Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60 - 79)

THURSDAY 21 OCTOBER 1999

MR PETER MADDEN, MS REBECCA WILLIS, DR PAUL JEFFERISS AND MR PAUL HAMBLIN

  60. What sort of other structural changes do you think might be necessary within the EU, whether it is Parliament, Commission, Council of Ministers; what sort of structural changes do you think are needed?
  (Ms Willis) To take the Commission, I have highlighted this central sustainable development unit and strategy. I think it would also be a useful exercise for the Commission DGs to go through the same sectoral sustainability strategy processes that the Councils have gone through, so that each DG is asked to consider its impact on sustainable development. There is this chance at the moment, with the Inter-Governmental Conference coming up next year, and there seems to be political will for quite radical change in the way that the Commission is run; and this will be a good chance to look at horizontal issues generally within the Commission, it is not something that they are traditionally very good at, they have a very vertical approach. Just to take the Parliament, quickly, the Parliament, similarly, has no provision at the moment for cross-cutting issues, it is organised on a committee basis, and although the Environment Committee can give its opinions to other committees they do not have any say about taking the lead on sustainable development issues. I think that there is a real need to look at integration within the Parliament, especially given that the Parliament actually could act very proactively here. One of the things we have suggested is that now that the Parliament has co-decision it would be quite within its rights to refuse to consider any Commission proposals which do not have an environmental appraisal attached to them. The Parliament has got a real chance here, and it needs to think about its own structures in order to take advantage of that.

Mr Savidge

  61. Would you also favour the suggestion that has just been made about an environmental audit committee?
  (Ms Willis) Yes, I think it is an interesting suggestion. I think that the European Parliament works in a very different way from Westminster, and the actual mechanisms by which a committee like that would be put in place would have to be looked at; as I say, there is not any way at the moment of getting a cross-cutting committee into place. I think that such an institution is needed, yes.

Chairman

  62. On this point of who takes the lead amongst the Commissioners, and you said you would like a Commission Vice-President, as you have heard, English Nature suggested the President take the lead. Is there any particular reason why you have suggested a Vice-President, or is it just because maybe you thought the President had a lot on his plate anyway, "Let's get a number two to lead on the environment;" or was there some more specific reason?
  (Ms Willis) We would be more than happy for the President of the Commission to take that job.

  63. So you are quite relaxed about it?
  (Ms Willis) If he has the time and resources to do so; but it will need proactive leadership and that might be better coming from a Vice-President.
  (Mr Madden) But also because I think that the President may have more of an external role, in a sense, and more of an ambassadorial role, and the Vice-Presidents may be more focused on dealing with internal EU politics and institutional change, and so on, so it might be better to site it with a Vice-President; but, as I say, we are relaxed.

Dr Iddon

  64. Looking next at the legislative framework that is driving the integration of the environmental agenda forward, do you think that Article 6 in the Amsterdam Treaty is enough for that to happen, or should the forthcoming Inter-Governmental Conference agree further Treaty changes, particularly with a view to giving individual DGs and Councils some ownership of the total agenda?
  (Mr Madden) We have not recommended Treaty amendments or changes, for the main reason that we think that since 1987 we have had legal provision in EU Treaties and it has been strengthened two times subsequently. Our feeling is that the need is not to get yet more Treaty provisions in place, the need is now actually to turn those Treaty provisions into action, so we would focus our attention much more on how we turn existing legal language into real change.

  65. Would that comment apply also to the Treaty of Rome which deals with the various common policies, or would you seek changes there as well?
  (Mr Madden) Again, I would think that the Treaty wording largely says that environment must be integrated into all other policy areas.

  66. So you do not see any changes forthcoming at the next Inter-Governmental Conference?
  (Mr Madden) We are not going to be working around Treaty changes, I think we are going to be focusing more on delivery of existing obligations.

  67. That brings me on to compliance. Do you think that the framework for dealing with compliance is strong enough at the moment, or would you seek changes there, or do you think the framework is okay but the action is not taking place?
  (Dr Jefferiss) Certainly, the action is not taking place, the Birds and Habitats Directives are a supreme example of that; hardly any Member State has come up with an appropriate list of SPAs or SACs. That would argue, I would imagine, that the framework for compliance is inadequate, but we have not developed specific recommendations for modifications of the compliance framework.

Chairman

  68. So, basically, you think that Article 6 is enough, even though it is a free-standing one and is possibly in conflict with other Articles, other fundamental Articles?
  (Mr Hamblin) I think that the key issue comes down to the policing of the Treaty, what is within it. And that does mean that, for example, when different parts of the European Commission, or European Parliament, are asked for their comments, the Environment section is not simply looking at minor amendments and is this going to have an impact on the environment, but they are actually able, in a position, and being supported from more senior figures to challenge the foundation of policies which are contrary to sustainable development and Articles which are within the Treaty.
  (Dr Jefferiss) I would say also it is a matter of resource allocation; when once a provision is in the Treaty or a Directive has passed into law it has been agreed to by the EU Member States but some of them, on particular issues, find it quite simply impossible to meet the requirements of Articles or Directives because adequate funding has not been provided. So, for example, again on the Birds and Habitats Directives, they are expensive Directives to implement and very inadequate funding has been made available to implement them; the same with the Rural Development Regulation, it provides a nice foundation on which to build but the foundation will remain shaky as long as funding is not made available to build on it. I think resource allocation to the various DGs, to the various Council support staffs and to the Parliamentary Committee support staffs is also an issue. There is very little in the way of, environmental expertise or even sustainable development expertise within those various bodies, and without ensuring that the various agencies within the European institutions have the staff capability and the financial resources to pursue the various requirements in the Treaty, it is unlikely that they are going to be implemented.

Mr Robertson

  69. You heard the answers which English Nature gave, but what is your view about the Councils which have been invited to prepare strategies, are those the ones which should be given the priority?
  (Dr Jefferiss) They are certainly important ones, but, eventually, we think that all sectors should be invited, or required, to undertake sustainability integration strategies. A glaring omission at the moment is competition; trade issues and competition are clearly areas which have significant sustainability impacts and they should be the first priority for the next tranche of sectoral strategies. Having said that, I think the nine that have been called for so far are clearly important. But there are some, common shortcomings and successes that those strategies share, and then there are some differences between them. There is a wide range of generic shortcomings. For example, there is no consistency of approach between the different sectors, which makes it very difficult to compare how effective they are. There is generally no timetable built in for revising the strategies or ratcheting up the stringency of the requirements that they contain. And, if the Fifth Environmental Action Programme is anything to go by, any strategy developed now will very quickly become out of date; one of the shortcomings of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme was that it was developed several years ago and within a couple of years new Treaties had made some of its provisions no longer relevant. Most of the existing Council strategies are very cautious and conservative, they contain no long-distance future thinking and they contain very little that is radical, there are very few targets and very few specific commitments. All of them tend to celebrate their existing achievements without noting that those achievements, laudable though they may be, are wholly inadequate to deal with the problem; and none of them refer to the urgent need for funding to carry out the sustainable development strategies that they propose. Now those shortcomings are after the Vienna Council had invited stronger strategies from the various sectors. The one we are particularly concerned about is the agriculture strategy, it is quite defensive, it still lays a lot of stress on the need for the agriculture sector to remain competitive, stressing the economic and social roles of agriculture but relatively little on the environmental role of agriculture. It is very general in its aspirations, it is very general in its tactics for reaching its aspirations, it does not look far into the future, it does not even explore opportunities like the WTO round for possible reforms. So agriculture, we think, needs a thorough overhaul. For energy and transport, we feel that its aspirations are laudable and progressive; for example, transport notes that "long-term environmental concerns should play a role equal to other concerns such as social and economic factors." It also notes that economic growth and traffic growth could be decoupled; it refers to the need for environmental assessments of infrastructure, to road-pricing, to the need for public transport. So it is progressive in its general thinking, but it is quite short on specific recommendations for how to achieve those goals. The Development Council's draft strategy, too, is good in principle but short on specifics. So I think what we need is more detail in those strategies. For the other sectors, Fisheries, Ecofin and General Affairs, we have not yet seen the reports. One other thing it is worth saying is that there is a relative lack of transparency in the process, and it would be nice in the future for the public and NGOs to have a little bit more access to these documents, and, ideally, some input to them, because we tend to get drafts late, after the fact, and leaked, in one way or another, rather than simply delivered to us as a matter of course. So the drafts I am referring to date from late September; there may have been changes since.

Chairman

  70. You probably heard me ask English Nature what their verdict was on the Fifth Environmental Action Plan; do you think it was a failure?
  (Ms Willis) There were a number of problems with the Fifth Environmental Action Plan, and just to mention a couple that English Nature did not, one thing that the Fifth Environmental Action Plan failed to do was get buy-in from a wider sector, either from other Commission DGs, it was very much DGXI-focused, or from the Parliament, who argued long and hard over it, or, in fact, the wider public. Other actors, both in Member States and at the EU level, were not asked to contribute to the process and did not feel ownership of it. We think this is—

  71. Sorry to interrupt you; did you say the Parliament played a role in—argued hard, you said?
  (Ms Willis) The Parliament played a role in the legislative process, but they had a lot of problems with it, they felt that it was very much led by DGXI and it took several years to agree on it.

  72. Right; that was the view of the European Parliament, that it was too much led by DGXI?
  (Ms Willis) The European Parliament had a lot of problems with the general direction of the Action Plan, yes, which is why it took them so long to agree on it.
  (Dr Jefferiss) I think it is probably also fair to say that it lacked really rigorous targets, and that to the extent that it did contain targets they quickly became out of date as events in the external world progressed; so building in a review, a more frequent review, might be appropriate for the next iteration.
  (Mr Madden) It was also focused very much on Europe and it did not look at our place and role in the world and as a major trading nation and as a member of the international community, and I think we cannot deal with sustainable development just at the European level.

  73. Would you, nonetheless, like English Nature, want to see a Sixth Plan?
  (Dr Jefferiss) Yes.

  74. But a reformed and revised one?
  (Ms Willis) We would like to see a Sixth Plan which contributed to an overall sustainable development strategy, yes; we think it is important to keep a strong environmental component in there through the Action Plan, which will lead in to the overarching Plan.
  (Dr Jefferiss) I think the assumption that an environmental action programme would suffice, in place of a sustainable development plan, fails to recognise that sustainable development is composed of three or, arguably, four strands, environment, economic, social (and natural resources) so environment would be one component.

  75. How would you respond to this point that was made by Mr Gerrard and others in the last session with English Nature that there is a danger that sustainable development, by its nature, as a tripartite element, given that you are also plugging it into the European Union, which is a complex, bureaucratic organisation, may lose some of the sharpness on specifically environmental matters, which English Nature was clearly worried about, in relation to biodiversity, for example?
  (Dr Jefferiss) I think, having a Sixth Environmental Action Programme as well would provide that counterbalance and sharp focus that could be lost otherwise.

  76. So that is the answer, is it?
  (Mr Madden) It is going to have both. At the UK level, I think the Committee has expressed this concern about our own sustainable development strategy, but at the European level we will have an overarching sustainable development strategy and an environmental action programme, and we think that having the two of those will help to solve that problem.
  (Ms Willis) Just looking at this in terms of the institutional structures, we would see the environmental action plan as being led by DGXI and focusing on environmental aspects, which is their job, and the sustainable development strategy being led from the centre and being overarching.

  Chairman: I am always a little worried, being slightly cynical about governments, that if you give them two objectives they will try to achieve one and say, "Look, we achieved one; we didn't achieve the other one, but we achieved one." And, therefore, you do not actually get the priority you want. If you give them only one objective, did they or did they not achieve it, is the question; but, there we are.

Mr Blizzard

  77. Can I ask your view on the effectiveness of the measures brought in by the Commission to ensure better integration, I mentioned three before but I will add the others in: screening of all policy and full environmental appraisal, that is one; green starring, the second; looking at European Union funding; but also have they appointed environmental integration correspondence, and are they working, in each DG; what about the greening of the budget that they committed themselves to; and training of staff, environmental training of staff? What are they doing on those?
  (Mr Hamblin) There is certainly a plethora of different initiatives within the Commission, which is encouraging, but I think that we need to look at, as English Nature highlighted, the outcomes as much as the process. I have brought along "Policy Appraisal and the Environment", the guidance produced by the UK Government, which is an important step forward, but of particular interest to the Committee is going to be is this being implemented throughout Whitehall? Similarly, we need to see the systems being implemented throughout the Commission and by the different DGs, and I think there is clear evidence that things such as the green star system are not working effectively. And the European Commission, DGXI in particular, are quite upfront in recognising the need for improvement. A paper which they produced for the Cologne Summit highlighted that the green star system had a narrow scope, and there have been difficulties in attributing the green stars due to a limitation of information. So I think that, in terms of the Commission, as an institution, we need to be looking at the training that is provided and ensuring that it is stepped up; because although there are a lot of initiatives they really need reinvigoration and they need high-level, political leadership to take them forward. We need to see the effective use of appraisals and, as has been mentioned earlier, proposals which are coming forward without environmental appraisals not being considered either by Commissioners or, indeed, by Council. And the Council can have a role in helping the different Directorates General to green themselves by, for exmaple, ensuring that UK Ministers at different Council meetings ask for the appraisals which the Directorates General should have produced to accompany proposals. But we also need to look at the budgeting process, and I know that the Committee has taken a particular interest in the Comprehensive Spending Review in this country, and its scope for ensuring that budgets promote sustainable outcomes rather than go against them. And, certainly, we can see a role at a European level to apply similar techniques, so that resource allocation is consistent with the overarching objectives set out in the Treaty. And we would also wish to see agreement on the draft Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment that the Finnish Presidency are taking forward and trying to get agreement on.

  78. So, did I get it right, in terms of evaluating and keeping the Commission up to the mark in these areas, you were saying that the Council of Ministers needs to be doing that, but is there anything more that needs to be done to keep them up to the mark, particularly bearing in mind that, arguably, events have shown that the Council were not particularly good at keeping the Commission up to the mark, in the sense they suddenly decided they would sack them all, having put up with it for years?
  (Mr Hamblin) I think there is a role for all the institutions, and that was really what lay behind the proposals at Cardiff, that every institution had a responsibility and each institution needed to be giving high-level support to integration. Certainly, the Council can ensure that proposals which are coming before it are fully consistent with the objectives of environmental integration and sustainable development; the European Parliament also has an important monitoring role; and, as has already been highlighted, the innovative idea of an environmental audit committee.

  79. Is that a realistic proposition, an environmental audit committee with teeth? I know you said there would be some difficulties with the way things are currently set up, but is that a realistic thing to call for?
  (Mr Hamblin) I think it is realistic, providing Europe be open to the changes in the mind set, the attitude, and breaking down the hierarchical barriers, particularly vertically, within the Commission, in order to achieve environmental integration and the objectives set out in the various agreements.


 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries

© Parliamentary copyright 1999
Prepared 25 November 1999