ABSTRACT
This chapter presents data on preferences for environmental protection across the member states. It describes environmental governance in the European Union (EU), including the application of the subsidiarity principle. The chapter describes the rules governing decision-making in the Council of Ministers. It presents the EU's early environmental directives and assesses their stringency. The chapter then presents findings from a study of regulatory convergence inside and outside of the EU. It also compares the findings from the EU from those of the classic federations. A comparative study of compliance with similar rules made by the World Trade Organization, the EU and Germany found that compliance with EU directives was at least as good or better than compliance with either the WTO rule or German federal government policy. Persistent noncompliance with the Bathing Waters directive eventually led the European Commission to propose the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, to address the underlying problem of inadequate sewage treatment.
