Colloquium: How Member States use flexibility in EU directives

Abstract

The impact of European directives on Member States involves a complex interplay of domestic and European factors and is not a simple, top-down process. Increasingly, the Member States apply ex-ante impact assessments to explore the flexibility in EU directives. An important determinant of flexibility, although one that is difficult to assess on this basis, is the domestic legal interpretation of EU legislation; this differs greatly between the national courts in the Member States. Few comparative country studies have been done on the cost effectiveness of domestic implementation of flexible EU directives. The need for such studies could increase due to the observed trend of increasingly flexible EU environmental policy and the call for cost-effective domestic environmental policies.

These were the conclusions from the 2nd Colloquium on EU environmental policy that took place on 8 December 2005 as a joint effort of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP) and the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group of Wageningen University.