Where Eagles Dare: How much room for EU Member States under the environmental guarantee (Article 193 TFEU)?

The “environmental guarantee” provided in Article 193 TFEU enables EU Member States to maintain or introduce “more stringent protective measures” beyond environmental protective measures adopted under Article 192 TFEU. This lecture discusses the interpretation of the environmental guarantee by the CJEU and its potential for providing effective protection of the objectives of EU environmental policy. The analysis of case law shows that the development of EU environmental law as a coherent body of law in its own right is preserved by the CJEU. However, this implies that some constraints are put on the ability of EU Member States to act more protectively than EU environmental law, which seems to align with the intention of the drafters of the environmental guarantee, as introduced by the European Single Act.

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Speaker

Leonie Reins is Professor for Public Law and Sustainability at Erasmus School of Law. Prior to joining ESL she worked
as an Assistant Professor at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT) at Tilburg University. She
obtained her FWO-financed PhD on "the coherent regulation on energy and environment - using shale gas as a case
study" from KU Leuven, where she subsequently also worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher. In addition Leonie
worked as Legal Advisor at a Brussels-based environmental law and policy consultancy, where she was involved in
projects on environmental, energy and climate change law and policy. Leonie holds and LL.M. in International,
European and Comparative Energy and 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 on-going, 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 in 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 on our YouTube channel.