European Union environmental policy

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This article concerns aspects of the European Union's political system that may have changed as a result of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1, 2009.

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The environmental policy of the European Union is a policy area of the EU , where the Union has wide-ranging powers. According to Art. 191 TFEU, the objectives of EU environmental policy are “preservation and protection of the environment and improvement of its quality; Protection of human health; careful and rational use of natural resources; Promotion of measures at international level to deal with regional or global environmental problems and in particular to combat climate change ”. The commissioner responsible for the environment has been the Maltese politician Karmenu Vella since 2014 .

history

In the early years of European integration , the environment did not play an important role. The policy area was not included in the 1957 Treaty establishing the European Community . To a certain extent, the Paris Summit Conference of 1972 can be seen as the starting signal for the development of an independent EU environmental policy , where the then heads of state and government adopted a declaration on environmental and consumer protection policy. As a result of the summit in 1973, the first Environment Action Program (EAP) was adopted, which laid down the guidelines for the development of a Community environmental policy. Institutionally, the increased relevance of the policy area became apparent in the creation of Directorate General XI “Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection” in 1981.

Environmental policy was given primary legal status when the Single European Act came into force in 1987, where it was anchored as an official field of action in the EEC Treaty. The following treaties steadily strengthened the EU's competencies in this policy area. The Maastricht Treaty (1993) took up the concept of "sustainable development" which the Amsterdam Treaty (1999) made a priority of the Union. Furthermore, the decision-making procedures were increasingly communitized: While all decisions originally required unanimity among the member states and only a hearing of the European Parliament (hearing or consultation procedure), the Maastricht Treaty introduced qualified majority decisions in the Council and the cooperation procedure . Since the Treaty of Lisbon (2009), the Council and Parliament have decided on action by the EU in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure (Art. 192 TFEU).

Legal structures and actors

The institutions of the EU , which are involved in political processes and decisions, play an exemplary role in the EU's environmental policy for supranational politics . The legal principle " European law breaks federal law" can be reinterpreted in environmental policy as: "European law dictates federal law". For example, the European Union stipulates mandatory legal acts as part of European secondary law for the member states . In environmental policy, these are primarily ordinances (general regulation with direct domestic validity; would correspond to a law in state law) and directives (general regulation that is to be implemented by the member states in state law), and more rarely also resolutions (binding regulation in individual cases; a The decision is only binding for the addressees specified therein; it would correspond to an administrative act under national law) or recommendations and statements (not legally binding). The tasks of the three powers are carried out with regard to the EU's environmental policy at the different levels by different institutions or by specific departments or committees.

Fields of Action and Political Implication

The environmental action programs

Since 1973, the European Union brings together in so-called environmental action programs ( Environment Action Program ) their political activities in the field of environmental protection and defines the medium-term objectives in this Section. The current sixth action program for the environment is entitled "Environment 2010: Our future is in our hands". Priorities of the program were stated to be the improvement of the implementation of existing legislation, the integration of environmental protection objectives into other policy areas, cooperation with the market and the involvement of citizens, bringing about a change of behavior and the consideration of environmental concerns in decisions on land use planning and spatial planning. The program expired on July 21, 2012 after ten years. A follow-up program is currently being discussed.

The European organic regulation is one of the examples of a far-reaching integration of the EU member states in European environmental policy.

See also

literature

  • Breyer, Hiltrud (MEP) (2005): EU Environmental Handbook - Don't be afraid of Brussels (PDF; 1.7 MB)
  • European Commission (2001): Environment 2010: Our future is in our hands. The 6th EC Action Program for the Environment. (PDF; 286 kB)
  • Andrew Jordan: Environmental Policy in the European Union. Actors, Institutions and Processes. Earthscan, 2nd edition, ISBN 978-1-84407-158-6
  • Christoph Knill: European environmental policy. Control problems and regulation patterns in the multilevel system . Leske + Budrich, Opladen. ISBN 978-3-8100-3761-9
  • Gaby Umbach: environmental policy . In: Werner Weidenfeld, Wolfgang Wessels (Hrsg.): Europe from A to Z: Pocket book of European integration . 11th edition. Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-4478-0 , p. 338-342 .
  • Schulz-Walden, Thorsten (2013): Beginnings of global environmental policy. Environmental security in international politics (1969–1975) , Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich, ISBN 978-3-486-72362-5

Web links

Official links

news

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - Article 191. Legal Information Service, accessed February 14, 2012 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Knill: Developments within the EU. In: Information on Civic Education, Issue 287 Federal Agency for Civic Education , accessed on February 15, 2012 .
  3. ^ A b Gaby Umbach: Environmental Policy . In: Werner Weidenfeld, Wolfgang Wessels (Hrsg.): Europe from A to Z: Pocket book of European integration . 11th edition. Nomos-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-4478-0 , p. 338-342 .
  4. ↑ European Union : Sixth Action Program for the Environment. Retrieved February 17, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Bavarian State Ministry for Environment and Health : Cooperation in environmental protection: Development of environmental policy in the European Union (EU). (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 8, 2012 ; Retrieved February 17, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stmug.bayern.de