Environmental policy of the European Union has evolved considerably since its inception and has now become a key factor in its policy making decisions. So, the short answer to the question is yes, it is true. But it is not so true that it overrides economic concerns, which remains paramount. Therefore, while much progress has been made in bringing environmental concerns to the forefront of European Union law, and environmental sustainability is considered a shared competency among member states, its application is uneven and often unclear despite its now elevated status on the European Union’s agenda. That said, European environmental law is considered to be among the most comprehensive in the world, and the European Union has arguably achieved leadership status in this area.

In analysing the development of environmental policy of the European Union, five phases can be discerned. The first phase sits between the years 1957 and 1972. During this time, economic integration was the main objective, and this was furthered by standardising product quality at the European level. Environmental policies were considered to be “by-products of economic integration” and “flanking policies of the common market” (Knill 2007). In 1957, the Treaty of Rome – formally, the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (TEEC) – contained, in Article 36, the clause that provided a caveat for the free movement of goods across the European Economic Community. By stating that “[t]he provisions of Articles 30 to 34 inclusive shall not be an obstacle to prohibitions or restrictions in respect of importation, exportation or transit which are justified on grounds of […] the protection of human or animal life or health, the preservation of plant life” (TEEC, Article 36 1957), the Treaty allowed for European trade restrictions that could be loosely interpreted as the earliest consideration of environmental concerns over trade liberalisation, albeit from a more anthropocentric perspective than any deep desire to protect the natural world.

By the 1970’s, populations in the developed world started to become aware of environmental concerns and began to “realise that economic growth and environmental concerns are closely interlinked” (Van Calster 2017). Much of this was attributed to the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which was published in 1962, and introduced a large international audience to the dangers of pesticide use on human and environmental health. In the same year, the European Economic Community (EEC) launched the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Designed to provide affordable food for EEC citizens and a fair standard of living for farmers, CAP was focused on human economic wellbeing not environmental health at that time. Unfortunately, this created environmental problems by “encouraging the increased use of chemical fertilizers and herbicides, the removal of hedges and trees and the ‘reclamation’ of wetlands, in the interests of making farms bigger and more efficient” (McCormick 2017).

Between 1972 and 1987, the second phase can be identified as one of growing environmental awareness leading to the expansion of environmental legislation. In 1972, following the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm and its resulting Stockholm Declaration, environmental concerns were more formally put on the international political agenda. This lead to the first Environment Action Programme (EAP) by the Council and Commission of the EEC, originating from the Paris Summit of October 1972.

Although the first EAP was non-binding, it did lay much of the foundation for environmental law and policy based on earlier communication by the Commission that called for “the power to issue provisions governing these [environmental] matters which would be directly applicable in each Member State and which, once adopted, would supersede the existing national provisions or fill gaps in national legislation” (Van Calster 2017). It outlined priorities and criteria for research and action, with a focus primarily on water protection, waste, air, and pollutants. An emphasis on preventive action was also introduced through the principle of “polluter pays”. No formal Treaty provisions regarding the environment were made, however, but the Paris Summit is nonetheless considered a milestone in the evolution of European environmental policy, as it represented “the first authorisation by member states to the European institutions to undertake more comprehensive policy action in the field of the environment, without it necessarily being linked to the realisation of the common market” (Delreux 2016).

Throughout the 1970s, public discourse increased regarding the environment due in large part to a series of crises that included an explosion at a chemical plant in Italy which caused a toxic cloud to contaminate a densely populated area; an oil spill from a tanker off the coast of France; and the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the USA; and scientists suggesting that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) may be causing a thinning of the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere. The combination of these crises, alongside a relatively new and widespread awareness that the Earth is a finite planet (with thanks to the iconic images of the Earth and Moon taken from space in 1969), gave much legitimacy to key environmental policy initiatives.

By the 1980s, political Green parties began to proliferate internationally, and in 1983, the German Green Party was elected to parliament for the first time. 1983 was also the year of the third EAP (the second being in 1977) and these sought to expand the scope of the first EAP. The EAPs, however, were not meant to be umbrella policy frameworks or to provide legally binding environmental law but were the first political step towards creating a common environmental policy at the supranational level. In other words, they were the impetus for integrating environmental concerns into policy-making by identifying aims and objectives to be proactive responses to potential environmental problems, rather than merely reactions to man-made ecological disasters.

The European Commission also created the Environment Directorate-General during this phase, which has evolved from its early days as an ‘environmental unit’ into a powerful institution that oversees compliance of a vast array of environmental law across a greatly expanded group of shared environmental competences. The Court of Justice further legitimised and institutionalised the development of environmental policies at the European level by playing an important role in broadening the scope and legitimacy of Articles 100 (relating to the approximation of laws) and 235 (allowing elevated power when deemed necessary in the functioning of the Common Market) of the TEEC.

The third phase, between 1987 and 1992, introduces the Single European Act (SEA). This was the first substantial change into the Treaty of Rome, which codified four essential freedoms – free movement of goods, services, persons and capital – setting as its objective the creation of a single market by 1992 through the abolition of internal barriers between member states. Among its provisions were two key measures that established environmental competences and created an explicit legal basis for European environmental policy: Title VII – Environment. This separate environment title meant that the EEC could adopt environmental policies in the interest of environmental protection, and not simply as “an instrument for the realisation of the common market” (Delreux 2016).

Three articles were created under Title VIII – Environment of the SEA that established the “objectives and principles of European environmental policy; the legislative procedure for environmental policy-making; and the possibility of member states taking stricter environmental measures at their domestic levels than the harmonised ones at the European level” (Delreux 2016). These are Articles 130r, 130s, and 130t. These were amended to Articles 191, 192, and 193 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), otherwise known as the Treaty of Lisbon, in 2007. The SEA also introduced qualified majority voting (QMV) and the cooperation procedure, which gave the European Parliament greater power to adopt a legislative proposal by the Commission, through a qualified majority, though should the Parliament reject a proposal, the Council could overrule provided their decision was unanimous. This meant that environmental policies could be decided more easily. During this phase, the EEC’s decisions were less contested, and the EEC was able to play a more significant role at an international level, such as in Rio in 1992, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, where frameworks for tackling climate change and conserving biological diversity were signed.

The fourth phase is one of further consolidation between 1992 and 2009. This was ushered by the Maastricht Treaty, signed in 1992, which created the European Union (EU) and strengthened its legal and institutional framework. While the Maastricht Treaty only stated that the EU’s economic activity had to respect the environment, the important factor is that “references to the environmental protection in the Treaties are no longer limited to the environment title, but that environment now also has a place among the general objectives of the EU” (Delreux 2016).

In 1994, the European Environment Agency (EEA) was set up in Copenhagen, which sought to provide “sound, independent information on the environment for those involved in developing, adopting, implementing and evaluating environmental policy, and also the general public” (European Environment Agency 1994). In 1996, the EEA published its first report on environmental taxes, which are taxes on polluting activities and products that are used as effective instruments of environmental policy.

In 1997, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) introduced the Kyoto Protocol sought to set specific targets and deadlines to reduce global greenhouse emissions, to which the EU was a signatory. This put climate change firmly on the EU’s environmental agenda and saw the growth of policies across multiple competences, that were further entrenched with The Amsterdam Treaty coming into force in 1999.

In June of 1999, the EEA also published a document called “Environment in the European Union at the turn of the Century”. The report is a snapshot summary of progress and challenges, and notes that although some progress has been made over 25 years of Community Environment Policy, “the general environmental quality in the EU is not recovering significantly, and in some areas worsening” and that the report “confirms both that the situation and the fact that the unsustainable development of some economic sectors is the major barrier to improvement” (Jimenez-Beltran 1999). It notes progress in wind energy growth, cycling taking higher percentages of some cities traffic, pesticide-free areas, growth in organic agriculture, improved energy efficiency in many countries, and the fact that some EU countries were establishing indicators and quantitative targets to “master unsustainable development” to more fully align with the United Nations’ Agenda 21 programme. It notes the importance of good political frameworks to assist with positive change across key economic and sectoral areas, but – despite some positivity – the underlying tone is one of disappointment.

The 2000s, a new decade in a new century, saw a decrease of political ambition. With mixed results depressing morale, despite some notable successes such as greenhouse gas emissions reductions, European leadership waned with regard to environmental policy and sustainability targets. Climate change denialists gained media attention, the public was perhaps fatigued by environmental concerns, industrialists were unwilling to change their mode of production to benefit the natural environment, customers unwilling to change their consumption habits, and farmers globally were shifting once again to more intensive farming methods. Environmentalism itself was becoming an unsustainable – or at least unachievable – ideal. The economy mattered more.

The various relevant agencies within the EU, supported by a strengthening Green political party movement, continued to push forward with targets such as 20-20-20, which aimed at cutting CO₂ emissions by 2020, and generating at least 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources. In 2005, the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was introduced, that placed a national cap on member states CO2 emissions from industries, which could be traded from those who use less than their allotted allowances to those who need more. Globally, the ETS scheme has been widely criticised, as the cap-and-trade scheme did little to encourage the industries in some member states who were most addicted to coal, oil and gas to reduce their emissions; and because carbon credits were worth dollars and were traded like stocks, it incentivised dishonest practices through carbon offset projects. It became – as the Executive Director of Greenpeace called it – a “multi-trillion dollar carbon racket” (Annie Leonard 2009).

By 2009, a meeting of signatories of the climate change convention saw the EU “criticised for not taking enough of a leadership position, contributing to an embarrassing failure to achieve agreement there” (McCormick 2017). So, while growth of environment policy during this period continued with stronger legal foundations, a more focused emphasis on climate change policy, increased prominence in various Treaty amendments, and improvements to the structure and functioning of EU institutions and competences on one hand; on the other, strong and enlivening leadership submitted to building bureaucracy and creating law.

 Because of the EU’s territory increasing with enlargement to the East, growing from its initial six member states to twenty-eight, environmental concerns – particularly concerns around climate change – have become near Sisyphean tasks. Falling into the category of “a wicked problem” (Toman 2014), climate change and the natural environment are transnational problems that require local efforts at a global scale. The EU has been at the forefront of many initiatives within the EU and internationally to seriously tackle these “wicked problems” head on, and I do believe that as a body they have honest intent in making genuine progress toward sustainability goals. But member states “seem to prefer less strict environmental regulations since they fear that yet more environmental measures would undermine their international competitiveness” (Delreux 2016). With some member states being reluctant to adopt more robust environmental policy, taking on the burden of implementing and enforcing strong policy relating to the environment and climate change can be extremely difficult with the newer, less wealthy member states. A case in point, is Poland repeatedly refusing to take on more ambitious eco-policies.

Despite this, The Lisbon Treaty – which is formally made up of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) – came into force in 2009, which determined EU policy-making rules. With already mature competences in place, there was not much changed from previous Treaty amendments to environmental policy, besides new wording of the sustainable development objective and directly mentioning climate change in Article 191 (The Lisbon Treaty 2009). Unfortunately, it came on the back of the Global Financial Crisis, the Eurozone Crisis, and the implementation of austerity measures and this had had a negative effect on how member states receive and comply with new and existing environmental law. However, a renewed push for policy acceptance and compliance has been through the promotion of a “Green Economy” (European Commission: Environment 2015). This is the fifth and last stage so far and seeks better implementation of existing law.

This stage is filled with feel good catch-phrases that attempt to encourage compliance by promoting economic prosperity through production/consumption innovations that are more environmentally friendly than exists currently. Phrases like “sustainable growth”, “low carbon economy”, and “green energy” seeks to alleviate economic insecurities, real or imagined, into new ideas and business models that will achieve the goals set down in previous decades. Sceptics see this as a cynical trend that exploits the “environmentally aware” for pure economic gain in a similar way to any other purely profit-focused enterprise. Which brings me back to my initial claim that yes, it is true that environmental concerns are central to the EU agenda and activity, but not so true that it will override economic concerns. Not yet, anyway. As Jim Flynn says in the introduction to his book on climate change, “[t]he world’s leaders will not curb economic growth if it jeopardises their survival. They will not commit political suicide simply because a cause is just” (Flynn 2016). If this is correct, and I believe it to be so, then it is not just environmental policy that needs to change, it is us. And I do not believe we will change until we have no more choices but to. Business confidence and economic growth still remains a priority above the environment that supports it.

Works Cited

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Flynn, Jim. 2016. No Place to Hide. Climate Change: A Short Introduction for New Zealanders. Nelson, NZ: Potton & Burton.

Jimenez-Beltran, Domingo. 1999. Environment in the European Union at the turn of the century. Summary, Copenhagen, Denmark: EEA.

Knill, Christoph, and Duncan Liefferink. 2007. Environmental politics in the European Union: Policy-making, implementation and patterns of multi-level governance . Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

McCormick, John. 2017. Understanding the European Union. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

1957. TEEC, Article 36. Rome, March 25.

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Toman, Mike. 2014. A Wicked Problem: Controlling Global Climate Change. September 30. Accessed September 12, 2018. http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/09/30/a-wicked-problem-controlling-global-climate-change.

Van Calster, Geert, and Leonie Reins. 2017. EU Environmental Law. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.