Environmental policy is one of the most important and far-reaching areas of EU legislation . The EU is the leading authority in this area with up to 80% of UK legislation on environmental affairs estimated to come from the EU. However, critics of EU environmental policy question the efficiency of some measures, arguing that the cost of complying with these regulations leaves European business uncompetitive, especially in the face of increased competition from countries such as China and India, which do not
Environmental policy is a relatively recent European legislative policy area. Environmental protection was not mentioned in the Treaty of Rome (1958), and it was not until 1972 that the first of a series of European Environmental Action Plans (EAP) was launched. The Single European Act (1986) marked the beginning of a more prominent role for environmental protection in EU policy-making, introducing the principal that environmental protection should be considered in all new Community legislation.
EU environmental policy was substantially expanded by the Treaties of Maastricht (1992) and Amsterdam (1997), which made sustainable development one of the EU's central objectives. Research into sustainable development also forms a key part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, which underpins all EU policy regarding the single market.