Taxes as an instrument supporting the European Union’senvironmental policy

The article analyses the budgetary significance and effectiveness of environmental taxes as a financial instrumentfor implementing the European Union’s environmental policy. For research purposes, the thesis was formulated thatenvironmental taxes and fees are an effective instrument for supporting the implementation of the European Union’senvironmental policy. The article highlights their stimulating and indirect character, and in particular draws attentionto the factors determining the effectiveness of environmental taxes as an instrument of environmental policy implementation.In the analytical part of the study, based on publicly available data from Eurostat and the OECD, ananalysis was made to determine the budgetary significance of these taxes and the structure of their revenues in theyears 2010-2021. In order to determine the effectiveness of these taxes in implementing environmental policy, theirbudgetary significance was linked to the measures of monitoring the implementation of the objectives under the„European Green Deal” in the years 2008-2021, and in some cases, due to limited data availability, this period wasnarrowed to the years 2012-2021. Based on the analysis, the formulated thesis was critically addressed.