Green groups urge revision of Fifth Action Programme

Date: 25/04/1996

By Michael Mann

LEADING environmental groups are calling on the European Parliament to force the Commission to completely redraft its review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Greenpeace believe the review, formally adopted in January, is totally lacking in political commitments and firm targets and timetables for environmental improvements. This, they argue, is particularly serious given the acceptance by both the Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) that the EU's environmental situation is deteriorating.

But Ken Collins, chairman of the Parliament's environment committee, rejects the idea of throwing the proposal back as “politically crass” and “the politics of the kindergarten”.

Collins claims that to redraft the document would take more than a year and would see it “coming back in a diluted form”.

Collins' sentiments are echoed by Danish liberal MEP Lone Dybkjær, who has been appointed rapporteur for the review of the action programme.

“I think it's all right that the grass roots are making their point, but I think we have to work with the existing proposal because it will be impossible to get an improved one,” she says. But Dybkjær welcomes the fact that lobbies and MEPs are both working to tighten the proposals, claiming that “there are many member states who want to weaken the programme”.

Despite a difference in approach, both groups agree that the Commission's review of the 1992 action programme is seriously flawed and contains few meaningful commitments to improving environmental conditions.

WWF claims to have taken its position “with reluctance”, but is incredulous that the Commission has come forward with something “so weak”.

It stresses that it supported the programme when it was first launched because it broadened the range of tools available and set precise targets to halt environmental decline and move towards the stated aim of “sustainability”. These aims, it argues, have now been weakened. Greenpeace goes even further, accusing the Commission of sacrificing the environment “to the EU's mantra of promoting growth and competitiveness”.

Both groups claim firm action is crucial given the EEA's 1995 conclusions that without accelerated measures, “pressure on the environment will continue to exceed human health standards and the often limited carrying capacity of the environment”.

Lobbyists insist that attempts to amend the Commission's ideas through parliamentary procedures are unlikely to be successful because the actions proposed are so vague that amendments would make little difference. Despite this, MEPs seem set on trying.

Collins is hopeful that work on amending the proposal will advance quickly enough to allow ministers to reach a common position under the Irish presidency, which begins in July.