Towards Sustainability in the European Union - Beyond the Rhetoric

Abstract

This chapter examines the current state of European Union (EU) environmental policy, putting particular emphasis on the juxtaposition between the issues of sustainability, subsidiarity and deregulation. It explores the three concepts and utilizes the example of the climate change issue to illustrate their influence on a specific area of EU policy-making and to point at interlinkages between the three policy modes. The adoption of 'sustainability' as a major principle in the EU has coincided with other developments which are having a fundamental effect on EU environmental policy. The general climate of liberalisation and deregulation has influenced the environmental policy area. A main priority for making the sustainability concept more useful in policy-making must be to improve its measurability by developing sustainability indicators. In terms of environmental policy, the subsidiarity principle can also be interpreted in different ways.