The European Green Deal from an environmental protection perspective: the missing role of the environmental integration principle

The European Green Deal has been conceived as the reference plan to transform the European economy towards a sustainable future. The present contribution argues that the Green Deal, despite embracing the overall objective of promoting a green transition in the European Union, lacks a coherent approach and fails to integrate its several goals and objectives within a single and comprehensive policy and legal framework. This seems to emerge clearly if the Green Deal is assessed from an environmental protection perspective. On such a basis, the present contribution explores the possible role that the environmental integration principle, as enshrined in article 11 TFUE, may play in this context and, despite observing the negative present state of the environmental integration principle, it concludes with a proposal to give a renewed meaningful role to the principle in the future implementation of the Green Deal.