Against Europe’s Green Leviathan

Global Vision is a non-partisan campaign group that believes Britain needs to negotiate a looser, more modern relationship with the EU to reflect the rapidly changing world of the 21st century. The new relationship should be based on trade and cooperation, whilst opting out of political and economic union.

Of all the arguments invoked to justify augmenting the powers of the European Union, one of the most widely cited is that of the pressing need to tackle environmental problems and in particular those that transcend the boundaries of the nation state. According to a widely held view, it is only by surrendering an element of national sovereignty and by participating in a European-wide
system of regulation that nations can ensure their protection from environmental harms beyond their individual control. This short paper puts forward an alternative vision for environmental policy that, while emphasising the positive role that the European Union can play, challenges the rationale for the centralisation and harmonisation of environmental policy at the European level.