PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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This article is frequently quoted by environmental groups working on both
transport and other substantive areas of EU policy such as market integration,
employment, or agriculture to point out that the EU is acting in violation of the
Maastricht Treaty whenever serious environmental protection requirements are ignored.
It was left to the Fifth Environmental Action Programme (EAP) of the EU to
more clearly define the community’s commitment to sustainable development. EAPs had
already been a key feature of EU environmental policy since the early 1970s. The Fifth
EAP covered the period from 1993 to 2000. Tellingly entitled “Towards Sustainability,”
the program provides the following, rather traditional definition of sustainability :
the word 'sustainable' is intended to reflect a policy and strategy for the continued
economic and social development without detriment to the environment and the
natural resources on the quality of which continued human activity and further
development depend. [my emphasis]
The Fifth Action Program signaled the Commission’s move away from a more
traditional “command and control” approach to environmental protection towards the use
of new instruments such as eco-audits, eco-labels, voluntary agreements and even
variants of eco-taxes, which can be summarized under the heading of “new marketinformation-based
elements” (Sbragia 2000:315).
In 1995, the European Environment Agency presented a rather critical report on
the state of Europe’s environment (European Environment Agency 1995), making it clear
that even increases and advances in environmental protection are no guarantors for a
move towards sustainable development: “The EU is making progress in reducing certain
pressure on the environment, though this is not enough to improve the general quality of
the environment and even less to progress towards sustainable development” (EEA, 1995
as quoted in Collier not dated).