Book review: The evolution of EU environment policy

There are now more than 280 significant pieces of environmental legislation on the EU statute book, comprising a vast and complex set of rules that is fully understood by few and misunderstood by many.

A new book tries to cut through the confusion, laying out how the remarkable growth of EU action on environment and sustainability came about and the main political and legal principles that underpin the environmental acquis today.

In ‘EU Environmental Policy: Its Journey to Centre Stage’, Nigel Haigh argues that the EU has not only enabled its member states to achieve necessary progress that they would never have done individually, but also that the net result has been of global significance.