Principles of EU law in the field of environmental protection

This article outlines the general environmental principles of European Union law as applied by the Court of Justice of the Europan Union, particularly the principles of prevention and precaution, the polluter-pays principle and the principle that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source. It does not attempt to retrace the origins of these principles in the Treaty and how they were developed, but focuses on their content and meaning which is independent and to a certain extent different from the national environmental pranciples. This approach helps to understand their potential and limits as a means to protect the environment. The article concludes that given the continuing unification of the EU environmental law and the duty for consistent interpretation, the environmental principles of European union are likely to achieve high importance and can no longer be perceived merely as an academic chimera.