In a seminal paper, Ecologic argues for using the 'Open Method of Co-ordination' (OMC) in EU environmental policy. OMC is currently successfully employed to drive and align economic and social policies. Ecologic's paper dispels concerns and criticism of OMC and describes how OMC can be combined with more traditional methods used in the European Community.

The paper titled "The EU Open Method of Co-ordination: Risks & Chances for Environmental Policy" was designed as a policy paper for the conference 'Sustainable Development in an Enlarged Union – Linking National Strategies & Strengthening European Coherence' 27-29 April 2003 in Vienna organised by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management.

The Open Method of Co-ordination is based on benchmarking and spreading best practice.  It is intended to help Member States converge towards common objectives in areas such as employment, economic reform and social cohesion.  Lately, it has increasingly been discussed to extend this method to environmental policy. Against this background, the paper highlights the roots of the Open Method of Co-ordination and shows that OMC is already used in various environmental policy contexts, or rather regimes: The internal market regime, the environment policy regime and the sustainability policy regime.

As experience has shown, the method proofs to have positive implications for environmental policy: It might complement the Community Method, can act as a forerunner for Community law, contributes to stabilising networks, it helps to achieve a level playing field with social and economic policies and contributes to driving forward co-operation in areas of environmental policy where Member States are reluctant to make use of the Community Method. Potential cases for applying OMC include external environmental policy, renewable energies and policy on environmental technologies.

The paper concludes with calling for two and one half OMCs: One for the environment, which needs to attain a level playing field with economic and social policies, a second one for Environmental Policy Integration and an optional third one for sustainability policy and sustainable development strategies.

The paper "The EU Open Method of Co-ordination: Risks & Chances for Environmental Policy" has been made available for download.