| Author (Person) | Carstens, Karen |
|---|---|
| Series Title | European Voice |
| Series Details | Vol.9, No.27, 17.7.03, p4 |
| Publication Date | 17/07/2003 |
| Content Type | News |
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Date:17/07/03 By Karen Carstens MARGOT Wallström has come out tops but could do better, while Loyola de Palacio should step down for the outgoing Prodi Commission to salvage its environmental image, green groups will warn today (17 July) in an annual survey ranking commissioners' green performances. The EU's environment chief and the transport and energy supremo come top and bottom of the report, seen by European Voice. Conducted by the Green-8 group, which includes Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, it doles out "smileys" and "frownies" for 13 key policy areas. Wallström received more smileys than anyone else, on climate, chemicals and sustainable development; but she also received just as many frownies, on environmental liability, waste and transport. The runner-up was Commission President Romano Prodi, who got two smileys: for spearheading the EU's "global leadership role" in combating climate change and for his visionary approach to hydrogen as a clean-energy provider. Erkki Liikanen, enterprise, and Philippe Busquin, research, both fared poorly with no smileys and two frownies each, but no one did as badly as de Palacio, who got a frownie on energy and was branded with a skull-and-crossbones pirate flag on transport. "The problem with de Palacio is that she is sailing under her own flag," said Greenpeace EU policy advisor Jörgo Iwasaki-Riss. The review's authors lambast de Palacio's active promotion of nuclear power and her support for "unsustainable" transport policies. "We think de Palacio should go now," Iwasaki-Riss said. "This may not improve the [Commission's] overall record, but it would remove a major liability." The report gives the Commission an overall thumbs down, compared to an overall thumbs up last year, when agriculture chief Franz Fischler emerged - together with Wallström - as the "greenest" commissioner. Fischler still got a smiley for sticking to his guns on agricultural reform, but he got a frownie for "a lax attitude" on regulating the "co-existence" of genetically modified and non-GM crops. Iwasaki-Riss said that the "only issue the Commission has been consistently good at is climate change". He said there are three areas where it can still redeem itself during its final year: chemicals, GMOs and environmental liability. But "overall, this Commission is heading for a bad environmental record", he cautioned. A group of eight environmental NGOs have published their annual review of the European Commission's environmental performance, calling upon them to do more for the environment in their remaining time in office. |
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| Subject Categories | Environment |
