Moving in the right direction

Date: 14/12/1995

By Michael Mann

THE European Commission slowly appears to be taking environmental concerns seriously in its policy decisions, but this is not being reflected in the member states.

Despite improvements, says Tony Long, of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), there is still a dire need for genuine sanctions against those who flaunt environmental legislation, and for a period of consolidation to ensure the proper implementation of measures already agreed.

“There are definitely more progressive forces here in Brussels now, but not much has changed in the national capitals,” he says.

Long, director of the WWF's European Policy Office, describes the recent Commission White Papers on agriculture and the structural funds as a sign that things in the Commission are moving in the right direction.

“There is a recognition that the environment must be a central feature of policy, as it's the resource base which allows these policies to have any chance of success,” he said.

“Two or three years ago, we would never have got that admission out of DGXVI (responsible for regional policy). Ten years ago, there was an absolutely hostile attitude in DGVI (agriculture) to the environment.”

Ever the pragmatist, Long appears to believe that it does not matter why the Commission takes environmental concerns into account, so long as it does. “We may be dragging the Commission to the trough kicking, but that really doesn't matter,” he says.

Long singles out Regional Affairs Commissioner Monika Wulf-Mathies as deserving special praise as someone who has “clearly put her stamp on the future direction of spatial planning policy”.

But he has his doubts about whether the current recipients of heavy structural fund aid would continue to benefit so heavily in an enlarged EU.

“The question is whether the 141 billion ecu for the current period is going to increase after the year 2000, or just be spread more thinly. My guess is the latter,” says Long.

Although the commitment to enlargement has prompted a positive debate on agricultural and structural policies, Long questions the EU's apparent rush.

“Neil Kinnock may have spoken the unspeakable when he said that we might be going on too fast a track with this enlargement. The implications for all policies are just so enormous,” he warned.

Long is also doubtful that the major infrastructure projects funded under the Cohesion Funds are genuinely helping the development of those countries. A basic flaw in the structural funds, he believes, is that their allocation often depends on the “crude and imperfect measure” of Gross Domestic Product.

While welcoming the joint initiative from both Wulf-Mathies and Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard on building environmental concerns into cohesion policies, Long insists the system of allocating funds must be opened up to public scrutiny.

He is also convinced that the Commission needs meaningful sanctions when environmental impact assessment rules are broken.

“Member states are very resistant to opening up the system of allocation. They have a kind of 'It's our money, get off!' attitude. The Commission also made an en passant reference to sanctions being applied where there's a breach of EIA conditions, but we need to see some teeth in all this,” he maintains.

Referring to the controversial Tagus Estuary Bridge in Portugal - paid for out of Cohesion Funds - Long is blunt. “Clearly it should never have been built in the first place. Everybody is embarrassed to hell that it's gone ahead. We don't just need Commission communiqués referring vaguely to sanctions, but real warning flags to the member states,” he says.

While praising Bjerregaard's efficiency in dealing with crisis situations, Long admits that he has “more difficulty finding out what her vision is on the long-term direction of EU environment policy” and claims the main drive on spatial planning - “a vision of the way Europe could look” - was coming from DGXVI rather than from DGXI (environment).

But although significant gaps remain in some areas, Long appears satisfied that the legal basis for environment policy established by DGXI “is pretty good on the whole”.

His greatest criticism is that Bjerregaard's staff tend to “find the compromise position too early on”, faced with “pretty intense internal lobbying and an industry position which is, on the whole, pretty narrow and short-sighted, seeing the environment purely as a constraint on competitiveness”.

But Long is optimistic that there are signs of more imaginative thinking, now that a wider range of economic instruments are available, and firmly rejects industry fears over environmental 'tools' such as CO2 taxes.

But he accepts that member states must make their own decisions about what action is needed.

“We must take a realistic approach. We can't go telling member states what they've got to do and how they've got to do it. Instead, we must offer them a framework and let them decide which measures to take,” he says.

In the medium term, the most important thing is to ensure that existing legislation is actually being obeyed, says Long, pointing out that two crucial deadlines on the Habitats Directive had been ignored in several member states.

He suggests stronger directives of this sort could help make the routing of the Trans-European Networks more environmentally-friendly, and argues cohesion and structural fund money could even be made dependent on member states transposing legislation into national laws.

Criticising governments' lack of concrete action, Long adds: “There is such an embarrassing and growing gulf between political commitments to CO2 reduction and what is actually projected to happen. It brings policy-making into disrepute when people sign international conventions and have no intention of doing anything about it when they get home.”

Looking ahead to next year's Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), Long is optimistic that the decision-makers have taken due note of the case for including environmental requirements in various articles of the revised treaty, in sectors such as transport and agriculture.

“Having seen the Reflection Group report, I have the feeling that they are giving an orange light, if not a green light, to writing the environment into the various different chapters,” he says, adding that the IGC will also provide the opportunity for governments to abandon what he describes as the “common denominator approach” to environmental policy - allowing those members states who want to go further to do so.

Above all, he believes, there is a pressing need for decision-making structures to be opened up.

“It is time for a major service of the machinery here. Somebody's got to take this thing by the scruff of the neck and clean it up. That is probably going to mean some restrictions on lobbyists but if that is the price to pay, I don't mind.”

Long believes that easier access to the European Court of Justice and Court of First Instance is crucial to greater transparency - although this is a term he claims not to like.

“If there is to be one really major change, I would hope that the IGC could make access to the courts more open. If you take the example of the Tagus bridge, you should just be able to go to court and stop it. But it's extraordinarily difficult to prove direct individual concern in the courts,” he says.

But generally Long is not overly optimistic that the IGC will achieve all that is needed. “I don't know if the IGC can do that, but I know it should,” he said.

WWF's priorities for 1996 include efforts to bring about a shift in agricultural policies (with the recent Fischler White Paper described by Long as a first step in the right direction). It says this could either be achieved inside or outside of the treaty, although it would be preferable to bring the relevant treaty articles up to date.

Energy will be another priority, with calls for a “massive effort to reduce energy consumption”.

Having had first-hand experience of US congressional lobbying, Long believes he has had a “taste of what I see Brussels lobbying now becoming”. He is especially impressed with the European Parliament's initiative in holding a growing number of public hearings.