ABSTRACT
After intense lobbying by European industrialists against an European Union (EU)-wide tax, the EU Commission in a new proposal made any CO2/energy tax conditional on other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries adopting similar taxes. Germany is characterised by strong interdependencies, both in ecological and in economic terms. The economy of West Germany was highly dependent on imported energy and was therefore particularly vulnerable to the dramatic rise in oil prices in 1973 and to the concomitant falling off in world trade. In the former East Germany, larger reductions were expected, and in December 1990 the government stated that Germany's goal was to reduce CO, emissions by 25-30 per cent by the year 2005 based on 1987 levels. This chapter shows that Germany's approach to environmental problem solving was deeply rooted in her political, legal and administrative institutions. These are the outcomes of long historical processes.
