Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission, responsible for the Environmental policy of the European Union. In 2010 "relevant [climate change] activities in DG Environment" were moved to the new DG Climate Action (DG CLIMA). [1] At the same time the DG Energy (ENER) was also established. The 2022 commissioner was Virginijus Sinkevičius.
The DG's main role is to initiate and define new environmental legislation and to ensure that measures, which have been agreed, are actually put into practice in the member states of the European Union. The overall mission statement for 2005 is: "Protecting, preserving and improving the environment for present and future generations, and promoting sustainable development". The mission statement is divided into the following sub-statements: [2]
The DG Environment is based in Brussels and organised into an Office of the Director-General, Deputy Director-General and 6 directorates:
EU environmental policy started as a collection of disparate laws which had no specific Treaty basis. [3] There was no department dedicated to environmental issues for the first 15 years of the European Commission's existence. In 1973 the Environmental Unit was created within DG Industry and in 1981 the Environment Directorate-General DG was established. [4] However, it remained a relatively weak DG in the Commissioner for several years due to lack of institutional experience and human resources; [5] 5 officials in 1973 had grown to 60 officials in the 1980s. [4]
In its early years, DG Environment hired specialists with technical knowledge who had a different culture to the other Commission's officials. This ‘gave [it] a reputation for being dominated by […] “ecological freaks”'. [6] Over time DG Environment matured and settled into the Commission's ways of working. In particular by taking politics more into consideration when formulating legislation so that it could be adopted and better implemented. [7]
The Fifth Environmental Action Programme [8] which came into force on 1 January 1993 marked a change in DG Environment's approach to policy-making. It attempted to present the DG and its policies in a more contemporary and constructive light. The programme demonstrated that legislation was no longer to be made solely behind closed doors, but together with all social and economic partners. [9]
In November 2016 the EC harmonised the names of all DGs to make them more consistent and dropped "the" from the name, changing from "Directorate-General for the Environment" to "Directorate-General for Environment".
The Directorate-General for Environment has a staff of about 650 civil servants.
Past commissioners:
Janez Potočnik is a Slovenian politician who served as European Commissioner for Environment from 2009 until 2014. He was formerly Slovenia's Minister for European Affairs. In November 2014, he became co-chair of the International Resource Panel (IRP), a forum of scientists and experts working on natural resources management.
Waste hierarchy is a tool used in the evaluation of processes that protect the environment alongside resource and energy consumption from most favourable to least favourable actions. The hierarchy establishes preferred program priorities based on sustainability. To be sustainable, waste management cannot be solved only with technical end-of-pipe solutions and an integrated approach is necessary.
The geography of the European Union describes the geographic features of the European Union (EU), a multinational polity that occupies a large portion of Europe and covers 4,422,773 km2 (1,707,642 sq mi). Its European territory extends northeast to Finland, northwest to Ireland, southeast to Cyprus and southwest to the Spanish exclaves on the Mediterranean shores of North Africa. Additionally, the EU includes numerous islands around the world, and French Guiana in South America.
The Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology is a Directorate-General of the European Commission and is responsible for EU investment in research, innovation and development of critical digital technologies.
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The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) is a committee of the European Parliament. It has 81 full members and is currently chaired by Pascal Canfin.
Environmental policy is the commitment of an organization or government to the laws, regulations, and other policy mechanisms concerning environmental issues. These issues generally include air and water pollution, waste management, ecosystem management, maintenance of biodiversity, the management of natural resources, wildlife and endangered species. For example, concerning environmental policy, the implementation of an eco-energy-oriented policy at a global level to address the issues of global warming and climate changes could be addressed. Policies concerning energy or regulation of toxic substances including pesticides and many types of industrial waste are part of the topic of environmental policy. This policy can be deliberately taken to influence human activities and thereby prevent undesirable effects on the biophysical environment and natural resources, as well as to make sure that changes in the environment do not have unacceptable effects on humans.
The Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union is a Directorate-General (DG) of the European Commission. It is one of the thirty three DG's that are created and named to reflect their functions.
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The Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries is a member of the European Commission. The current Commissioner is Virginijus Sinkevičius, who also serves as EU Commissioner for the Environment.
The Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, until 2014 known as the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers, is a directorate-general of the European Commission. The DG is responsible for the monitoring and implementation of European Union policies and laws on health and food safety. It is headed by European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides and Director-General Sandra Gallina.
The LIFE programme is the European Union's funding instrument for the environment and climate action. The general objective of LIFE is to contribute to the implementation, updating and development of EU environmental and climate policy and legislation by co-financing projects with European added value. LIFE began in 1992 and to date there have been five phases of the programme. During this period, LIFE has co-financed some 4600 projects across the EU, with a total contribution of approximately 6.5 billion Euros to the protection of the environment and of climate. For the next phase of the programme (2021–2027) the European Commission proposed to raise the budget to 5.45 billion Euro.
The Directorate-General for Energy, or ENER, is a Directorate-General of the European Commission, created on 17 February 2010 when it was separated from the Transport DG, with which it had been combined since 2000.
The EPA Network is the European Network of the Heads of Environment Protection Agencies.
Environmental issues in the European Union include the environmental issues identified by the European Union as well as its constituent states. The European Union has several federal bodies which create policy and practice across the constituent states.
The Directorate-General for Climate Action, est. 2010, is a Directorate-General of the European Commission responsible for EU's international negotiations on climate, development and implementation of the EU Emissions Trading System and production of the "European Green Deal" transformation plan. As of 2023 it is headed by Kurt Vandenberghe. The 2022 Commissioner was Frans Timmermans.
The European Union (EU) Environmental Policy was initiated in 1973 with the "Environmental Action Programme" at which point the Environmental Unit was formed. The policy has thereafter evolved "to cover a vast landscape of different topics enacted over many decades" (Reuters) and in 2015 the Institute for European Environmental Policy estimated that "the body of EU environmental law" amounted to 500+ directives, regulations and decisions.
"Over the past decades the European Union has put in place a broad range of environmental legislation. As a result, air, water and soil pollution has significantly been reduced. Chemicals legislation has been modernised and the use of many toxic or hazardous substances has been restricted. Today, EU citizens enjoy some of the best water quality in the world"
Virginijus Sinkevičius is a Lithuanian politician who has been serving as European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries in the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen since 2019. He previously was a Member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and Minister of the Economy and Innovation of the Republic of Lithuania.
The Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space is a department of the European Commission.
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