The environmental governance team covers strategic questions and examines the mechanics and processes behind the formulation and implementation of environmental policies. Our work is spread across a wide, often cross-cutting, range of issues.
Key tasks include monitoring current developments in EU environmental policy, including the role of the budget, assessing environmental policy integration and policy coherence, conducting impact assessment and policy evaluation studies, evaluating policy implementation and enforcement, and looking at the global dimension of European environmental policy.
At its founding in 1957, the then European Economic Community (EEC) did not have an environmental dimension. Today the EU has some of the most progressive environmental policies in the world. EU legislation has played a vital role in improving habitat and species protection and river management, and has contributed to dramatic improvements in air and water quality and waste management. Although significant challenges remain, it is widely acknowledged that EU policy has successfully reduced a number of pressures on the environment and stimulated investment in more sustainable economic growth.
The EU has developed a ‘tool box’ of policy instruments, approaches and strategies with which to pursue its environmental objectives. It has also adopted a number of cross-cutting strategies and approaches to policy making to provide the overarching context for environmental decision-making. These are seen to be increasingly significant to the environmental debate in Europe.
Over the years the EU has taken on a growing leadership role in the global context.
On 19 November The Centre for Environmental Law of the University of Amsterdam organises an international conference on "Environmental Law and Policy in the European Union: The Legacy of the Treaty of ...
On 30th September 2009, IEEP's Marc Pallemaerts will be presenting the results of an IEEP study commissioned by DG Research to a conference on "Research on Sustainable Development Indicators: Taking Stock ...
The report examines whether the European Community gives citizens and environmental organizations adequate and effective access to justice, enabling them to seek review of acts and omissions of EC institutions ...
Institutions in developing and transition countries face major challenges to ensure that they have sufficient capacity to implement environmental law. To support this, the OECD has developed a diagnostic ...
The Welcome Package focuses on issues in the Environment field. It first provides an introduction to EU environmental policy and how it has developed over time. The introductory chapter sets the context ...
On 9 June 2009, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) will publish a study, commissioned by WWF-UK, on the European Community's performance on access to justice. The report examines whether ...
This report sets out the budget review debate so far, as well as the key issues of reference to the environment which are likely to be on the agenda during future stages of debate and subsequent budget negotiations...
The study presents a systematic comparison of design features in central climate policy initiatives at the US federal, regional and state level geared towards the establishment of an emissions trading ...
IEEP has submitted a response to the European Commission's recent consultation on requirements for a potential EU sustainability scheme for biomass used for energy purposes (separate from transport biofuels ...
This report, written for the Belgian federal department of the environment, analyses the extent to which and how Belgium applies the principles of the Aarhus Convention on Access to information, Public ...
This report, written for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), aims to initiate a transparent debate on the purpose, intensity and spatial distribution of expenditure on the EU's Common ...
A new research brief analyses the financial contributions of the parties to the Aarhus Convention.An IEEP research brief was presented by Marc Pallemaerts at a side event of the Third Meeting of the Parties ...
This is a research brief on the financial contributions of parties and signatories to the Aarhus Convention to the funding of its work programme for the 2003-07 period...
The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) organised a hearing on behalf of the European Parliament on 'The Future of the EU ETS' on 15 May 2008.The official hearing on the Commission ...
This report assesses to what extent the EU budget has contributed to achieving the EU’s climate change objectives and sets out arguments on how and why the EU budget might support the fight against climate change in the future...
