The Treaty Of Amsterdam And The Protection Of The Environment.

AutorBernat Mullerat
PáginasvLex

The Treaty of Amsterdam has brought about some amendments to the European Community Treaty (ECT) and to the Maastricht Treaty on a number of issues. The following is a brief outline of the main amendments followed by a brief assessment.

Sustainable development

The Treaty of Amsterdam has introduced the promotion of sustainable development into the Preamble and Article B of the TEU. This amendment may be read as a major reinforcement of the Community's commitment to the protection of the environment, in particular, taking into account that Article B of the TEU sets down the European Union's objectives.

The Treaty of Amsterdam has also amended Article 2 of the ECT by including as one of the Community's tasks the promotion of 'a harmonious, balanced and sustainable development of economic activities'.

The concept of sustainable development was formulated by the 1987 Report of the Brundtland Commission as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. Indeed, the Fifth Environmental Action Programme was entitled "Towards Sustainability" and dealt with sustainable development.

Reference to the term sustainable development in the ECT now confers more precision on the ECT's objectives than the previous wording introduced by the Maastricht Treaty: 'sustainable and non-inflationary growth respecting the environment'. It is not clear, at this stage, the practical effect that this amendment will have on the Community's environmental policy.

Similarly, the promotion of sustainable development is now included in the new Article 3d of the ECT.

A high level of protection

Since the adoption of the Single European Act in 1987, the Community's policy on the environment is required to aim at 'a high level of protection' (Article 100a(3)). The application of this requirement was extended to all Community measures through the amendment of Article 130r(2) effected by the Maastricht Treaty.

Now, the Treaty of Amsterdam has made the promotion of 'a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment' one of the Community's objectives, among the paramount economic and social objectives. This constitutes a further 'greening' of the ECT and responds to some Member States' concern that the Community's environmental policy was based on standards from the poorer Member States.

Integration of environmental policy in other Community policies

The need to integrate...

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