Climate change rows mar ‘Auto Oil’ success

Date: 17/12/1998

By Simon Coss

WHILE much of the Union's activity in the environmental field has involved rather more talk than action over the past 12 months, 1998 has seen some notable 'green' successes for EU lawmakers.

Perhaps the biggest achievement was the agreement reached, after tough negotiations between the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, on a raft of new laws aimed at reducing air pollution from cars.

The rules, which have been grouped together under the umbrella title of the 'Auto-Oil Programme', are designed to reduce road transport emissions by 60-70% by the year 2000.

The final deal on the Auto-Oil package was hailed as a major victory for the Parliament by the MEPs who took part in the conciliation talks. The institution managed to persuade governments to agree to introduce a number of binding limits on car emissions and fuel standards by the year 2000 instead of 2005 as suggested by the European Commission in its original Auto-Oil proposals.

Another notable success - at least as far as the Union's pharmaceutical industry was concerned - was the adoption of the so-called 'life patents' directive, which will allow drug companies to apply for EU-wide patents on products which are based on living organisms.

Environmental and civil rights campaigners deplored the decision however, arguing that it was morally wrong to patent life itself, and the Dutch government has decided to launch a legal challenge to the law which is currently being examined by the European Court of Justice.

Elsewhere, considerable progress was made during 1998 on controversial plans put forward by Taxation Commissioner Mario Monti to harmonise certain duties on electricity, gas and coal.

While it is still too early to say whether a deal can be reached on the energy tax proposals, which must be agreed by all member states, most observers now predict that the issue will be settled before the end of 1999.

Introducing some sort of EU-wide tax on energy consumption is seen by the Commission as one of the few sure ways for the Union to come anywhere near fulfilling the pledges it made at last year's climate change talks in Kyoto, Japan, to reduce its emissions of harmful 'greenhouse' gases.

On climate change in general, the Union was markedly less enthusiastic this year than it was in the run-up to Kyoto.

The EU's 15 environment ministers only agreed on how to share the burden of meeting the Union's overall Kyoto target to cut emissions to 8% below 1990 levels by the year 2012 after extremely lengthy and ill-tempered negotiations. At the international level, things were even worse. When the Kyoto signatory states met to put some flesh on the bones of the deal, they returned home empty-handed.

Feature forms part of the European Voice 'Review of the Year'.