Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV) is a Directorate-General of the European Commission, responsible for the Environmental policy of the European Union. In 2010 "relevant [climate change] activities in DG Environment" were moved to the new DG Climate Action (DG CLIMA).[1] At the same time the DG Energy (ENER) was also established. The 2022 commissioner was Virginijus Sinkevičius.
The DG's main role is to initiate and define new environmental legislationand to ensure that measures, which have been agreed, are actually put into practice in the member states of the European Union. The overall mission statement for 2005 is: "Protecting, preserving and improving the environment for present and future generations, and promoting sustainable development". The mission statement is divided into the following sub-statements:[2]
The DG Environment is based in Brussels and organised into an Office of the Director-General, Deputy Director-General and 6 directorates:
EU environmental policy started as a collection of disparate laws which had no specific Treaty basis.[3] There was no department dedicated to environmental issues for the first 15 years of the European Commission's existence. In 1973 the Environmental Unit was created within DG Industry and in 1981 the Environment Directorate-General DG was established.[4] However, it remained a relatively weak DG in the Commissioner for several years due to lack of institutional experience and human resources;[5] 5 officials in 1973 had grown to 60 officials in the 1980s.[4]
In its early years, DG Environment hired specialists with technical knowledge who had a different culture to the other Commission's officials. This ‘gave [it] a reputation for being dominated by […] “ecological freaks”'.[6] Over time DG Environment matured and settled into the Commission's ways of working. In particular by taking politics more into consideration when formulating legislation so that it could be adopted and better implemented.[7]
The Fifth Environmental Action Programme[8] which came into force on 1 January 1993 marked a change in DG Environment's approach to policy-making. It attempted to present the DG and its policies in a more contemporary and constructive light. The programme demonstrated that legislation was no longer to be made solely behind closed doors, but together with all social and economic partners.[9]
In November 2016 the EC harmonised the names of all DGs to make them more consistent and dropped "the" from the name, changing from "Directorate-General for the Environment" to "Directorate-General for Environment".
The Directorate-General for Environment has a staff of about 650 civil servants.
Past commissioners: