The paper aims to analyze the major necessity to find ways to achieve that development that ensures a stable balance between economic, social and environmental considerations, so that European Union must have an important place in the transition to a healthy environment in a sustainable Europe, in a sustainable world. As a starting point, we have the reality that the European Union is facing persistent environmental challenges and an unprecedented urgency in terms of biodiversity, resource use, climate change and environmental risks to health and well-being, requiring a robust understanding and effective interventions. Measures must be established to reverse current trends, urgent systemic solutions must be found. The analysis carried out demonstrates that the achievement of the objectives of sustainable development cannot be achieved without effective environmental protection policies, which also depend on the existence of a correct taxation in the environmental field. The recent global economic crisis, recording continuous and irreversible damage to the environment, with negative effects, including on human subjects, have demonstrated the capacity and the reduced limits of reaction of the economic system to the instability of the environment. Analyse performed proves, that the solutions we offer to the current must be different from those supported until now, requiring a rethinking of the attention given to them.