FIRST REPORT
The Environmental Audit Committee has agreed to
the following Report:—
EUROPE AND THE ENVIRONMENT:
AN AGENDA FOR THE HELSINKI SUMMIT
Summary
1. The Committee's principal findings are summarised
below:
(a) The European Environment
Agency's recent State & Outlook report confirms that despite
more than twenty-five years of Community environmental regulation,
general environmental quality in the EU is not recovering significantly
and in some areas is actually worsening. (Paragraph 11)
(b) EU policies in major
economic sectors such as agriculture, transport and energy have
often been incompatible with the EU's environmental objectives.
For example, EU subsidies have supported environmentally damaging
activities such as the drainage of wildlife-rich wetlands for
intensive agriculture or the depletion of fish stocks. (Paragraph
13)
(c) Although the EU has
been good at developing strong, end-of-pipe regulation it has
less leverage over the "driving force sectors of environmental
damage." The emphasis now needs to shift towards creating
a more integrated framework for a preventative approach to environmental
protection. We conclude that the European Council, Council of
Ministers, Commission and individual Member States need to co-ordinate
their policies and working practices under strong leadership and
strategic direction to achieve real change. (Paragraph 14)
(d) President Prodi has
announced the formation of two sub-groups of Commissioners, one
to look at growth, competitiveness, employment and sustainable
development and a second to look at external affairs. Environment
Commissioner Wallström will be involved in both groups which
may be a helpful boost to integration. We believe that environmental
integration and mechanisms to promote sustainable development
across all directorates- general should be prominent in their
remits. (Paragraph 33)
(e) It is clear that
both individual Commission directorates-general and Councils tend
to be very focused on their own subject areas. Mr Meacher told
the Committee that he thought that getting the directorates-general
to talk to each other in the preparation of policy was the single
most important area of improvement. (Paragraph 35)
(f) At Cardiff, Heads
of Government endorsed the principle that major Commission policy
proposals should be accompanied by an appraisal of their environmental
impact. A Commission review of the existing system showed it needed
revision because it was weak as a result of its narrow scope and
there were difficulties in attributing "green stars"
because limited information was available on the environmental
impact of proposals. (Paragraph 38)
(g) The Global Assessment
of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme acknowledges that
the EU has made progress in environmental legislation but has
achieved only modest success in integrating the environment into
other policy areas. It is far from achieving its broader objective
of sustainable development as reflected in the Amsterdam Treaty.
(Paragraph 63)
2. The Committee's principal recommendations are
summarised below:
(a) As we have concluded
from our studies of the UK greening government initiative, high
level political leadership is vital to the success of this pan-administrative
challenge. Leadership in the EU context is more complex and must
be pursued through effective Treaty provisions, the European Council,
the Council of Ministers (in all its formations), and individual
Member States as well as the Commission. (Paragraph 24)
(b) We consider Article
6 of the Amsterdam Treaty to be a major step forward in promoting
environmental policy integration. However, the Committee is concerned
that this article alone may not adequately promote environmental
integration and will need to be complemented by specific provisions
included in the legislative basis of individual policies. The
Committee recommends that the Government keeps the need for further
Treaty revision along these lines under review in the light of
an assessment, in due course, of the impact of Article 6. (Paragraph
27)
(c) The Committee recognises
that it is for the Commission to propose a "substantial and
effective" system for conducting and demonstrating environmental
policy appraisals. However, we think that it is within the ambit
of the Council, and therefore the initiative of Member States,
to galvanise the Commission's efforts by establishing its own
approach to "checks and balances" for policies that
need environmental appraisal but where the work has not been done.
(Paragraph 39)
(d) The Committee believes
that any EU sustainable development strategy should be more than
a general statement of principles. The Committee considers it
important that the Government pushes for a strategy for action
rather than guidance, containing quantitative targets, timetables
and headline indicators against which progress can be monitored.
(Paragraph 49)
(e) The Government should
suggest that the Commissioner Group on Growth, Competitiveness,
Employment and Sustainable Development prepares a draft strategy,
serviced by a new Sustainable Development Task Force, attached
to the President's office. The six-monthly European Councils should
keep the strategy under regular review. Council Summits must take
action when such reviews demand- passing the 'green baton' must
not descend into passing the green buck. (Paragraph 54)
(f) We believe that there
should be both an EU sustainable development strategy and a Sixth
Environmental Action Programme (focussed on the environment) with
targeted timetables linked by the sectoral integration strategies.
(Paragraph 82)
(g) We have identified
a contradiction in the evidence presented by the Government on
the key relationship between the Environment Council and the other
Councils and their development of sectoral strategies to integrate
environmental considerations. The Government agreed that the Environment
Council has a role to play but was equally clear that Council
formations are autonomous and tend to "get very focused on
their own subject matter". There is no current mechanism
for involving the Environment Council if improved co-ordination
is felt to be necessary with other Councils. The Committee requests
that the Government clarifies what role it feels the Environment
Council could play. (Paragraph 82)
(h) The Committee is
concerned that the sectoral integration strategies produced to-date
have been bland statements of intent suggesting little action
or timetables for action. The Government should work to ensure
that the Helsinki conclusions respect the framework agreed at
the Cardiff Council in 1998 and refer to the need for the councils
to set themselves targets, timetables and indicators. (Paragraph
92)
(i) We think that it
is important that the sectoral integration strategies share a
common format so that they can be compared and contrasted. The
Committee is pleased that the Government has actively supported
the Finnish framework which encourages such an approach. We will
be using the Finnish criteria to assess the quality of the strategies.
(Paragraph 93)
(j) It is essential that
the Government pushes for high level agreement about how the range
of EU integration initiatives fit together and can be managed
and led. To avoid confusion, there needs to be clarity regarding
how a Sixth Environmental Action Programme (6th EAP), sectoral
integration strategies and an EU sustainable development strategy
would be linked, and which should provide the principal framework.
The Government should ask the Commission to produce a Communication
clarifying these relationships. (Paragraph 73)
(k) The Committee recommends
that Member States should report their progress on making a contribution
to an EU sustainable development strategy against a set of European
indicators to the European Environment Agency (EEA). The Committee
would then like to see the EEA present a consolidated report on
the progress of the EU as a whole for regular assessment and review
by national and European parliaments and the European Council.
(Paragraph 102)
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