Abstract

The European Union (EU) defines itself as an environmental leader and was quick to take on board ambitious plans to integrate environmental policy into its broad range of policy-making. This chapter first introduces the history of EU environmental policy-making and the concept of environmental policy integration that it enthusiastically adopted. It then asks how effective EU policy has been at implementing this concept by analysing overlooked areas for environmental policy-making: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and information and communication technologies (ICT). Much of the reform of the CAP was based on repackaging some of its funding as ‘sustainability’ spending; however, this hides continuing paradoxes. In turn, ICT were notably heralded as a solution to environmental problems and as a feasible way towards the dematerialization of growth; however, they have come with problems of their own.