European Union, environmental policy

In what is being called the most far-reaching overhaul of European Union environmental policy ever, the European Commission released a draft policy proposal on May 7 that, if enacted, would require virtually all manufacturers of chemicals to provide risk assessments and other information regarding products they sell or ship into the EU. Chemicals would also have to be registered with the EC and many downstream users of products that contain chemical entities would have to file paperwork as well. The Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals, or REACH, proposal would apply to approximately 30,000 new and existing chemicals, and test data would have to be developed on some 5000 specific chemical entities, many of which have been commonly used for decades. EUROPEAN COMMISSION... 

Liski, J., Karjalainen, T., Pussinen, A., Nabuurs, G.J. and Kauppi, P. (2000). Trees as carbon sinks and sources in the European Union. Environmental Science and Policy, 3(2-3), 91-97. 

In Europe the volume of international legislation increased during the last half of the twentieth century Table 1.4 shows the adopted pieces of environmental regulation that emerged during this period. Current European Union (EU) policy... 

A native of London, England, Bernard Miller lived and worked in twenty different nations over a period of thirty years. Travel and adventure shaped his life and work as an employee of the United Nations, the European Parliament and the European Union. In the following narrative he comments on the environmental health policies he has seen in action in various countries. Those comments are inspiring but bittersweet to me, because the U.S. compares so unfavorably. 

The European Union (EU) environmental policy has put water protection and its sustainable management high on its agenda, reflected by the European Water Framework Directive (WFD), which is now in its implementation phase. 

Behrens A (2004) Environmental policy instruments for dematerialisation of the European Union. SERI Background Papers, No 7. Sustainable Europe Research Institute, Vienna EUROSTAT (2001) Economy-wide material flow accounts and derived indicators. A methodological guide. Statistical Office of the European Union, Luxembourg Giljum S (2006) Material flow-based indicators for evaluation of eco-efficiency and dematerialisation policies. In Lawn P (ed) Sustainability indicators in Ecological Economics. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham... 

Giljum S, Hak T, Hinterberger F, Kovanda J (2005) Environmental governance in the European Union strategies and instruments for absolute decoupling. International Journal for Sustainable Development 8(1/2) 31-46 Hafner G, Jakl T, Loibl G (2002) Conference conclusions by the chairs. In Freytag E, Jakl T, Loibl G, Wittmann M (ed) The role of precaution in chemicals policy. Favorita Papers, Diplomatic Academy of Vienna... 

The process of redesigning the European Union s Chemical Policy was triggered by several factors. A large number of man-made chemicals has been released into the environment, is still being and will inevitably be released in the near future. There are several cases of chemicals which had been considered to be safe but which due to their persistent nature manifested environmental harm in areas outside of their initial assessment. 

This section gives a nonexhaustive overview of the regulatory state of the art on human risk assessment of chemical mixtures in the United States, the European Union (EU), and other nations and (international agencies. The focus is on regulations for environmental pollution, but when available and relevant, mixture regulations from other policy areas have also been included in the overview, for example, for food quality and the workplace. The reader is referred to McCarty and Borgert (2006) and Monosson (2005) for a more extensive overview of mixture toxicity regulations related to human health. 

EDF (2007a) Not that innocent. A Comparative Analysis of Canadian, European Union and United States Policies on Industrial Chemicals. Washington, DC Environmental Defense (EDF). 

Andonova, Liliana B. (2004) Transnational Politics of the Environment The European Union and Environmental Policy in Central and Eastern Europe. MIT Press, Cambridge. 

There has also been a shift in governmental use of policy tools from input to output centred instruments (Pierre and Peters 2000), with evaluations and inspections being examples of two policy instruments that have grown in importance (Johansson 2006). It has also been suggested that these changes have been fostered by the expansion of the European Union, mainly because regulations are the EU s most common policy instrument (Majone 1996). Regulations dominate within the area of environmental policy in Europe, even if economic and communicative policy instruments also are used (Mac Neil et al. 2002). 

P.M. Barnes and I.G. Barnes, Environmental Policy in the European Union, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, Gloucester, UK, 1999, p.102. 

One reason for the policy change was that Finland joined the European Union in 1995 and there were concerns that Finland, having advanced nuclear waste disposal programs, might be compelled to accept nuclear waste from other EU countries. Furthermore, the discussions in Russia concerning the policy for reception of foreign spent fuel and the environmental problems around the Mayak facilities affected the formulation of the Finnish policy. 

As governmental bodies, the Ministries of Environment are the competent authority for the majority of activities related to environmental issues such as trans-boundary air and water pollution, troposphere ozone and climate change, for instance. The main task of a ministry on these issues is therefore to elaborate and implement the environment policy. As it is nearly everywhere within the Member States of the European Union, the ministries carry out only a few studies and analysis by themselves, but a lot of routine work is allocated to different administrations or institutions. This approach was not followed in some countries of the 10 and the research and international collaboration on different environmental programmes suffered for a... 

The next step was to demonstrate, on a large scale, the feasibility of the processes developed at laboratory scale to separate and purify the waste solvent streams into their original components for reuse. An offer of co-financing was received from the European Union s LIFE — environment. LIFE (Financial Instrument for the Environment) is a financial instrument used by the European Commission to support the development and implementation of the Community environmental policy as described in their Fifth Community Action Programme. 

With the development of sustainable development indicators also moving into the role of pesticides and their impact on the environment, clearly, sound statistical information was required, particularly if the role of policy changes on pesticide use was to be assessed over time. Furthermore, an important target of the European Union s (EU) 5th Environmental Action Programme was the reduction of pesticide risk, but this would be impossible to monitor without sound information on changes in use over time. 

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