EU Environmental Policy - Its journey to centre stage

At a time when Europeans across the continent are focused on the EU's future direction, this book provides an important contribution to the current debate. Created for reasons quite unconnected with the environment, the EU has been given a compelling new justification by the success of its environmental policy. A number of factors – including a number of threats that came to prominence in the 1980s, and the new concept of 'sustainable development' – are responsible for pushing environmental policy to the forefront of its agenda. Nigel Haigh, a leading authority on the development and implementation of EU environmental policy, traces its evolution from obscurity to centrality. Drawing on a range of articles and lectures, he demonstrates how the EU has not only adapted itself to take on entirely new subject matter, but also has contributed to solving problems which individual Member States could not have dealt with on their own. The book goes on to contextualise the issues throughout its history and offers insight into the future role of the EU in environmental matters. This book is a valuable resource for academics and scholars as well as professionals and policy makers in the areas of environment and sustainability, politics, international relations and European affairs.

1. Seeing EU environmental policy 2. Cooperating with other countries 3. Sustainable development in the EU treaties 4. Air and acid rain 5. Water – towards catchment management 6. From waste to resources 7. Chemicals – the Cinderella of environmental policy 8. Integrating pollution control 9. Climate change 10. Science and policy 11. Volume control for sustainability 12. Allocating tasks – subsidiarity 13. The precautionary principle 14. Making the legislation work 15. Retaining the centre stage