著者

阿部 望

出版者

東海大学

雑誌

東海大学紀要. 教養学部 (ISSN:03892018)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.33, pp.23-58, 2003-03-30

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The EU Summit held in June 2001, which is called the Gothenburg European Council, adopted the Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) for the European Union. This Strategy, which is considered as a core factor of the EU policy as a whole, strongly requests the policy integration, which means that each sector policy should include the environmental, social and economic considerations into its contents. In this sense, the SDS provides a very comprehensive policy and shows a future direction of the EU policy making. Obviously the SDS is not an idea which was suddenly hit on by European politicians but has been gradually prepared and implemented in the EU. This paper examines the historical development of the SDS in the EU and clarifies what the SDS truly implies. Furthermore, it tries to assess how much the SDS and policy integration have been realised as was initially expected since the beginning of 1990. The findings and conclusions of this paper are as follows: First, the development of the SDS in the EU has not been straight nor linear but proceeded along a long and winding road. Nevertheless the EU has been and seems very confident in setting the SDS at a core part of its policy making. Secondly, the SDS does not seem well structured to be consistently implemented through all relevant EU formations, sector Directorates-General in particular. Perhaps the SDS should be structured to conform to the Structural Indicators in the EU. Finally, it is not so clear whether the SDS has well functioned so far as was expected. It may be safe to conclude that the assessment of the implementation of the SDS is modest at the most judging from various points of view. Nevertheless it is so important to keep the SDS at a core part of the EU policy making since it will provide a consistent system of policy measures in the EU.