Twenty Years of European Environmental Policy and Law: An Overview of Certain Aspects

Twenty Years
of European Environmental Policy and Law:
An Overview of Certain Aspects

Glykeria Sioutis

Professor of Public Law, Faculty of Law, Athens University

Any discussion about the future of environmental law should focus on the EU en­vironmental policy and its main issues. The major issues of this policy are sustain­able development and the prevention and precautionary principles, but also free access to environmental information and the environmental impact assessment as topics of the relevant legislation. Sustainable development can be defined as the development that engages the present needs without compromising in any way the future generation from appointing their own needs. To put it in other words, devel­oping the current context must not damage the natural resources, endangering thus the future generation’s own developments. The prevention principle empha­sizes the necessity of taking action on protecting the environment from an early stage, re­quiring at the same time that action is taken so that damage can be pre­vented. The best policy when it comes to the environment is preventing pollution rather than counteracting its effects. The precautionary principle was first men­tioned in the Rio Declaration of 1992 as Principle 15 and aims at maximizing envi­ronmental protection in order to avoid potential damages. The precautionary prin­ciple is not only a principle of the environmental law but is also a moral and also political prin­­ciple; it involves responsibility on the Community and the states’ side to inter­vene and protect the citizens from any risks. In the 1992 Rio Declaration, Principle 10 stated the importance of free access to environmental information. Environ­mental information consists of any form of factors, measures or activities that are likely to affect the environment or that are designed to protect it, or the re­lated cost-benefit and economic analyses used and also including information on the state of human health and safety, the contamination of the food chain, condi­tions of human life, cultural sites and built structures. It is the obligation of the au­thori­ties to ensure free access to the environmental information.