EU environmental policy

The European Union (EU) is considered by some to have the most extensive environmental laws of any international organisation. Its environmental policy is significantly intertwined with other international and national environmental policies. The environmental legislation of the European Union also has significant effects on those of its member states. The European Union’s environmental legislation addresses issues such as acid rain, the thinning of the ozone layer, air quality, noise pollution, waste and water pollution, and sustainable energy. The Institute for European Environmental Policy estimates the body of EU environmental law amounts to well over 500 Directives, Regulations and Decisions.[166]

The Paris Summit meeting of heads of state and government of the European Economic Community (EEC) in October 1972 is often used to pin point the beginning of the EU's environmental policy. A declaration on environmental and consumer policy was adopted at this summit which requested the European Commission to draw up an action programme for environmental protection. This (first) Environmental Action Programme was adopted in July 1973 and represented the EU’s first environmental policy. Furthermore, the task force within the Commission that drew up this action programme eventually led to the formation of a Directorate General for the Environment.

The primary reason at that time for the introduction of a common environmental policy was the concern that diverse environmental standards could result in trade barriers and competitive distortions in the Common Market. Different national standards for particular products, such as limitations on vehicle emissions for the lead content of petrol, posed significant barriers to the free trade of these products within the Economic Community (EC). An additional motivation driving the EU’s emerging environmental policy was the increasing international politicisation of environmental problems and the growing realisation from the beginning of the 1970s that environmental pollution did not stop at national borders, but had to be addressed by cross-border measures. At that time there was no mention of environmental policy in the founding treaties of the EU and therefore no explicit Treaty basis which underpinned EU environmental policy. However, the Treaty text was interpreted dynamically, enabling environmental policy to be regarded as an essential goal of the Community, even though it was not explicitly mentioned. It was not until the middle of the 1980s and the signing of the Single European Act in 1986 that economic and ecological objectives were put on a more equal footing within the Community.

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