ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU)1 has emerged over the past two decades as a major source of environmental action and law making. On the global stage it enters into negotiations in its own right: for example, it is the only supranational organisation that is a signatory to the Earth Summit documents and took a strong pro-environment stance in the Kyoto climate change negotiations in direct opposition to the USA. For an organisation whose original rationale was the creation of the conditions for sustained economic growth for its member states, the transformation into a leading promoter of environmental innovation and change needs some investigation. Despite the EU’s emergence as an important policy maker and international actor in the environmental sphere, it has nonetheless attracted criticism. For example, it has been reproached for lacking an adequate monitoring and enforcement machinery, for depressing environmental standards within Europe to the lowest common denominator and for supposing that it can pursue an effective environmental policy while giving higher priority to promoting economic growth and increased trade.
