Greens hit out at Wallström-Neilson ‘split’ at summit

Date: 05/09/02

By David Cronin and Martin Banks

GREEN MEPs are seeking to place the spotlight on what they perceive as a lack of teamwork between European Commission representatives at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The 45-strong Green group claims that a splintered approach between EU officials at Johannesburg meant that trade concerns were given a higher priority than environmental ones.

They allege that staff from the Commission's trade directorate-general, rather than their colleagues from DG Environment, took the lead role in negotiations on drafting key clauses in the action plan endorsed by world leaders in the South African city yesterday (4 September).

According to the Greens, the trade officials strongly opposed setting any legally binding rules for how companies operating in poor countries should behave.

Greens' leader Monica Frassoni, who was in Johannesburg, said: 'We always supported the idea that the Commission has to represent the EU in these fora [international summits] but we had the impression of a serious lack of unity and coherence in the EU delegation, which led to a diminished efficiency in the negotiating process.'

Her party has tabled a Parliamentary question asking why the leadership of the Commission's delegation was shared between development and environment chiefs, Poul Nielson and Margot Wallström.

According to Frassoni, the two showed 'considerable differences of priorities in their negotiating stance'.

'This weakened considerably the impact of the EU in the most controversial environmental issues like energy, biodiversity and climate change.'

The Commission's environment spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde-Hansen rejected the criticisms yesterday.

'We had full coordination in Johannesburg between all of our services here,' she said.

Claims that trade officials had a greater say than their colleagues in DG Environment were 'untrue', she added.

'Catherine Day [head of DG Environment] has been here from the very outset and has been at the centre of negotiations, including those on trade issues.'

A widespread feeling among NGOs that the summit ended in failure was underscored by a statement from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

He frankly acknowledged that it had not achieved everything that had been hoped, although he welcomed its success in preventing accords reached at the previous earth summit in Rio ten years ago from being diluted.

The action plan agreed yesterday is designed to improve the lot of two billion poor people and to enhance environmental protection across the globe.

One principal measures agreed is a commitment to halve the number of people deprived of access to basic sanitation by 2015. Today some 1.1 billion people are at grave risk from disease because they lack access to clean drinking water.

Yet efforts by the EU to set time-bound targets for boosting the percentage of energy generated from renewable sources proved unsuccessful, largely due to US opposition.

In response to this failure, the EU has decided to form a 'coalition of the willing' with other countries and regions in favour of a greater emphasis on renewable energy.

Margot Wallström said: 'The world summit has shown that energy, like water, is at the very core of the development agenda but for development to be sustainable that energy needs to be clean.

'Increasing the use of clean renewable energy will have multiple benefits for rich and poor countries alike, from cutting the emissions that are changing the global climate to improving the health of millions in the developing world who have to breathe the smoke of their wood-filled stoves.'

Campaign groups have generally complained that the opportunity to arrest the trend towards environmental decline presented by the summit was missed.

While the environmentalists most serious criticisms have been reserved for the US, some have savaged the EU too.

Friends of the Earth chairman Richard Navarro said: 'The earth summit should have been about protecting the environment and fighting poverty and social destruction.

'Instead it has been hijacked by free market ideology, by a backward-looking, insular and ignorant US administration and its friends in Japan, Canada, Australia and OPEC [the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries], by a timid and confused European Union, and by global corporations that

help keep reactionary politicians in limousines.'

Leaders of the biggest political groupings in the European Parliament gave a mixed response to the Johannesburg conclusions.

Hans-Gert Pöttering, head of the centre-right European People's Party, voiced disappointment over the sections on energy.

'The resolution lacks clarity and its goals are not specific enough,' the German MEP said.

Unlike the Greens, both he and Liberal chief Graham Watson praised the EU's negotiating team in South Africa. 'The summit shows that when we act together as a United States of Europe, we can exert real influence on the US and show real leadership when this is lacking from other quarters,' said Watson. 'Although we would have preferred more binding commitments to renewable energy and to cutting farm subsidies, the overall deal is worth celebrating.'

Socialist group president Enrique Barón Crespo said: 'There has been progress in some areas while I am disappointed in others. The question of renewable energy has not been addressed properly but Third World living standards will hopefully benefit from the agreement on sanitation.

'Agreements in themselves are meaningless: there must be a firm commitment to implement what has been agreed. We will be urging constant monitoring of what has been agreed.'

US Secretary of State Colin Powell was jeered by delegates as he tried to defend the US's record on environmental issues as the conference closed.

Powell criticised Robert Mugabe's land reform policies in Zimbabwe, which he said had brought the population to the brink of starvation, and attacked Zambia for rejecting US genetically modified corn 'that has been eaten safely around the world since 1995'.

The Commission's president Romano Prodi earlier held talks with Powell. Aides said the Italian sought to convince the Secretary of State that a new approach to helping the world's poorest countries, based on a mixture of trade and aid, was required.

Senior figures in the Bush administration, including Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, have expressed reservations about the idea of substantially increasing the country's development assistance budget.

Green MEPs have criticised the European Commission for not working as a team at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in August 2002.

http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/ http://www.johannesburgsummit.org/

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