The European Parliament and the origins of environmental policy - summary

Today's European Parliament is an influential advocate and player in European Union environmental policy. Even before the 1979 direct elections, its Members took a keen interest in emerging new policy issues – such as the environment. When a dramatic fish kill occurred in the River Rhine, western Europe's major cross-border river and worst 'sewer', Members of the European Parliament used the attention in the European public sphere to argue and demand that the European Community should have an environmental policy to address cross-border issues like water and air pollution. This briefing explores how the political groups, committees and individual Members contributed to the establishment of a European Community environmental policy in the 'long 1970s'. At the time, the Parliament placed this novel policy issue on the agenda of a European Community traditionally devoted, first and foremost, to economic integration and growth. By carefully emphasising market-related implications of pollution while also responding to the public outcry against bird hunting in southern Europe, the Parliament co-shaped the direction and content of the emerging policy field. In addition, the briefing explores the strategies and instruments that both individual Members and responsible committees used to influence agenda-setting and policy-making: through entrepreneurial leadership, institutional strategies, cooperating with other actors and working with the media. Clearly, the Parliament's initiatives and demands were central to establishing and defining environmental policy, which is, today, one of the European Union's flagship policies. This briefing is a summary of a study drafted at the request of the European Parliamentary Research Service, published in March 2024.