3.   Denmark as a Member of the EU/EC

The European Union1 presently (1995) comprises Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Denmark has been a member of the Union since 1 January 1973. The 15 Member States have a combined total population of 368 million and cover an area of 3.2 million km2.

The 1957 Treaty of Rome has undergone two major revisions, firstly in 1987 with the implementation of the Single European Act, which laid the foundation for the EC Internal Market, and secondly with the Maastricht agreement, which came into force on 1 November 1993.

The political cooperation between the 15 states is now called the European Union (EU). Part of this is the legally binding cooperation - the European Community (EC). As cooperation on environmental matters lies fully within the legally binding cooperation, I will henceforth use the term EC.

The European Council of Ministers is the EC’s strongest body. The Council is comprised of the relevant ministers from the 15 Member States - in environmental cases, of the Ministers for the Environment. The Council adopts the most important resolutions in the EC and has the power, which it uses, to amend proposals made by the European Commission. Certain decisions require Council unanimity, but very many important decisions - for example concerning the harmonization of legislation - are taken by statutory majority. The reckoning of votes for a statutory majority is undertaken according to specific rules laid down in the Treaty that accord the small Member States relatively great influence

The Commission is also a nucleus of power within the EC. It has the right to take the initiative with respect to the Council, that is, the Commission has to put forward a proposal for a measure before the Council can discuss the matter. Moreover, the Commission has at its disposal a large administrative apparatus comprising approx. 15,000 employees distributed between 20 General Directorates.

The position of the European Parliament was strengthened by the last amendment of the treaty. The European Parliament differs from an ordinary national parliament, though. The Council Ministers know that they have to answer to their national parliaments, a fact which considerably influences their behaviour.

The EC Court is an important factor in legislative regulation, partly because it has the power of enforcement over Member States, and partly because the Court’s interpretation of the Treaty of Rome and the individual Acts is of great significance for the practical administration of the EC.

The major European commercial organizations in the agricultural and industrial sectors also play a role in the real decision-making processes since the Commission listens to them to a certain degree.

Map of the European Union
The most important facets of the EC are currently as follows:

The first is the maintenance of a Common Market characterized by the free movement of goods, manpower, capital and services. The EC’s activities in this respect comprise laying down rules and taking steps to deal with Member States who favour their own goods.

The second is Agricultural Policy. The latter currently commandeers approx. 50% of the total EC budget of ECU 66,000 million (1993 figure). The agricultural policy has its own goals: the original purpose was to render Europe self-sufficient with respect to foodstuffs, and subsidies were therefore granted to agricultural production. This goal was more than met, however, and for a number of years the EC paid large sums just to accumulate mountains of butter and beef, and to see growing lakes of wine. In 1992, agricultural policy was partly amended in order to avoid surplus production. Farmers now have to set aside part of their land (15-18% in the case of large farms), these schemes being particularly favourable to small farms. The latter is a result of the fact that many Member States want to counteract the tendency to migrate from the country to the towns since there are insufficient jobs in the towns.

The third is Structural Policy. This commandeers 1/3 of the budget (1993 figure) and results in the channelling of money from the well-off parts of the EC to the less prosperous states (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain).

As is apparent, money is the decisive means of regulation as far as concerns agricultural and structural policy. However, as far as concerns the common market, which is where environmental policy rightly belongs, it is legislative control that plays the most important role. Certain fundamental rules are laid down in the Treaty of Rome itself; in addition, the EC regulates by means of Regulations and Directives.

Regulations are rules that are immediately applicable in all Member States. Citizens have therefore to comply with them exactly as if they were national laws, and the authorities have to treat these rules as if they themselves had issued them.

Directives are rules that only stipulate requirements to Member States. The latter have then to draw up rules that implement the requirements laid down in the Directives. The degree of detail in a Directive determines the degree of freedom accorded the individual Member States. Directives are by far the most usual type of legislative measure on the environmental front.

The other types of measure play no appreciable role in environmental questions.