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
Biography
Nigel Haigh opened the London office of IEEP in 1980 and was Director until 1998. He has served on the Board of the European Environmental Agency as a nominee of the European Parliament, and on the Board of the Environment Agency (England and Wales).
"In ‘EU Environmental Policy: Its Journey to Centre Stage’, Nigel Haigh argues that the EU has not only enabled its member states to achieve necessary progress that they would never have done individually, but also that the net result has been of global significance." - ENDS, Dr A. Michael Warhurst, Executive Director, CHEM Trust
"Reading this book it is hard not to share Nigel’s belief that if the EU didn’t exist we’d have to invent it, to align forces around a better way to live in Europe. And we should all celebrate his tenacity, intellect and lifetime commitment to that cause." - Green Alliance Blog, Julie Hill
"The book is mainly a collection of essays, lecture and book chapters written in the midst of important debates, with fresh updates to each providing a perspective up to 2015." - Nick Rowcliffe, ENDS Reports
"This book will be of interest to those new to the subject and to experts in EU environmental policy. It provides an engaging and accessible introduction, demonstrating how the different policies fit with cross-cutting principles, such as precaution and subsidiarity, and EU decision-making processes. It investigates historical policy developments in much greater depth than other introductory books on EU environmental policy do (e.g. those by Delreux and Happaerts or Jordan and Adelle)." - Viviane Gravey, Environmental Politics 2016 pp.1
"Haigh, former Director of the London office of the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and an alumnus of the European Environmental Agency as well as the Environment Agency here in Britain, offers an independent view of that journey, comprised mainly of lectures and papers delivered over the past 30 years." - Edward Perchard , Resource Magazine
"This book will be of interest to those new to the subject and to experts in EU environmental policy. It provides an engaging and accessible introduction, demonstrating how the different policies fit with cross-cutting principles, such as precaution and subsidiarity, and EU decision-making processes. It investigates historical policy developments in much greater depth than other introductory books on EU environmental policy do." - Viviane Gravey, Environmental Politics
"Above all, the book sets the evolution of EU environmental policy in a time perspective. This is a valuable exercise when a large part of current works is spent on commenting the most recent EU law and policy developments, but are more rarely telling the whole story and looking at the broad picture... Haigh’s book is both a historical testimony and a reminder of the need for ambition and consistency in EU environmental policy." - Catherine Banet, Associate Professor, University of Oslo, Scandinavian Institute for Maritime Law, Department of Petroleum and Energy Law
"At time when many Europeans and Non-Europeans are focused on the EU’s future, this book provides a significant contribution to that debate. The book by Nigel Haigh is a must-read. It is full of constructive learning effects and thoughtful positioning of arguments, making EU environmental policy a model to be carefully studied worldwide." - Udo E. Simonis, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Policy at the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB), for Sonnenseite
