On the Relevance of Environmental Law Evolution as a Fundamental Pillar of the European Union

Abstract

Environmental law is a main pillar of European Union construction. It has changed throughout the decades to encompass the new visions and strategies for Europe, towards a more sustainable future. We analyse a number of EU legal documents to assess the development of several concepts throughout the decades, pinpointing the key challenges throughout the evolution. If at the beginning of the period in appreciation key principles of openness, equity and accountability are important in the legal documents, they seldom appear in more recent documents, where the recently coined challenges of circular economy, nature-based solution and new green business models are more dominant. Climate change and risk assessment and management are pervasive topics, witnessing the European Union concern with these matters for several decades. The vertical and horizontal integration with international institutions and with the member countries and European regions is also a dominant worry of European environmental legislation, providing the freedom for adaptation to the local and national cultural and societal characteristics. In fact, in contrast to the commonly believed by the citizens, due to the subsidiary principle, the enforcement of European legislation is performed, in an adapted manner at country level.