EU environmental policy in the 1990s. Allowing greater national leaway?

Article forms part of a special issue, 'Subsidiarity and environmental policy in the EU'. This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of subsidiarity on European Community legislation. Subsidiarity strikes an ambiguous balance between respect for democratic self-governance and efficiency of Community action. On the one hand, subsidiarity may inhibit Community action even in those situations where the envisaged Community action would produce clear benefits compared to action at the level of the member states. On the other hand, the Community institutions have implemented subsidiarity in a manner that avoids this outcome, favouring Community action at the expense of respect for localities. The author shows that the effect of subsidiarity on Community legislation in the 1990s reflects this ambiguity. On one hand, subsidiarity has been quite successful in reducing the overall volume of Community proposals. On the other hand, subsidiarity has not been able to alter adopted Community legislation from strongly binding instruments, such as regulations and decisions, to less binding instruments, such as directives.