Environmental Implementation Review

摘要

The aim of this short article is to provide a brief overview and reflections on the European Union’s relatively recent introduction of a biennial Environmental Implementation Review (EIR) cycle as part of its activities in monitoring EU Member States’ (MS) implementation of Union environmental law and pol-icy. The EIR reflects an increased level of interest on the part of the Union in seeking to identify ways in which MS may improve upon their track records in implementing EU environmental legislative require-ments at national level. Notably, it envisages a more intense form of engagement and dialogue on the part of the European Commission with MS authorities on identifying strengths and weaknesses in terms of individual MS performance as well as identifying com-mon challenges at national level. The article assesses what key outcomes may have emerged thus far with the two EIR cycles that have been completed and how the EIR relates to the other principal supranational supervisory tool used by the EU for the purpose over-seeing compliance with the EU environmental acquis, namely the use of law enforcement action via infrin-gement proceedings. Ultimately, the article posits the view that the tools of EIR and law enforcement may be best seen to be in a complementary and mutually supportive relationship, each needing the other to be able to make a sufficient impression and impact on MS in terms of inducing them to address the subject of implementation with the degree of importance and urgency it deserves.