Working Report, 23/2006 – Strengthening Environmental Integration in the EU

Strengthening Environmental Integration in the EU

1 Introduction

Aim of the Project

The aim of the project is to contribute to the development of thinking on environmental integration at the EU level and in particular to further thinking on Integrated Product Policy (IPP) and other environmental considerations in relation to policy areas other than the environment.

Advancing environmental integration in EU policy development is a far-reaching challenge, as the number of potential policy areas are many and include both strategic policy processes as well as concrete items of legislation. The project looks at a number of policy areas that have so far not been in the ‘spotlight’ from an environmental point of view. During the project, it was found that talking about integrating a fairly broad concept like IPP in EU policy development gives little meaning and is difficult to tackle in concrete terms. The project therefore focused on those elements of IPP which could be generic principles for the environmental policy field in general – such as working with the market, and life cycle thinking. A product-oriented approach building on these principles is needed to supplement and build on existing policies, which have already achieved significant improvements in Europe’s environment.

Structure of the report

The first part of the report sets the scene. Section 3 describes the EU’s two major environment-related strategic policy processes - the Cardiff Strategies and the EU Sustainable Development Strategy – while Section 4 focuses the Commission’s Integrated Product Policy Communication.

The report then moves on to the details of a number of more specific policy items, namely the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, the Structural Funds, the State Aid guidelines, the Multiannual Programme for Enterprise, Economic Instruments and the Thematic Strategies. All these items have been found to contain some future windows of opportunity for the inclusion of IPP thinking.

Finally, the report explores the use of Impact Assessment, reflecting its potential as a generic tool for integrating environmental concerns and IPP thinking into EU policy development.

During the project the study team explored a number of areas that were not in the end chosen for further inclusion in the report. However, these might be worth exploring more in the future and a short summary of these issues is therefore attached as Annex II to this report.