"The spirit of Aarhus" experienced by the diplomacy of the European Union

The Aarhus convention establishes a number of obligations on Parties in terms of public participation in environmental decision-making, of right-to-know legislation and of access to justice. Based on formal rules of decision-making as well as practices, the functioning of the convention implements its core principles, described by delegates and NGOs as the "Aarhus spirit". In 2017 and 2021, the European Union delegation challenged the practice of adopting the decisions of the Meeting of the Parties by consensus. This article aims at grasping the significance of these two precedents both for the European Union and the convention. The analysis combines pragmatist postulates on social action with basics of institutional ethnography in order to show how the normative pressures of other Parties have finally prevailed.