Solbes urges member states to think green on economic plans

Date: 07/09/00

By Renée Cordes

THE European Commission will next week urge Union governments to take greater account of environmental concerns when formulating economic policy.

Economics Commissioner Pedro Solbes will also call on member states to support the introduction of energy taxes and other market-based incentives to curb pollution.

His report, which is due to be approved by the full Commission next Wednesday (13 September), suggests several ways of integrating environmental considerations into economic policy. The initiative is the latest in a series of moves designed to 'green' all policy areas and will feed into a broader Commission report on sustainable development due to be adopted next year.

Under Solbes' proposals, member states would be required to incorporate environmental concerns into their economic guidelines as early as next year. These measures, set by the Union's finance ministers collectively, relate to general EU-wide economic policy and include recommendations for individual countries.

Commission officials say countries' progress in opening up their electricity and gas markets to competition in accordance with Union legislation could in future be evaluated in terms of the environmental impact of such measures.

Experts disagree over whether lower electricity prices result in a higher energy use and hence greater pollution or liberalised markets lead to greater energy efficiency. "These are the sorts of questions we should be asking when assessing countries' economic progress," said a Commission official.

The EU executive will also argue strongly in favour of creating markets for environmental goods and services - such as schemes to allow countries to meet their pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by buying and selling the right to pollute as part of a broader plan to combat climate change - and repeat the arguments in favour of EU-wide energy taxes.

Although the report will insist that there is a strong case to be made for drawing up indicators to measure environmental progress, it will shy away from proposing a sector-specific list, suggesting that this should instead be done by the industries concerned.

Governments have been drawing up strategies since the Cardiff EU summit of June 1998 to integrate environmental concerns into policy areas. Proposals for several sectors such as transport, energy and agriculture have already been agreed by Union leaders and more general reports designed to achieve the same goal have been rubber-stamped by key ministers.

Some of these reports contain very specific strategies for tackling and preventing environmental damage in their sectors. Transport ministers, have, for example, agreed to a number of tough measures aimed at cutting pollution from soaring traffic volumes. However, most of the reports adopted so far are general in nature, prompting calls for policy-makers to put greater emphasis on addressing the causes of problems rather than focusing on long-term solutions.

The European Commission will urge Union governments to take greater account of environmental concerns when formulating economic policy, in a report due to be approved on 13.9.00.