Shining the Spotlight on European Union Environmental Compliance

Abstract

European Union (EU) environmental law has grown rapidly in size and complexity in recent years; there are now several hundred environmental directives. At the same time, there is a sizeable gap in the implementation and enforcement of EU environmental law. The challenges to ensuring compliance by regulated entities with EU law are considerable, given that the EU encompasses states with widely varying level of enforcement resources, administrative capacity, experience, and philosophical commitment to enforcement principles. At the same time, the European Commission lacks any direct enforcement tools. Citizen (private) enforcement of EU directives is possible only in highly circumscribed situations. Suits by one state against another for failure to enforce environmental law are politically charged and unlikely.

This article argues that one promising approach for promoting compliance with EU environmental law is greater reliance on information disclosure requirements, or "spotlighting." Such methods have been successful in the United States, as demonstrated most prominently with the Toxic Release Inventory program and California's "right to know initiative," Proposition 65. The groundwork for such an approach already exists in the EU. EU members are required to establish pollutant transfer and release registers (PTRR) by 2007. The Aarhus Convention also requires that states prepare "state of the environment" reports at least every four years. The EU's Eco-Labeling scheme, while not directly tied to enforcement and compliance issues, also provides a market incentive for improved environmental behavior (licenses have been granted for several hundred products). For the past five years, the British Environment Agency has published a "Spotlight on Business Environmental Performance," calling attention to the best and worst environmental performers, including those with the highest levels of fines and most pollution-related accidents. The EU's bathing water directive has been one of the most effective in the EU at prompting improvements because the Commission issues an annual report documenting conditions and because of "blue flag" publicity campaigns by environmental non-governmental organizations. These and other examples indicate the potency of spotlighting as a cost-effective means of promoting better environmental compliance.

JEL Classification: K23, K32, K42