Laggard by intent or constraint? Rethinking environmental implementation deficits in Greece through the capacity–intentionality framework

This article investigates environmental under-performance by exploring Greece, a typical laggard case within the European Union. It introduces a newly developed capacity–intentionality framework (CIF), which expands the policy capacity model of Wu, Ramesh, and Howlett by integrating the dimension of political agency and purposeful action. The CIF is employed to explain Greece's persistent implementation deficits in EU environmental legislation. Methodologically, the study maps environmental infringements in Greece from 2000 to 2022 and analyzes qualitative data from 42 elite interviews with key Greek environmental actors. While reaffirming prior findings of systemic and organizational capacity shortfalls, the analysis goes further to identify deficits in intentionality—a lack of sustained commitment and strategic alignment by key actors—as a critical explanatory factor. The findings underscore that addressing environmental implementation failures in Greece requires not only institutional capacity-building but also the development of deliberate political and societal commitment to environmental goals.