The paper is based on an analysis of the negotiations on the REACH regulation and the Climate and Energy Package of 2008/2009 in the recent member states of East Central Europe. It first identifies crucial norms behind these policies as being ecological modernization, sustainable development and precautionary action. It thereafter discusses why these norms have emerged in a West European setting and analysis the problems for the diffusion of these norms into East Central Europe. In concluding part the paper makes some suggestions regarding the possibility of norm socialization within the EU, and points out practical problems linked to A) the nature of the public administrations in the area and B) to the activities of domestic norm entrepreneurs in the countries. The analysis is based on case studies of how the two policies were received and discussed in four selected countries, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania.
