In these 50 years the European Union has implemented a lot of projects in the sector of environmental protection, established a legal basement for managing and coordinating the environmental policies of the member countries, as well as developed and adopted new policies for the purpose of environmental protection and other related issues. Currently the EU is one of the pioneers of international cooperation in the sector of environmental protection in the world. At the same time the EU’s policies and actions in this sector are closely connected with global processes. The union has large powers and liabilities in environmental protection. However, it was not like that before as the main agreement signed in Rome in 1957 did not provide the EU with such powers. The EU’s actions and events in that period were to touch upon and discuss environmental protection issues and were targeted at the solution of social and economic issues. In Early 70s, connected with ecologic crisis in Europe, the European countries decided to implement ecological projects in Europe. Experts say there have been five phases of the EU environmental protection projects formation.
First phase (1957-1971): In this phase the EU did not have powers and liabilities connected with environmental protection. The EU was doing only facultative actions. The environmental issues were secondary issues.
Second phase (1972-1985): The EU worked out the first action plan in this sector. In 1972 the council of EU countries’ leaders decided to enlarge the EU’s powers and include environmental issues under the EU’s powers as well. The EU joined a number of international environmental protection conventions.
Second phase (1986-1991): This can be considered a phase of adoption of liabilities and powers in the sector of environmental protection. In 1986 the common European act made changes to the Rome agreement signed in 1957. These resolutions adopted the main policies of the EU in the sector of environmental protection. In this phase the EU’s environmental protection policy was formed.
Fourth phase (1992-2002): This is the phase of the Union’s environmental protection policy improvement, which is very important due to the following aspects:
– The EU environmental protection powers are agreed by all EU countries;
– The EU’s environmental protection policy is directly connected with the other directions of European integration;
In this phase the goals and policies of the EU in the sector of environmental protection were finalized. In 1997 the EU adopted the agreement of Amsterdam, which amended the documents adopted before that, which stimulated the future development of environmental protection laws. The agreement of Amsterdam reaffirmed the importance of the “stabile development” principle, including issues on environmental protection. The EU adopted policies on important events such as ecological standardization, evaluation of athrogenic and technogenic influence on the environment, mechanisms of financing and protecting environmental protection rights. In a word, the fourth phase is characterized as a phase of separating the environmental policy as one of the most important directions of the EU’s activity.
Fifth phase (since 2003 up to now): Currently the EU is working on the legal improvements on the environmental protection policies. Specifically, the mechanisms and rules of collecting and processing ecological information, the systems of ecologic monitoring, issuing certificates, the mechanisms of evaluating the influence on the environment, etc. It is also important to include the issue of environmental protection in the EU’s Constitution.
Since the Maastricht agreement the EU is slowly turning into an organization giving a priority importance to environmental issues. The EU countries have to integrate the environmental protection issues in all normative acts concerning all policy sectors. The policies of all EU institutions are somehow connected with ecological issues. The European Commission, European Parliament, Council of Europe and the European Agency of Environmental protection, which was established in 1990, are dealing with environmental protection issues.