictional type of competence

Regulation (ENr)

In the following the results are presented in the order of the

research questions discussed in the introduction.
4 + 12 = 16
Numbers of stakeholders interviewed and having completed the questionnaire, their status as public organization or NGO and jurisdictional type of competence.

3.1. Data bank analysis

4
3

3.1.1. Overview on Use of ES in law of the European Union (EU)

Legislation (LE)

The results for the use of ES in the binding legislation shows that
out of 4307 hits in all EU law documents, only 42 hits currently are
found as acts of (binding) EU-“legislation” located within nine types of
acts (apart of one corrigendum) (see column 1 in Table 3).
2
1
1

The term ES could be found 123 times in all 42 documents together

in the current (up to 2017) legislation in force, ranging from Preambles
Enforcement in Romania was split in three: Regulation, Control and Administration and allowed multiple choice answer.
NGO

to Annexes and other texts (than Preambles and Annexes) addressing

7b
9
2

the Member States and the EU (see columns 2–5 in Table 3).
Status as organization or NGO

Subnational (SN)

The eldest document is from 2006 while the latest four have been
released in 2016 with the steepest increase occurring up to 2014 (2007:
1; 2008: 1; 2009: 2; 2010: 1; 2011: 2; 2012: 1; 2013: 10; 2014: 16 and
One Romanian respondent gave the interview, but completed no survey, is not in the survey analysis.

2015: 3 respectively). The five documents adopting budgets within the

14

results show a stable increase over the years (2011: 2; 2013: 4; 2014: 6;
6
8

2016: 7 and 2017: 9 respectively).

National (N)

Other texts (other than Preambles or Annexes) addressing Commission

or Commission and MS also include the use of ES as criterion for potential
(partly co-financed) incentives and budget allocation.
18b
26
8

The 2017 – more than 2000 pages – counting budget documents

had to be downloaded as pdf as they were too large for online display
Interviews (ni)

(with hits highlighted in yellow). Therein, the term “ecosystem” was

searched and by doing so, it became obvious that the document also
contained terms such as “ecosystem service” and “ecosystem and its
For Romania one respondent chose both National and NGO.
14a

related services”. As a matter of conciseness and comparability, only

22
8

the counts for ecosystem services have been included into Table 3
above because the other documents have also only been searched for
Questionnaire (ns)

with the term ES.

It is worth mentioning that the so-called LIFE-Regulation8 as a
main funding instrument focusing on biodiversity and environment
does not contain the term ES (except in a Commission Statement
attached to it as a sort of Annex). However, the Decision9 implement-
31a
47
16
Total (n)

7
479 hits for all documents (EU Law 430; preperatory acts 360; legislation 42;
consolidated acts 22; Parliamentary questions 6; Case law 3; International agreements 2;
48
16
32

EFTA documents 2; accessed 07th April.2017).

8
Regulation (EU) No 1293/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11
Romania (RO)

December 2013 on the establishment of a Programme for the Environment and Climate
Austria (AT)

Action (LIFE) and repealing Regulation (EC) No 614/2007, OJ L 347, 20.12.2013, p.

Country

185–208.
Table 2

9
Total

2014/203/EU: Commission Implementing Decision of 19 March 2014 on the

adoption of the LIFE multiannual work programme for 2014-17, OJ L 116, 17.4.2014,
b
a

p. 1–56.

4
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza
Table 3
Number of legislative documents and their text parts containing “Ecosystem Services” (derived from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm).
Number of hits within the acts of EU-legislation
Types and numbers of act of EU-Legislation (on Preamble
differences of the types see e.g. Chalmers et al., 2014;
Craig and De Burca, 2015) (n = 42)
Regulation (n = 12) 1,1,5 (=7)
Budget (n = 8)
Implementing regulation (n= 6)
Decision (n = 6) 2 8,4 (=12)
Directive (n = 5) 1,1,1,1,1 (=5)
Delegated regulation (n = 2)
Implementing decision (n = 1)
Recommendation (n = 1)
Corrigendum (n = 1)
Statute (n = 1) 1,
∑ 15
ing that Regulation mentioned the term nine times in the text a
criterion for potential (partly co-financed) incentives.
The Regulation (EU) No. 1143/2014 of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 22 October 2014 on the Prevention and
Management of the Introduction and Spread of Invasive Alien
Species (short in the following 'IAS Regulation') appeared to be the
only act of legislation with a hit of a norm (apart of preamble norms)
that addresses the Member States in a binding way. The IAS-
Regulation was released on November 4th, 2015 (on its history see
e.g. Beninde et al., 2014, Davies, 2016) and just entered into force on
January 1st, 2015.10
Invasive alien species (IAS) in general can be considered a relative
newly recognized and worldwide threat (Hulme, 2009). They are one of
the main reasons for biodiversity loss (Born et al., 2005; Burgiel, 2017;
similar preamble 2 of the IAS-Regulation). The IAS-Regulation aims to
prevent serious adverse impacts on biodiversity and related ecosystem
services, as well as other social economic impact and addresses ~
12,000 alien species (10–15% of them invasive). This regulation is
directly applicable and – as an EU-Regulation – automatically enforce-
able in the Member States. It obliges them to release certain general as
well as individual normative acts and to set implementation measures.
3.1.2. Use of ES in EU's Invasive Alien Species Regulation
The IAS-Regulation counts for 15 of all 123 hits (Table 3) and includes
the only definition11 of ES (binding for the EU as well as the Member
States). These hits for the IAS Regulation count for about 12% of all hits,
but even in this Regulation, solely Member States are hardly addressed.
Out of the 15 times the IAS-regulation mentions ES, 6 of them are
occurring in the preamble (Table 3). For example, the first sentence of
the preamble (3) of the IAS-Regulation states “the threat to biodiversity
and related ecosystem services that IAS pose takes different forms,
including severe impacts on native species and the structure and
functioning of ecosystems through the alteration of habitats, predation,
competition, the transmission of diseases, the replacement of native
species throughout a significant proportion of range and through
genetic effects by hybridization” (underlining by authors).
Furthermore, the IAS-Regulation differentiates in Article 312 four types
of Alien species which can pose such forms of threats (Fig. 1).
Additionally, Art. 11 IAS-Regulation allows the MS to further
differentiate IAS of regional concern and species native to the Union.
This concept of AS can vary according to context and purpose.
Including ecosystem services, harm to human health and economic
10
IAS Regulation, Art.33.
11
“Article 3 Definitions For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions
apply: …..(6) 'ecosystem services' means the direct and indirect contributions of
ecosystems to human wellbeing”.
12
See in detail IAS Regulation, Art.3 (1)-(4).
Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
Annex Other text (than preamble Other text (than preamble or annexes)
or annexes) addressing addressing Commission or ∑
only MS Commission and MS or others
5,2,1,1 (=9) 2 1,2,7,1,1,1,1,7 (=21) 39
9,7,6,4,2,1,1,1 (=31) 31
1,1,1,1 (=4) 2,1 (=3) 7
1,4,1 (=6) 20
2,1,2 (=5) 10
1 2,1 (=3) 4
9 9
1 1
1 1
1
27 2 79 123
costs into a definition, is strategically helping conservationists to take
action against IAS. This is what they call a “policy definition” and
differs so from an “ecological definition” that uses spread and rate of
range expansion as defining criteria (Heink et al., 2016). The defini-
tions of AS, along with the other thirteen definitions of Art.3 of the IAS-
Regulation must be applied directly to all to all competent authorities
and courts of the two Member States (Mauerhofer, 2014, p. 16). As
already mentioned, the IAS-Regulation refers to ES several times
(preamble, own definition…), incl. e.g. in Art. 8 (3) in the following
way: „Member States shall empower their competent authorities to
withdraw the permit at any point in time, temporarily or permanently,
if unforeseen events with an adverse impact on biodiversity or related
ecosystem services occur. “ (and wider e.g. in Art. 7 (2) IAS-
Regulation). Such kinds of obligations impinge in a federal state (like
Austria) in comparison to a centralized state (like Romania) on
different organizational and institutional structures (see Fig. 2).
In Austria, the federal as well as the provincial levels have
legislative power. While in Romania all the legislative power is
centralized at the federal level (see above also Table 1).
The general legislative power is connected with sectorial compe-
tences laid down in the respective constitution to release particular
laws and thereon based administrative and judicial implementation
measures which are – if relevant – influenced by the IAS-Regulation
(see Fig. 3). The terms under the stripped line constitute exclusive
provincial competences regarding legislation and implementation with
up to nine different provincial laws. In comparison to an EU-Directive
which needs also to be transposed into these laws, an EU-Regulation
such as the one on IAS solely has to be further implemented insofar as
this Regulation obliges the Member States to do so (Fig. 3).
In Austria, many competences of the provinces and the thereon
based legislation are not subordinated to the federal level. Neither are
the measures of implementation and enforcement launched based on
this provincial legislation.
Due to this higher complexity in Austria, it could be assumed that
the transposition and implementation faces larger challenges than in
Romania. This assumption was tested in the questionnaire and
complementary information through the interviews was gathered.
3.1.3. The perceptions of stakeholders, in particular regarding IAS in
connection with ES on the compentences of authorities
In the following, the respondents were asked regarding their future
perceptions about the influence of Biodiversity with and without ES on
the compentences of authorities. Therefore, respondents in Austria (A)
and Romania (A) were asked to answer the question “How will the
influence on competences of authorities of the protection of biodiver-
sity/for the protection of biodiversity associated with the ES be?”
(Fig. 4).
5
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

3.1.4. The perceptions of stakeholders, in particular regarding IAS in

1.Alien connection with ES for their future work
species In the following, the respondents were again asked regarding their
(AS) future perceptions in the questionnaire. This time, the focus lay on the
influence of IAS in connection with ES for their future work. The
2.Invasive ranked answers on the question “Where will be your focus regarding
alien
species the IAS-Regulation?” show some interesting differences in general
(IAS) between Austria and Romania (Fig. 5).
First, it is quite obvious that in both countries the respondents see
3.IAS of their major working focus for the future as Biodiversity. But a
Union difference is apparent between the two countries. Percentage-wise,
concern more than 25% of the respondents in Romania (8 out of 31) tend to ES
while it is about half that percentage in Austria (2 out of 16). A reversed
image is obvious regarding the results for “biodiversity”.
The next two graphs show the results from the same data but
4.IAS of separated between Austria and Romania as well as with information
Member
States added on the employer of the respondent (Fig. 6a and b).
concern Both countries do not show much difference with regard to the
employment background of the respondent. The eight federal employ-
ees (50% of all the Austrian respondents) are distributed over the
whole range and in Romania the picture for the 16 federal employees
Fig. 1. Classification of alien species in Art. 3 IAS Regulation. (Mauerhofer, 2014, p. 6). (almost 50% of all respondents there) looks similar.

Country Legislation Implementation/Enforcement 4. Discussion

Federal state (Austria)
Province A
4.1. Results from the database search
Province B
Province C
The results from the electronic databases indicated that the term ES
Province D
could be in more than 90% of the positive results found in preperatory
Province E and non-legislative documents. This indicates that the EU rather refrains
Province F from putting the term ES into legislation and – as the findings also show –
Province G refrains even further from putting it into legislative acts that bind Member
Province H States. The most notable exception is the IAS-Regulation where certain
Province I IAS shall be prevented from having a negative effect on Biodiversity and
its related ES. Thus, ES are the objects to be protected against certain IAS.
Centralized state (Romania) These IAS are already fixed in a first list (European Commission, 2016).
Thus, there is no discretion or need of the Member States anymore to
define the ES to be protected based on own selections of IAS. Similarly,
Fig. 2. Abstract legislation and concrete implementation in a federal and a centralized Tollington et all (2017 p. 119) conclude that the IAS-Regulation “provides
state. little means and guidance about how to apply it.”. The measures to be
taken are also widely laid down in the IAS-Regulation and – thus – by
implementing and enforcing these measures the Biodiversity and related
ES ought to be protected. Again, there is no discretion or need to define
ES more in detail. These particular circumstances may be the reason why
ES made it into this legislation with directly binding effects for Member
States. It will be interesting to see how the implementation of the IAS-
Regulation on EU-level further develops. This is especially valid on the
background of the recently progressive implementation and enforcement
of the so-called Aarhus Convention on public participation in environ-
mental matters (Wates, 2005; Mauerhofer, 2016) through the Court of
Justice (Mauerhofer and Larssen, 2016). If the concerned public such as
individual or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) because of this
Convention in the future more intensively participate in procedures and/
Fig. 3. Schematic depiction of federal and provincial competences influenced by the IAS- or challenge decisions about whether Member States effectively protect
Regulation. biodiversity and related ES, legal experts in administrations and courts
will have to define, interpret and assess – most likely supported by
technical experts - the term ES more in detail in the future.
The results are in two ways remarkable. First, in both countries, the
federal state (A) and the centralized state (R), the vast majority of 4.2. Perceived future IAS-influence on competences and ES
respondents indicate that the regulation will be of advantage or rather
of advantage for the compentences. This applies no matter if only The results are in two ways remarkable. First, in both countries, the
“compentences for the protection of biodiversity” are addressed or federal state (A) and the centralized state (R), the vast majority of
“associated with the ecosystem services” is added. A second point respondents indicate that the regulation will be “of advantage” or
should be highlighted in Fig. 4: In Romania, the level of seeing the “rather of advantage” for the compentences. This applies no matter if
Regulation of advantage/rather of advantage seem to clearly decrease, only “compentences for the protection of biodiversity” are addressed or
from 27 in total to 23 (out of 31) of the respondents when adding ES. “associated with the ecosystem services” is added.

6
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 4. Perceptions of stakeholders, in particular regarding IAS in connection with ES on the compentences of authorities n (A) = 16, n(R) = 31.

Biodiversity 5 3 10 The same is valid for the issue of whether “compentences for the
4 2 3 protection of biodiversity” are solely inquired are ES or their associa-
3 4 tion with ES are included in the question. This again can be explained
2 1 in the directions that ES are just seen as a part of Biodiversity and
1 3 6
therefore do not need to be separately recognized or that ES are not
1 2
well known at all.
2 1 2
Potential explanations for these results could lay in the different
3 2
thematic field of work of the respondents and/or in the different level
4
of knowledge/acceptance on the term ES among the countries.
Ecosystem services 5 1 2
However, Fig. 4 also indicates a slight decrease of the overarching
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 result in Romania of seeing the Regulation of advantage/rather
RO AT advantage when adding ES. The dataset is not large enough to
statistically assess whether this decrease is significant. During the
Fig. 5. Ranked answers combined on the question “Where will be your focus regarding
the IAS-Regulation?”; n(A) = 16, n(RO) = 31. interviews, this issues has not been particularly addressed. Thus,
potential reasons remain unclear.
The reasons could perhaps lay in a general inconvenience and/or
discontentment in both countries with the current situation of nature 4.3. Perceived future focus of IAS-related work and ES
conservation rules and procedures. The structure of the state, whether
centralized or federal regarding the distribution of competences, does From Fig. 6a and b, it appears clear, that the focus for both the
not seem to play an essential role (Fig. 4). Austrian and Romanian respondents, will be on protecting biodiversity

Fig. 6. a and b. Ranked answers separated on the question “Where will your focus be regarding the IAS-Regulation?”.

7
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza
in their work with the IAS-Regulation (13 Austrian respondents and 23
Romanian respondents) rather than the conservation of the associated
ecosystem services (2 Austrian respondents and 8 Romanian).
The different results for the two issues within Romania as well as
within Austria respectively are the first issues that stand out. This is
quite astonishing as the Regulation regularly uses both terms together.
Reasons therefore could be the term ES is not that well known (see e.g.
thereon Vilà et al., 2009) in comparison to biodiversity. Furthermore,
the difference could have its explanation therein that the term ES is,
although well known, not accepted that well among the respondents as
Biodiversity.
The following answer to the more open question 11 of the
questionnaire (“Would you like to add something specific or express
a personal opinion to the topic?”) reveals another potential answer:
"Science will deal a lot with the risk assessments to ensure that the
Union list (which will be short in the beginning) is updated and
remains practical. Risk assessments must also take into account the
ecosystem services that they do not actually do in practice. There is
an attempt to incorporate ES in the risk assessments, but that is too
complex and too complicated." (AC)“
This indicates that people consider themselves somehow unable to
integrate ES into the schemes.
The similar (differing) result in both countries is insofar also
interesting as the responses during the interviews indicate that
Austria seems to be more experienced with IAS and there already
exists an Austrian Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species since 2004.
Furthermore, experts are involved in research and some of them also
collaborate with the state (ex. Federal Environment Agency -
Umweltbundesamt) as well as a high importance of ex-situ conserva-
tion (botanical gardens, zoos and horticultural activities) was indicated.
While IAS are in Romania a less popular topic despite some existing
scientific work, and a lack of specialized staff in the administrative
offices usually has been found where one person is often responsible for
all biodiversity topics.
Such a difference in knowledge about IAS and their effects would
have rather indicated a different view on the relevance of IAS-effects
towards biodiversity and related ES.
Some of the involved stakeholders working in conservation consider
neither the preservation of Biodiversity nor ES against IAS relevant to
their work such as the following quotation of a civil servant from
provincial authority during an IAS-related meeting in autumn 2016
observed by the first author indicates: “The IAS Regulation is not
relevant for our provincial nature conservation law” (translation by the
first author).
5. Conclusions
The results show for the supranational level of regional integration
in the EU that the term ES is mostly used in soft law and/or
Appendix A
See Table A1.
8
Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx
preparatory norms. Even if ES are included within binding norms,
rarely the MS are addressed but mostly organs of the EU and MS
together. The inclusion of ES into the IAS-Regulation appears to be a
notable exception. While the level of discretion and/or necessity of the
interpretation of the term (deriving from the very general definition in
the Regulation itself) appears currently to be very limited. Because, at
the moment, the very limited list of IAS (in total 12) predetermines a
negative effect on Biodiversity as well as its related ES in any way and
automatically triggers the measures prescribed by the Regulation and
have to be implemented by the Member States.
The perceived positive influence of the future distribution of
competence showed not much (assumed) difference among the cen-
tralized and the federal states. The discussed potential reasons there-
fore just provide a first glimpse on the complexity which could be
assessed further. The exploration of these reasons are considered an
interesting topic for further research.
The same is valid for the results found with regard to the
stakeholders’ perception of the future influence of ES on their work.
At the national level, most of the stakeholders seem to consider
biodiversity more relevant to their future work than ES. This can be
considered a sort of ES-Paradoxon as most of the respondents working
in conservation are also engaged in issuing official permits to process
natural assets which is about using ES.
ES entered quite recently into enforceable law in the European
Union. The eldest norms currently still in force are from 2006 and,
among all the relevant EU-legislation ES in the IAS-Regulation, are
exclusively addressing the Member States. It will be for the future to
show how the term will be further – beyond the ex-lege definition –
unveiled by the administration and jurisdiction among MSs and the
EU. Such action might be triggered in the future through Non
Governmental Organizations representing the interests of ecosystems
based on the recent developments in the EU legislation and jurisdiction
implementing the Aarhus Convention on Publication Participation in
Environmental Matters.
The perceptions of the national stakeholders towards the new IAS-
Regulation including the reference to ES to be protected seem to be
overall positive, surprisingly in the centralized state of Romania as well
as in the federal state of Austria. This is valid for influence on the
competence distribution as well as the personal working fields of the
stakeholders interviewed. While the results about the perceived
influences of ES on the future work of the stakeholders rather provides
an ambiguous picture – in comparison to biodiversity - in this study
and in general needs more focused research.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the two reviewers of the Journal for
their extremely helpful comments as well as Nicolas Oullette for his
careful and quick native language check.
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table A1
Details about data collection.

Country Respondent Status as public Jurisdictional type of Stakeholder workplace Survey date Interview Type
code authority or NGO competence (legislation/ date
enforcement)

Austria AA National Both University, science 10.06.2015 13.07.2015 Meeting

AB National Both Federal ministry 10.06.2015 16.06.2015 Meeting
A1 NGO None NGO 15.06.2015
AC National None Company 17.06.2015 18.06.2015 Meeting
AD National Both Federal authority, science 19.06.2015 14.12.2015 Meeting
AE National Both Federal authority 21.06.2015 13.07.2015 Meeting
A2 Subnational Both Provincial agency/ department 25.06.2015
A3 Subnational Legislation Legally intended representation 08.07.2015
of interests
A4 Subnational Enforcement Provincial agency/ department 13.07.2015
A5 National None Federal agency/ department, 21.09.2015
science
A6 NGO None NGO 22.09.2015
A7 National Enforcement Federal agency/ department 22.09.2015
AF* National Partial enforcement* Federal authority 23.09.2015 18.06.2015 Meeting
AG Subnational Both Provincial agency/ department 22.10.2015 17.06.2015 Meeting
AH Subnational Both State authority 28.10.2015 23.06.2915 Phone
A8 Subnational Enforcement independent, state agency/ 08.11.2015
department, science
Romania R1 National Enforcement (Regulation) Institution of higher education 17.07.2015
RA Subnational Both (Legislation, Control, Public local institution 18.07.2015 09.09.2015 Meeting
Administration)
RB Subnational Enforcement (Control, Public local institution 19.07.2015 09.09.2015 Meeting
Administration)
RC Subnational Enforcement (Administration) Public local administration 20.07.2015 09.09.2015 Meeting
R2 Subnational None Company 28.07.2015
RD National None Further education, Institution 27.08.2015 02.09.2015 Meeting
of higher education, Science
RE National Both (Legislation, Regulation) Public national institution 02.09.2015 02.09.2015 Meeting
RF National None Institution of higher education 16.09.2015 08.09.2015 Meeting
R3 National Both (Legislation, Regulation) Public national institution 16.09.2015
R4 National None Science 17.09.2015
RG NGO Both (Legislation, Administration) NGO 30.09.2015 06.10.2015 Phone
R5 National Enforcement (Control) Public national institution 01.10.2015
R6 National Enforcement (Regulation, National authority 02.10.2015
Administration)
RH NGO None NGO, science 04.10.2015 05.10.2015 Phone
R7 Subnational None Public local administration 05.10.2015
R8 National None Institution of higher education 05.10.2015
R9 National None Institution of higher education 06.10.2015
R10 NGO None NGO 06.10.2015
R11 National, NGO Skipped question Institution of higher education, 07.10.2015
NGO
R12 National Legislation National authority, public 09.10.2015
national institution
R13 National None Public national institution 09.10.2015
RI Subnational Enforcement (Control, Private forestry administration 09.10.2015 09.10.2015 Phone
Administration)
R14 National Enforcement (Administration) PFA, institution of higher 09.10.2015
education, NGO
R15 NGO Enforcement (Administration) Legal entity, NGO 10.10.2015
R16 Subnational Enforcement (Administration) Independent administration 12.10.2015
R17 National Enforcement (Administration) Public national institution 13.10.2015
RJ National Both (Legislation, Regulation) National authority 15.10.2015 20.10.2015 Phone
RK NGO None NGO 16.10.2015 22.10.2015 Phone
RL National Enforcement (Regulation, Control, Public national institution, NGO 18.10.2015 28.10.2015 Phone
Administration)
R18 National Both (Legislation, Regulation, Public national institution 19.10.2015
Administration)
RM NGO Both (Legislation, Regulation, NGO 19.10.2015 29.10.2015 Phone
Control, Administration)
RN** Subnational Enforcement (Control) Public local institution no survey 13.07.2015 Meeting

* Skipped question about the level of competences, verbally checked- answer: skipped question, because it is no fitted option for respondent, but “partially” (AF)- still counts as
enforcement in the survey analysis.
** Only interview, no survey- only in the qualitative analysis of the semi-structured interview.

Appendix B

Involvement of Austrian (n = 16) and Romanian (n = 31) respondents in working areas of the different competences possibly relevant to the
implementation of the IAS Regulation (multiple answers). See Table B1.

9
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza Ecosystem Services xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Table B1
Work areas of the online survey respondents.

Number Austria Romania

Work area of the Austrian respondents Counts Work area of the Romanian respondents Counts

1 Nature conservation 12 Biodiversity conservation 18

2 Environmental safety control (federal state/federal provinces) 4 Activities with environmental impact 13
3 Plants protection 4 Activities of custodies in natural protected areas 12
4 Others: University teaching, Research, and documentation of invasive species; Species 4 Protection of natural protected areas 10
conservation - wildlife trade (CITES); Biodiversity; Coordination of the countries in
the crop and pesticides department
5 Plants protection against illnesses and pests 3 Animal welfare 7
6 Customs 2 Plant protection 6
7 Fishing 2 Research and development in natural sciences and 5
engineering
8 Forestry 2 Higher education 5
9 Hunting 2 Management of forest and wildlife 5
10 Nutrition, foods, seeds and seed stock, pesticides 2 Activities of botanical gardens, zoos and reservations 4
11 Animal protection 1 Phytosanitary activities 4
12 Environmental information 1 Other environmental information service activities 4
13 Environmental responsibility 1 Protection of plants against diseases and pests 4
14 Genetic engineering precaution 1 Public administration services 4
15 Limit values of emissions 1 Land planning activities (landscaping, architecture) 3
16 Federal provinces land use planning 1 Sustainable Development 3
17 Strategic environmental assessment SEA 1 Water management 3
18 Transport (railways, aviation, shipping) 1 Environmental infrastructure 3
19 Water law 1 Fishing and fish farming 3
20 Agrarian reform 0 Strategic planning in environmental protection 3
21 Animal breeding 0 Agricultural activities 2
22 Beekeeping/apiculture 0 Activities of the centralized, administrative offices, 2
directories
23 Commerce and industry 0 Forestry 2
24 Constructions 0 Activities of public order and civil defense 1
25 Corridor condition, forest and pasture servitude, agrarian administration 0 Activities and services of decontamination 1
26 Federal provinces forestry 0 General administration 1
27 Electricity and water transport police 0 Other human health activities 1
28 Environmental safety control (federal) 0 Biosecurity conservation 1
29 Exchange with goods and livestock abroad 0 Depositing 1
30 Federal roads 0 Hunting and wild protection 1
31 Foreign Affairs 0 Other: APIA Agency for Payments and Intervention in 1
Agriculture
32 Goods and cable ways 0 Activities of political organizations 0
33 Health care 0 National defense activities 0
34 Inland water transport 0 Foreign Affairs 0
35 Federal provinces roads 0 Activities in mixed farming (crops growing combined 0
with animal breeding)
36 Regulation and maintenance of waters 0 Legal activities 0
37 Soil protection 0 Customs activities 0
38 Traffic police 0 Veterinary activities 0
39 Veterinary issues 0 Animal breeding activities 0
40 Water road construction and maintenance 0 National roads administration 0
41 Total counts 46 Administration of secondary public roads (agricultural, 0
forest, mountain)
42 Other passenger land transport, based on graphic 0
43 Beekeeping 0
44 Construction issues 0
45 Collection, purification, and distribution of water 0
46 Trade and brokerage 0
47 Forestry commissars 0
48 Construction (highways, roads, airfields and sport 0
facilities, hydraulic structures)
49 Vehicle traffic control system of defense, public order 0
and national security by traffic police
50 Animal breeding 0
51 Cultivation of plants for multiplication 0
52 Food industry 0
53 Construction of other engineering projects 0
54 The agrarian reform 0
55 Telecommunications, courier and mail services 0
56 Air transport by graphic 0
57 Casual air transport 0
58 Marine and coastline transport 0
59 Transport by rail 0
60 Inland waterway transport 0
61 Road transport of goods 0
62 Wastewater Treatment 0
63 Total counts 133

10
V. Mauerhofer, I. Laza
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