The EU Commission has the responsibility of making new legislative proposals. These proposals are then adopted by the Council and the parliament, and implemented in the Member States by the national authorities. The Commission has the responsibility of overseeing that Member States act in accordance with EU law.

The role of the EEA is to supply all parties concerned with relevant environmental information.

The European Commission is divided into 36 Directorate Generals (DGs). DG Environment is the branch of the Commission responsible for European environmental policy and legislation. The homepage of the DG Environment is located at:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/

The EUR-Lex Portal offers a common point of departure for online consultation of all sectors of EU law. It provides an introduction to EU legislation and access to a range of databases:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/index.htm

The “Summaries of EU legislation” website presents the main aspects of EU legislation in a concise, easy-to-read and unbiased way. You can find the section on environmental legislation at:
http://europa.eu/[…]/index_en.htm

To follow developments of pending legislation, you can access the Legislative Observatory at:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/index.jsp

Since the individual countries are responsible for implementing EU policies, it might be also useful to contact the responsible national authorities to get practical examples on how EU legislation is implemented into national law. Relevant contact links to European national authorities can be obtained at:
http://www.asser.nl/Default.aspx?site_id=7&level1=12222