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An essential component of the European Union's environmental policy is its participation in international legally binding instruments. Owing to the shared nature of its competence, the Union is most commonly a party to multilateral treaties alongside the Member States. This arrangement, however, is not without its inherent difficulties. The article examines the key stages of the procedure, as laid down in the Treaties and demonstrated by practice: the Commission recommendation to open negotiations, the Council authorization, the negotiating process, and the signing and conclusion of the agreement. The study reveals that the procedure is fraught with tension on two levels. First, each of the EU institutions involved strives to maximize its influence on the final outcome. The European Parliament warrants special attention due to its newly expanded powers. Second, the Member States are unwilling to take the back seat, especially in the sphere of climate talks. As a result, the Union still has recourse to pre-Lisbon practices and is yet to resolve its internal coordination issues in order to achieve its ambition of global leadership in environmental matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of air pollution as a global problem contributing to health disorders and damage to the environment sparked the development of national legislation as well as international cooperation initiatives to improve air quality. As a result, the introduction of new and tighter air quality standards, national emission ceilings and more environmentally friendly technologies led to significant progress in reducing the levels of different pollutants in the ambient air. However, notwithstanding the achieved success, the overall damage dealt by air pollution remains high, while further attempts to tackle it are losing their momentum. With no perceptible finish line, the situation could last for decades, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of Euros outlays annually, thus compromising the very foundation of air policy. The article addresses this problem from the EU perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how the caveat in Article 194(2) TFEU on Member States' right to determine the conditions for exploiting its energy resources affects the division of powers between the Union and the Member States to regulate the conditions for exploitation of their energy resources. In the background of the discussion is the question of whether the Union should be concerned with the complex and sometimes divergent rules that govern access to exploitation of energy resources in the Member States and asks whether the Union has powers under Article 194(2) TFEU to take action. The article also addresses the question of whether the caveat can be seen as a sign of increased resource nationalism - in the sense that states seek to maintain or reclaim control over the exploitation of their energy resources, or, whether the caveat simply reflects a balance already agreed upon in the Hydrocarbon Directive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU started to develop its own Arctic policy in 2008. One of the three main objectives of this policy is the promotion of sustainable use of Arctic resources. "Sustainability" was also a focus of the 2011 resolution of the European Parliament as a guiding principle in developing European policies toward the Arctic. Against this background, this article investigates the question of whether the EU meets its respective objective - sustainability - in regard to the development of Arctic hydrocarbon resources. The article contrasts the development of the EU's overall policy toward Arctic mineral resources with specific EU measures and examines the EU's capacity to influence sustainable Arctic hydrocarbon resource development. The article also elaborates on specific questions related to the EU's energy policy and the development of Arctic hydrocarbon resources in recent years as well as on the EU's dependency on oil and gas imports and respective tendencies to conclude on the aforementioned questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I address the different approaches of the EU and the WTO to the trade and environment conflict and find out in how far the present environmental policy of the EU is compatible with the conditions of the WTO's Art XX GATT. Therefore, I first establish the current level of environmental protection in the EU by analysing the standard aimed for by the EU and its realization in legislation and jurisprudence. To show how environmental protection works in practice, I analyse selected case law and show how EU courts treat trade restrictions on environmental grounds enacted by Member States. Having evaluated the current standard of the EU, I proceed to compare the result with the WTO. I briefly explain institutional environmental developments within the GATT 1947, important environmental cases before the establishment of the WTO 1994 and textual changes in the new WTO Agreement. I then evaluate how Art XX GATT is dealt with in key case law and simultaneously compare this to the results of my analysis of similar EU cases. To conclude, I give a brief outlook on pending cases and a summary of the results of my study in both the EU and the WTO ambit. I point out some important differences in legal texts and case law and finally come to give a negative answer to my initial question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource management and environmental policies form the basis for establishing relevant legislation and regulations; they ensure that government policies relating to gas flaring are being achieved efficiently and most effectively. It is the responsibility of government to set out a country's resource management and environmental policy. As part of developing a relevant policy, it is recommended that the government specify the strategy and the role flare reductions can and should play to achieve overall environmental and resource management objectives. This paper is in tune with the effectiveness of the emissions trading scheme which has considerable impact on flaring of gas on the (United Kingdom Continental Shelf) UKCS,1 the essay starts with a brief introduction, overview of onshore and offshore gas flaring in the United Kingdom, The effectiveness and impact of the emission trading scheme on the UKCS and finally the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Ombudsman's decision making with regard to European Union (EU) environmental protection. It analyzes the roles of the Ombudsman in the Union configuration as well as his environmental record. It also discusses ways in which environmental complaints have influenced the locus of the Ombudsman in the EU.

The article discusses the role of the European Union (UN) in enforcing multilateral international environmental agreements (IEAs). It notes the influence of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) on expanding of the capability of the environmental policy of the European Community. The author further highlights the European Commission's use if infringement proceedings to enforce IEAs.

The author reflects on the harmonization of indirect tax rates in the European Union. He provides an overview of the proposed directives for reduced value-added tax (VAT). He believes that putting goods and services under the reduced VAT rate should be a long-term decision, because removing them will cause problems for the sectors concerned. He suggests developing a procedure which will assess whether taxation can be used to achieve policy objectives such as environmental policy objectives.