Efficient environmental legislation - on different philosophies of pollution control in Europe

The efficiency of economic instruments and command and control regulation is often contrasted. But even within more traditional regulatory approaches there is a wide choice of strategies and their comparative effectiveness needs to be analysed. In Europe in the area of pollution control three different approaches can be distinguished : technical prescriptions, emission standards and quality standards. If one adopts the premise that management by objectives is generally more efficient that detailed prescription, judgments about the comparative efficiency of these approaches can be made. Although the European IPPC Directive uses language referring to technical standards, it does not follow that it is based on technical prescriptions. Inefficient technical prescriptions may exist at national level but they are not due to European environmental law. At first glance the type of quality orientated approach that has characterised British pollution control should be more efficient than the more emission-orientated German approach. But this is only likely to be true if the quality approach takes a sufficiently broad perspective of the environment, and it is questionable whether British policies do this.