Crippling environmental policies?

Date: 27/10/05

"The last 12 months have seen the increasing acceptance of the outdated view that environmental protection limits growth and costs jobs." Speaking to Brussels-based think tank the European Policy Centre this month, Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas was on fighting form.

After seeing delays to the publication of key green policies under European Commission President José Manuel Barroso's drive for better regulation and facing accusations of watering down when the proposals finally emerged, the Greek commissioner set out to argue that environmental protection has a major role to play in making Europe more competitive.

Environmental standards, he said, encourage innovation and clean production boosts efficiency. Green policies also save industry the cost of dealing with pollution and can therefore benefit the economy.

The Commission's environment department, he said, welcomed the idea of better regulation and was working to develop a new market-based approach to protecting the environment. But he also sounded a warning: "'better regulation' must on no account be used as code for 'weaker legislation and for de-regulation'." Instead, he said, politicians should take the environmental and social benefit into account, rather than just "counting up the economic costs".

Dimas's defensiveness was the result of several months in which the official Commission emphasis has been on competitiveness and jobs. Since Barroso announced in February that he would "drop everything" and devote his attention to Europe's "sick" economy, green politicians and lobbyists have been visibly afraid their own favourite child was being neglected.

But green alarm bells only really began to sound in July, when at the last minute Barroso postponed the publication of a document covering Commission thinking on aviation and the environment. One week later the Commission pulled back from tabling proposals for new EU vehicle emission standards. Instead, it launched a large-scale public debate on draft standards - taking several of those involved by surprise, since the draft had already undergone a lengthy consultation process.

Seven minor environment proposals were then withdrawn in September by Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen, as another step in the better regulation programme which saw a total of 68 proposals given the chop. Verheugen also announced that cost estimates would have to be produced for proposals on waste shipments and fluorinated gases (one type of greenhouse gas), even though governments and MEPs were already approaching a final deal on the directives. A second round of pruning on 24 October saw the waste oils directive fall victim to the better regulation knife.

But the focus of the better regulation debate, for the environment directorate, has been the fate of seven long awaited 'thematic strategies'. Originally expected in 2004, the strategies on areas of environmental concern were given 2005 publication dates earlier this year.

An emergency meeting called by Barroso in July, however, led to fears the strategies would never see the light of day. Officials close to the Greek commissioner at the time said he was furious to see the first major project of his term in office put in jeopardy. Several sources even expressed fears that Barroso would like to scrap environmental proposals altogether for a while, with one saying: "He just doesn't think the environment is sexy."

Since then, Dimas has published a document stressing the links between thematic strategies and better regulation. In it, the commissioner points out that at least three of the strategies - on air, waste and pesticides - were originally seen as a way of simplifying EU law by bringing together several pieces of legislation. All seven, he said, had undergone impact assessments and consultation periods, to make sure they would be workable.

Environment ministers debating the document on 17 October were moved to state that better regulation should not be used as a way of delaying or blocking legislation and cautioned that impact assessments are "in no way a substitute for political decision".

Despite the fears of observers and defensiveness of the environment directorate, the aviation communication emerged with only a few weeks' delay, two thematic strategies are now out and the other five should be published by early 2006 at the latest.

This has not stopped accusations that the published documents do not go far enough and concede too much to traditional industry interests. At this early stage, however, few are willing to decide whether this is just the standard environmentalist's lament, that doing something is better than nothing but far from enough, or whether EU green policy really has been crippled by a better regulation blow.

Article takes a look at the tensions arising within the European Commission when proposed environmental legislation was threatened of falling victim to the drive for better regulation.