Plan to turn EU policies green

Date: 21/05/1998

By Simon Coss

ENVIRONMENT Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard will next week set out her plans to ensure that the EU takes 'green' issues into consideration in all areas of policy-making.

Bjerregaard was asked to produce the report by Union leaders during their meeting in Luxembourg last December. It will be formally presented to them at the Cardiff summit next month.

The document is also an attempt to prepare Union governments for the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, which contains a specific article on 'integration'.

To date, efforts to green the Union's law-making procedures have often been full of good intentions, but have tended to falter whenever the issue of how to pay for environmentally friendly measures was raised.

In practice, finance ministers have overruled their more eco-minded colleagues in Council of Ministers' deliberations. For example, plans put forward by Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti to introduce a set of harmonised levies on gas, coal and electricity are currently blocked, with governments unable to agree on the proposal.

Elsewhere, the planned reforms of the Union's multi-billion-ecu Common Agricultural Policy set out in the Commission's Agenda 2000 report have been heavily criticised for the detrimental effect they would have on the environment.

Within the Commission itself, the powerful Directorates-General for industry (DGIII) and trade (DGI) have often locked horns with Bjerregaard's environment department (DGXI) when legislative proposals were being drafted.

Commission insiders insist, however, that this latest initiative will not go the way of previous well-meaning but ultimately ineffective efforts.

“The European Council asked the Commission to draw up this strategy and we have to assume that when they ask us to do certain work they mean business,” said Bjerregaard's spokesman Peter Jørgensen.

The new report will ask EU leaders to declare their commitment to the principle of integration. This means they would pledge to take the environmental impact into consideration when framing all laws, rather than simply paying lip-service to the principle when drawing up specific green legislation.

“The idea is to say that a lot of the genuine environmental legislation is in place so now we need to look at environmental policy in other areas,” explained Jørgensen.

At the Cardiff summit, EU leaders will also be called upon to renew their commitment to meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions agreed at last December's climate change conference in Kyoto, Japan.

In addition, they will be asked to make specific commitments to ensuring environmental issues are given top priority during enlargement negotiations with the countries of central and eastern Europe.

The Commission was today (20 May) due to call for detailed plans from applicant countries showing how and when they plan to bring their air, water and waste disposal facilities up to EU standards.