Examination of Witness (Questions 140-157)
Mr Tony Long
7 MAY 2008
Q140 Lord Bowness: Mr Long, you said
earlier on this afternoon that you thought most of the initiatives
came from the Commission and perhaps suggested that lobby groups
such as yours did not have much effect, but you have now given
us an example of how a number of you saved certain elements of
the programme. Could we look at the whole question of new legislation
and influencing its scope and its content and really how much
influence you believe and how effective those interest groups
are in that process?
Mr Long: I would like to correct the impression,
if I have given it, that we do not have that much influence. I
do think we have influence. I was commenting in particular on
the Environment Action Programme. There I think we have less influence.
On legislation, I draw a distinction between the agenda-setting
process, let us say, the ideas stage, and then the second stage,
which would be the more formal process of expert groups, advisory
groups and nowadays high level groups which have come into vogue,
where the ideas are then translated through a series of green
papers and white papers, and so forth, into legislation. Then
to your question, "Are you influential as environmental NGOs
at the ideas-setting stage?" I think the answer is sometimes
I give as an example the work my organisation has been doing to
try to get sustainability measurements to become more widespread,
what we call environmental accounting. We helped to organise at
EU level a conference last year called "Beyond GDP".
This is where we are in the ideas phase. Another area where we
are in the ideas phase was the need for mining waste legislation
after the two disastrous mine spills in southern Spain, near the
Doñana National Park, and then the Baia Mare disaster in
Romania. My organisation, WWF, had commissioned work to see how
far these mining waste sites were spread across the whole European
Union and how much of a danger they pose. This was WWF acting
at the very beginning, in fact preceding the work from the Commission
in that area. Then in the second part of the initiation, the more
formal part, as an example, the European Climate Change Programme
created six working groups. WWF was active in five of those. We
were very influential in the early stages of the Emissions Trading
Scheme and so forth. In the high-level groups, WWF has served
on three of them. One was on corporate social responsibility.
Another was the impact assessment procedures for the REACH legislation,
the chemicals legislation. I did not serve myself personally but
my organisation was on the Commission's high-level group on competitiveness,
energy and the environment, which had four Commissioners and four
Ministers. These high-level groups are also a place where the
initiation of legislation takes place.
Q141 Lord Bowness: Bearing in mind
the legislative process is quite a long one, if you had not been
intimately involved with it on a working group, as you have described,
at what point in the legislative programme would you as an interest
group think you could be most effective to intervene?
Mr Long: If I take the case of the Mining Waste
Directive, I was having discussions with the officials who were
drawing up the legislation. That is before it actually goes into
inter-service consultation and before it then goes to the Commission
and becomes a proposal for legislation. That is a way of being
effective at the very early stages. If you were to take REACH
legislation on chemicals, my organisation was submitting evidence
at the time of the green paper, then again at the time of the
white paper. Nowadays we have a system of internet consultations
as well. So there are different parts leading up to the legislative
proposal itself. We are involved in all of them. When the legislation
goes to the Council and the Parliament we become involved again,
very often working closely with the rapporteurs in the Parliament.
Q142 Lord Bowness: If you had to
highlight one particular success and one particular failure, what
would they be and can you give reasons for either of them?
Mr Long: My own personal interest over more
than 20 years has been in the area of the EU's regional development
funds, the Structural Funds. When I first got involved in those
programmes back in the mid-1980s they were still called the European
Regional Development Fund. In 1988, when they were reorganised
and called the Structural Funds, there was very, very little environmental
awareness or indeed reference at all in the legislation for the
need for the environment to be taken into account. When they were
reformed in 1993, and then again in 1999, and then again in 2004,
the Structural Funds regulations became much clearer on the need
to promote sustainable development. This affects a third of the
EU budget. This is €30 billion a year. Something like now
30% of the expenditure from the Structural Funds is spent on environmental
benefits. I regard that over a 20 year period as a quite remarkable
change. If the Committee is interested in the ways in which that
happened, I would point to the importance of the interaction with
the Commissioners themselves. The personal involvement of the
Commissioners in these issues, and I think of Monica Wulf-Mathies
and Michel Barnier, was very important. I think the Cabinets of
the Commission are also important. I think senior civil servants
in some countries are also very important. So there are a number
of ways to be influential. They do not just happen, it is a process.
Where we have been less successful, I think, is in the area of
fisheries management. The 2002 Common Fisheries Policy reform,
which is a once every ten year event, promised that there would
be a new approach to the EU fisheries policy. After 2002 I did
not see the evidence that the TACs (the Total Allowable Catches)
and the quota system had really been reformed as much as we would
have wanted. I think there are several reasons for that. Partly
it is because of the relationship between the fishing industry
and what is now called DG MARE (it used to be DG Fisheries but
it has just been changed). I think that relationship has in some
ways been so strong that it has precluded other interests from
having perhaps the say that they should have.
Chairman: I think one answer you gave perhaps
leads into a question which I think Lord Rosser wants to ask you.
Q143 Lord Rosser: Listening to what
you have said—and you came back to it just a moment ago,
but much earlier on I thought you said that for fairly obvious
reasons you did not know too much about the world of friendships
and informal contacts which might also influence the Commission.
I am sitting here wondering—because you have mentioned some
of the Commission's staff and you said some of them were very
committed to the ideas which you have—about the extent to
which it is actually the Commission which has the ideas and then
looks to organisations like yours and the other members of the
Green 10 to provide evidence and campaigning to back up the ideas
and views of the Commission and make it easier for them to get
them through, or whether in fact the ideas are basically yours
and other members of the Green 10 and others very sympathetic
to the environmental cause, whether the ideas come from them and
it is then the Commission that adopts them. I am not quite sure
which way round preponderantly it is. I have a feeling that maybe
it is the Commission and their staff who have the ideas, perhaps
reflecting what they perceive to be public opinion generally,
or the drift of public opinion, and they are using organisations
like yourself to back up and support campaigns or views they want
to see enacted. Which way do you think it goes?
Mr Long: I do not think that it is as simple
as it is being put forward here. I do want to clarify what I said
about the informal relationships. What I mean by that is that
in particular areas of expertise, let us say fishery subsidies
or structural fund expenditures, there are not a lot of people
in Brussels with that particular set of interests. Some of them
may be from the Commission, some of them will be from the Parliament,
some will be NGOs, some will be a couple of journalists. So that
is what I meant by a sort of policy community. I am part of some
of these. As for where the ideas come from, nowadays Brussels
is a very dynamic lobbying scene. Ideas are coming thick and fast
from everywhere. This more or less dates from the era of the Single
Market. This multiplicity of sources of advice and ideas does
not any longer belong to the environmental NGOs or the Commission.
I would have to say in some of the forums in which I am active
it is quite new alliances between environmental NGOs and business
interests that are likely to be coming forward. I would not underestimate
either the importance of the Member States. In some ways the weakening
of the Commission's position vis-a"-vis the Members States
has come about also with the open method of coordination, and
the inter-governmental processes generally. I am just trying to
say that your question invites me to say no, but it is much more
complex. The idea nowadays is that the lobbying in Brussels, especially
towards the Commission, is the lobbying of propositions rather
than opposition. The lobbying of propositions means, "Let's
do this. Let's solve that." It is a different atmosphere
which is taking hold.
Q144 Lord Jay of Ewelme: I just want
to follow up one point in the very interesting answer you have
just given. You talked about the weakening role of the Commission
vis-a"-vis other actors. You said at the beginning you have
been in Brussels for 20 years now. Is that a trend which you have
seen from 1986, let us say from the beginning, from the Single
Market Programme onwards? Would you say there has been, in your
experience, a marked change in the influence of the Commission
vis-a"-vis the other institutions for whatever reason over
that period, and would you say that is continuing?
Mr Long: I think the Commission's position is
weakening and I think it is the result of two or perhaps three
things. One would be the enlargement process. Everything has just
become more complicated with 27 countries. I do not think the
staff numbers have kept up with that. The second is that I think
the Member States have reigned in some of the influence of the
Commission. The third is just that the complexity of the issues
the Commission is having to deal with has grown enormously, for
instance in areas like climate change and international negotiations.
So for those three reasons my perception is that the role of the
Commission has weakened.
Q145 Lord Jay of Ewelme: We have
been very interested, I think, in this question of what is the
shifting balance of influence on legislation among the institutions
and one way, I suppose, of judging that now would be how important
you see it to lobby the Member States, to lobby the Parliament
in addition to the lobbying of the Commission. When I say "the
Member States" I do not just mean you in Brussels, I mean
the World Wildlife Fund as well. If there is a big issue coming
up, if you are worried about either an opposition or proposition,
would you automatically have a strategy which was lobbying all
the institutions?
Mr Long: The answer is yes. The strategy—and
it is exactly that—does have to embrace all the institutions
and it does have to pay as much attention to the national capitals
as to Brussels. I sometimes say when I am lecturing that the more
effective you are as a lobbying organisation, the more you actually
resemble the organisations you are trying to lobby. Therefore,
if you are saying the same thing at the same time to broadly the
same people in cities as well as in Brussels, then you are more
likely to be resembling the processes you are seeking to influence.
Lord Jay of Ewelme: That is a very interesting
point.
Q146 Chairman: Perhaps I can just
ask a short follow-up question. What is the most effective type
of lobbying? You mentioned at the very outset the importance of
informal contacts. No doubt some of this lobbying is done in a
relatively objective way in writing, but a lot of it is done by
meetings. Which works best, informal contacts, conversations or
meetings?
Mr Long: All the different ways that one can
possibly do it. Personal meetings, short briefing points and knowing
the processes, knowing the timing, knowing the assistants for
the Members of Parliament. It is knowledge. It is I am sure the
way this House works. So everything that is necessary to be influential.
One of the reasons I think WWF has got the standing it has in
Brussels is because of the quality of the argumentation and the
soundness of the policy propositions that we put forward. I think
that is very, very important.
Q147 Chairman: Does the Commission
actively seek views from organisations like yourself?
Mr Long: Very much so, my Lord Chairman. The
Commission invites us, as I say, to participate in very many working
groups in return for the money that we get, the €600,000.
We have to spend a lot of time in various advisory forums, consultative
groups, stakeholder meetings. I could list dozens of them. In
all of these cases we are being asked for our views in some way
to counterbalance the views that will be coming from industry.
So we are always being invited for our comments.
Q148 Baroness O'Cathain: Do you ever
initiate those contacts, because it is a huge opportunity if they
keep on asking about these things? Can you actually sort of slip
things by them, your pet projects, at that stage and manage to
get that into the pre-legislative process?
Mr Long: I think in the examples I gave to you
earlier, particularly the Mining Waste Directive, we have tried
to do that. We did also try to influence the Commission to take
a stronger line on a particular category of chemicals, the endocrine-disrupting
chemicals. To do that we actually persuaded the European Parliament
to have an "Own Initiative Report" on endocrine-disrupting
chemicals. Then in the REACH process, because of heavy lobbying
from other interests opposed to that, the endocrine-disrupting
chemicals provision has temporarily fallen. It will be reviewed
again by 2013. So we have sought to influence the legislative
agenda and sometimes we get pushed back.
Q149 Lord Wright of Richmond: Does
that mean that you become actively involved in, for instance,
scientific surveys or the impact assessment process?
Mr Long: Very much so. Quite often we commission
scientific research. We cannot necessarily have all the research
on hand ourselves, but we can and do commission studies which
we then introduce into the legislative process.
Q150 Lord Wright of Richmond: Have
you had contacts with the independent Impact Assessment Board?
You said in your introduction you were not privy to all the processes.
Is that a process which has actually involved you?
Mr Long: In fact, my Lord Chairman, another
environmental institute called the Institute for European Environmental
Policy (IEEP) based here in London has done a lot of work on assessing
impact assessments to gauge their quality, to see whether they
are improving legislation, and so forth.
Q151 Lord Wright of Richmond: For
the Commission?
Mr Long: Yes, they are. They actually have a
retainer from the European Commission. Rather than me answering
your question about impact assessments, I would prefer that you
go to the independent institute to check their data.
Q152 Chairman: But they are paid
by the Commission?
Mr Long: That is true, and they are also paid
by Defra. They act in some senses as a consultant to the Commission.
Q153 Chairman: Are there any entirely
independent bodies which have assessed the efficacy of impact
assessments?
Mr Long: I do not know the answer to that.
Lord Wright of Richmond: My Lord Chairman, can
I just say that the answer in one of our papers is that the Commission
themselves insist on the independent Impact Assessment Board being
genuinely independent. Whether it is, I do not know.
Q154 Baroness O'Cathain: Does the
draft legislation process lead to good quality legislation? If
not, what are the reasons for the deficiencies? Are there just
too many people, too many cooks spoiling the broth? How could
the draft legislation phase be modified to improve the quality
of legislation?
Mr Long: I think that if the Committee has the
interest and finds the time to look deeply into the European Climate
Change Programme, and the way that brought many different groups
together to draft the legislation, that process will come out
with some interesting insights.
Q155 Chairman: Where is the best
way to get into that? Is there a website? Is there published information?
Mr Long: Yes. I researched it before I came
here. If you put "European Climate Change Programme"
into the search engine, it will lead you to the Europa website
of the Commission and you can read ECCP1, ECCP2 and the whole
way that it has spawned a legislative trail of work on climate
change. Going back to the question, there are two areas which
I think may damage the quality of legislation, or two factors
which need to be taken into account. One is the political pressure
which is sometimes exerted by countries which hold presidencies
of the EU and who want to rush legislation through so that they
can claim the victory under their presidency. That is one issue.
Another is the trialogue process and the conciliation process.
This quite often takes place behind closed doors. We really do
not know what goes on there, the compromises that may be reached,
the language that may be put in to reach compromises, the way
that language is then translated into 20 different Community languages.
It could well be that the whole pre-legislative process is actually
rather good but then this end part of the process may actually
leave something to be desired.
Q156 Chairman: But in your field
you have not felt any unhappiness about the Commission drafts?
I ask that to some extent against a background where we see quite
a lot of Commission drafts in the area of freedom, security and
justice and we have been critical of one or two of them, but in
your field you have not felt that is a problem?
Mr Long: I cannot point to anything where I
see a real problem in the pre-draft legislation. I do want to
alert the Committee to the idea now gaining ground of what is
called "framework legislation". The Water Framework
Directive is a good case in point. The Marine Strategy Directive
is another, and the Integrated Pollution Prevention Control another.
The idea is that the details of the legislation can actually be
filled in later and made more relevant to the individual Member
State's interests. This is a way of overcoming some of the difficulties
of trying to get everything in at the beginning. If I may say,
my Lord Chairman, WWF has been very involved in these stages of
the process. They come after the legislative activity in Brussels
and involve the implementation stages. My organisation is a member
of the Common Implementation Strategy for the Water Framework
Directive for example. We are also on the REACH committees looking
at the implementation of the annexes. So there is a whole engagement
of the non-governmental organisations that we have not spoken
about in these post-legislative stages.
Q157 Chairman: Does that potentially
lead to proposals for further harmonisation, the smoothing out
of discrepancies which arise when you observe what has happened
at the implementation stage?
Mr Long: That is absolutely the case, yes.
Chairman: I can see why that might be necessary,
having looked at the regulations which give effect to the Integrated
Pollution Prevention Control Directive. Good. Unless there are
any further questions, thank you very much indeed. I should have
said at the beginning, Mr Long, as a matter of form that if anyone
had any relevant interests to disclose they would be disclosed
in the House of Lords register. If you have got anything to add
in writing, do, when you see the transcript.
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