Transatlantic talks to boost cooperation on green laws

Date: 25/11/1999

By Gareth Harding

SENIOR EU and US politicians will meet for the first time next week to search for ways to cooperate more closely on environmental laws.

In recent years, the number of transatlantic policy forums has increased in almost direct proportion to the number of spats over health, consumer and environmental issues. But there is currently no political forum for discussing green issues.

"We have a non-governmental organisation dialogue, a technical dialogue and a transatlantic business dialogue. What is missing is a legislators' dialogue on environmental issues," said a European Commission official.

The two sides aim to fill that gap at a two-day high-level meeting in the European Parliament beginning next Thursday (2 December), where Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström will join MEPs, US Congressmen and officials to consider ways of improving policy coordination.

The focus of the meeting will be transport and air pollution, an area where the Union and US already cooperate. Commission officials point to a recent EU directive aimed at cutting emissions from non-road vehicles, such as tractors and diggers, as "one almost perfect area of agreement between the EU and US".

Vehicle makers on both sides of the Atlantic now must adhere to almost identical ceilings on emissions within similar timeframes, making it easier for manufacturers to sell their products in both markets.

The Parliament's Green Group leader Heidi Hautala argues that transatlantic mergers between giant car and oil companies have "changed the picture dramatically," and says there is now a clear need for common standards for industry on both sides of the Atlantic. "We had better make sure that these are at a high rather than a low level," she added.

The two sides are also working closely on developing air quality standards and are committed to exchanging information on the health effects of key pollutants such as particulates and ground-level ozone. Hautala says that while Europe followed California's example in setting limit values for pollutants in the 1970s and 1980s, EU standards have now "become the benchmark for the US and other industrialised countries such as Japan and Australia".

Commission officials say that the short-term goal is "alignment, not harmonisation". But Hautala believes it is "inevitable that in a few years time, common standards will not only be set in the EU but across the Atlantic too".

The organisers of next week's round table hope the meeting will produce agreement on various issues including co-financing health studies. If progress is made in achieving these goals, the two sides will aim to extend cooperation to other environmental issues.

Senior EU and US politicians will meet for the first time on 2.12.99 to search for ways to cooperate more closely on environmental laws.