Making Environmental Policy

Abstract

Most standard accounts of the European Union (EU) do not consider it necessary to define what is meant by environmental policy and equally most books on the subject launch into their discussion without considering what it is that is being assessed. In one sense, a definition may seem unnecessary: the environment is that which surrounds us, the physical set of conditions in which we and other sentient beings exist. One might go on to argue that environmental policy is what the EU seeks to do to protect the physical environment.