Environmental ‘reprieve’ on cards

Date: 11/11/1999

By Simon Taylor

EU GOVERNMENTS are likely to give the applicants long grace periods to bring their environmental standards up to west European levels.

There is a widespread will to show flexibility towards the candidate countries on this issue because of the massive investment which will be needed for them to meet all the Union's environmental criteria.

This has not, however, stopped Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström from expressing concern that the applicants are not taking the issue seriously enough and Finnish Environment Minister Satu Hassi from insisting that the applicants must implement all the EU's environmental legislation before joining the Union.

The European Commission's annual report on progress in the candidates' towards membership published last month also condemned the lack of progress, stating that “none of the countries has made significant headway in applying environmental laws”.

Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus have all asked for delays of up to ten years before they have to comply with some of the Union's rules on water, air quality and a range of other criteria.

The most difficult challenge for the applicants is meeting the requirements on water treatment, because of the enormous investment needed in purification plants. Estonia and Slovenia claim it will take them a decade after joining the EU to comply with the quality rules, with Hungary and Poland expected to face similar problems.

But despite the Union's general approach that transition periods should be as short as possible, experts say EU governments might agree to longer delays in the more difficult areas when negotiations on the dossier get under way at the end of this year.

“Ten years is not out of proportion,” said one, referring to the fact that existing member states had themselves been given 15 years to meet the requirements on water standards.

However, Union negotiators will stress that concessions should not give applicant countries any commercial advantage, insisting that candidates must force their industries to use state-of-the-art pollution-control technology so that manufacturers do not benefit from lower production costs than their rivals within the Union's existing borders.

The applicants also face problems meeting other environmental requirements, including EU rules on fuel standards designed to cut pollution and the recycling targets laid down in rules on packaging waste. Union laws on the protection of wild birds are also causing problems, with Estonia, for example, asking for permission to continue hunting wild species like bears, lynxes, beavers and wolves despite an EU ban on the practice.

But the biggest obstacle to enlargement is likely to be the issue of nuclear safety, amid widespread concern that the applicants are not doing enough to speed up the closure of potentially dangerous power plants.