For marry years Denmark has had a strong reputation for complying with European Communiry environmental law, and the main concern within Denmark has been whether Community Law has prevented higher standards. No cases have been brought against Denmark bifOre the European Court for failure to implement. A close examination reveals this to be a misleading picture. Simply comparing standards on a scale of 'strictness' fails to riflect the complexities of environmental law. Examination of a number of key selected areas of environmental law, including drinking water, wildlife conservation freshwater fish, waste incineration, environmental assessment, and air pollution, demonstrate that Denmark has frequently failed to implement EC law correctly, both in formal terms and as a matter of practice. Danish dijficulties can be in part explained by substantive diffirences in structure and traditional approaches between national and EC law. But the absence of eriforcement action by the European Commission suggests rather more insidious factors at play.