Strengthening EU Environmental Law: Legal Perspectives on Greening Europe
Spending 658 billion euro on climate action: Assessing the impact, effectiveness, and institutional implications of EU climate funding.
For the period 2021-2027, the EU wants to spend 30% of its budget on ‘climate action’ amounting to 658 billion euro. This presentation addresses three questions about this target and EU climate funding.
- First, how is the money spent: through which programs, and under which conditions? Most of this funding does not have climate change mitigation as its main objective, but is primarily directed at other EU policy areas, such as agriculture and cohesion. It is nonetheless classified as climate action, because the policies concerned can in some cases contribute to mitigating climate change.
- Secondly, how does the funding align with other EU environmental laws and policies? The EU has adopted many rules over the last few years to address climate change, the biodiversity crisis and pollution. Does this climate funding complement, reinforce, or potentially undermine these rules? A new principle of EU environmental law is related to funding: projects should “do no significant harm”, but the question is whether this principle is operationalized effectively.
- Lastly, the question is raised how this funding fits in the broader framework of European integration. Does the funding for climate change mitigation have an impact on how the EU as a whole is governed?
Speaker
Dr. Marijn van der Sluis
He is an Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law at Maastricht University since January 2020. His research concerns the role of law in economic affairs, especially in European integration. Other topics of interest are privacy, transparency, green constitutional law and judicial appointment.
Environmental Law Lecture Series
This lecture is part of the Environmental Law Lecture Series: Strengthening EU Environmental Law, Legal Perspectives on Greening Europe series. This series provides a set of important insights from environmental law scholars on how EU environmental law helps to achieve the aim of a high level of environmental protection in the European Union and across the world.
With the European Green Deal from 11 December 2019 the European Commission tabled an ambitious legislative program, based on fundamental aims such as zero pollution, do no harm, and climate neutrality. Many legal developments took place and are still ongoing, both at the European and national regulatory levels as in the courtroom, including the national courts. While efforts to protect the environment are direly needed, including effective implementation and enforcement, the regulatory acquis, and the flow of case law, has become utterly complex which poses challenges for acquiring a good understanding and application.
This freely accessible online (and hybrid) lecture series provides students and scholars with core insights into the state of affairs and further improvement of EU environmental law. The lecture series will run in 2023 and 2024. All lectures will be recorded and will be made accessible through our YouTube channel.
This GreenDeal-Net lecture series is hosted by MCEL, METRO and organised in cooperation with GLaw-Net and GreenDeal-NET. Maastricht University students will be eligible for certificates of attendance (see more information under the registration link).