title: European Union strategies for the protection of the environment and sustainable development.
abstract: Currently there are three main parallel processes aiming either to improve the environment or to achieve sustainable development within the European Union (EU): the 6th Environmental Action Programme (6th EAP), the Cardiff Process and the Strategy for Sustainable Development (SDS). The 6th EAP provides key environmental objectives and the framework to set other environmental strategies. The Cardiff Process plays a fundamental role in the progression of environmental integration, as an essential tool to implement the EAP and to achieve sustainable development. Sustainable development is a major political mandate for the EU and the SDS aims to provide long-term objectives and measures to promote and implement it. The EU Chemicals policy is an example of a European policy extracting and using some new approaches and principles characterising the political processes described above. The aim of this paper is to analyse these political processes, their reciprocal interactions, highlight their innovative approaches, as well as providing concrete example of sectoral policy implementing them.
authors.affiliation: Italian Ministry for the Environment, Department for Global Environment, International and Regional Conventions, Via C. Colombo 44, 00147 Rome, Italy. n_martini@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Martini
authors.forename: Giuliana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gasparrini
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods*; D004777:Environment; D005062:European Union; D011640:Public Policy