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Cooperation in Environmental Protection
Development of environmental policy in the European Union (EU)
Environmental protection is one of the great challenges facing Europe. Over the last 3 decades, the European Union has devoted increasing attention to the environment and made it one of the most important policy areas of the Community in the Treaty establishing the European Union.
“Environmental protection knows no borders” was the motto of the 1970s, when the EC started drawing up Community law in the field of environmental protection. The first directives covered the testing and marking of hazardous chemicals, the protection of drinking water and monitoring of air-polluting emissions like sulphur dioxide or nitric oxide. Many of the EC environmental laws of the seventies and eighties referred to Europe’s foremost commitment to improve the living and working conditions of its citizens.
In 1987, the growing number of environmental laws was given a formal legal basis by the Single European Act, which formulated three goals::
- protection of the environment
- protection of human health
- prudent and rational use of natural resources.
The Treaty of Maastricht of 1992 provided a legal basis for the concept of sustainable development and in 1997 the Treaty of Amsterdam declared it to be one of the top priorities of the EU. As the EU Treaty stipulates that environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of other Community policies (Art. 6), environmental policy was thus also indirectly made the subject of Community legal acts, for instance in the fields of employment, energy, agriculture, internal market, industry, economic and transport policy.
Environmental protection and sustainable development feature prominently in the current draft of a European Constitution, in that the focus on the principle of sustainability is laid down as one of the Union’s objectives (Art. I-3). Environmental protection itself is also addressed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was taken over in the Draft Treaty in a section dealing specifically with the “Environment” (Art. III-233, Art. III-234) as well as in a number of other Articles. In addition, the EU has so far promulgated well over 500 legal acts in the form of regulations and directives covering various aspects of the environment, along with a large number of non-formal legal acts as notifications and guidelines.
Current key areas of EU environmental policy
The guidelines and priorities of European environmental policy for the next few years have for the most part been defined by the European Commission in the 6th Environment Action Programme "For a lasting and environmentally compatible development in Europe”. The EU Environment Council understands it as a clear concept for the protection of natural eco systems and for quality of life. Environmental aspects of relevance to health are to be given a prominent place, with greater emphasis being placed on qualitative and quantitative objectives and indicators for environmental priorities along with other pertinent community policies. However, as the implementation of existing Community law is still not adequate and the integration of environmental protection into other sectors is often still in its early stages, the Environment Action Programme must not only provide answers to the global challenges of environmental protection, but also offer a broad basis for the sustainable development of the European Union.
The 6th Environment Action Programme has identified the following priority areas for further improving implementation of Community regulations in the environmental sector:
- tackling climate change
- environment and biodiversity – protecting a single resource
- environment and health
- sustainable use of natural resources and waste management.
Furthermore, it is imperative to stop the undesirable chain reaction between economic growth and environmental pollution.
Assessment of EU environmental policy
EU environmental policy has contributed to an effective improvement in protection of the environment in many fields. However, one negative tendency deserving criticism is that an increasing number of detailed EU procedures and extensive reporting obligations are imposed on the member states – often without any appreciable added value for the environment. This is contrary to the principle of subsidiarity and complicates planning and approval procedures in Germany. Moreover, EU legislation is frequently contradictory and not coordinated with existing regulations, which can lead to considerable problems in implementation into national law and enforcement. The greater the flood of regulations from Brussels, the more the positive environmental motivation will be questioned by citizens and in the business and industry community. In this respect, the deregulation initiative proposed by the presidency of the EU Council, in which Bavaria is already closely involved, should help to remedy the situation.
On the other hand, regulatory law cannot always provide momentum for setting sustainable development in motion within the EU. It must be supplemented by voluntary agreements between the state and the private sector. Positive examples of such “law-making“ already exist: environmental pacts and the environmental management system EMAS, for example, rely on direct responsibility and the principle of cooperation, or on the concept of a partnership set up in the region with industry and the people. Bavaria is also committed to this partnership and has blazed a new forward-pointing trail with the "Environmental Pact of Bavaria".
The Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health constantly seeks to strictly abide by the principles of prevention and polluter pays as well as to avoid environmental damage at the source, as envisaged in the EC Treaty and Draft Constitution. Of major concern to Bavaria for a European environmental policy was and still is the reform of EU environmental policy on the basis of a medium and long-term concept that restricts itself to necessary Europe-wide regulations. European environmental policy must be confined to material standards without any unnecessary procedural requirements.
