Sustainable development
When the EEC was established, environmental protection, let alone the broader concept of sustainable development, was not perceived as an important policy issue. The concept of sustainable development contains environmental, social and economic dimensions; finding practical ways to balance the three is widely regarded as a key challenge. The EU policies in the field of sustainable development evolved as a result of the interaction between internal political drivers and the EU's response to a number of key UN conferences. One such influential conference was the first UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. This not only addressed the environmental concerns of the industrialised countries in the North, but also, the development concerns of countries in the South. Sustainable development was only mentioned in European Council Conclusions for the first time in 1988. Wavering political support for ‘sustained growth’ and/or ‘sustainable development’ continued for some years and reveals just how ambivalent attitudes were to the concept. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam eventually ensured the formal recognition of sustainable development as a legal objective under the Treaties. Subsequently, the EU's commitment to sustainable development was formalised as one of the EU's fundamental goals.