ABSTRACT
The Commission held that environmental policy had to be integrated in other policy areas of the Community. The environmental policy of the Community was based on the need to avoid distortion of competition. Hence, environmental legislation was often subject to economic considerations. A proposal was made at the Maastricht Conference to drop the reference to the subsidiarity principle in Art. The Maastricht Conference helped to resolve a number of formal issues with respect to the decision making rules of environmental policy and the future relationships among institutions. The purpose of New Policy instrument is to enable citizens to learn about the state of their environment. The Commission has introduced a variety of new instruments for environmental policy. The introduction of the principle of shared responsibility which allocates tasks to be performed by specific actors with respect to specific environmental policy goals.
