The European Community and environmental protection

Summary:

The second half of the twentieth century will be remembered as a time of unprecedented urban, industrial and agricultural development. However, there has been a price to pay, in the form of waste of scarce resources and a build-up of pollution, harmful effects and technological hazards which pose a threat to human health and to the natural environment.

To cope with this, all the countries of the Community adopted environmental protection policies during the 1960s. As national frameworks were soon seen to be too cramped, the Heads of State or Government in 1972 laid the foundations for a common policy on the environment. Today this policy has many achievements to its credit, but the environment of Europe continues to deteriorate - and demands more sustained efforts.

Besides, environmental problems are increasingly seen as planetary matters: the heating of the earth's atmosphere, the depletion of the ozone layer and the destruction of tropical forest concern all of humanity. It means that the Community must play a greater role in the international bodies concerned with these questions.