Brussels, 07/09/2010 (Agence Europe) - In order to develop the European Union's future biodiversity policy, the European Commission hopes to gather input from a wide range of stakeholders. It has therefore launched a public consultation exercise that will run until 22 October. Public administrations, business and civil society are invited to give their views on various policy options, to speak out on the shortcomings of the current policy and to formulate proposals allowing this policy to be better integrated in other policy areas.
In a press release published on Tuesday 7 September, Janez Potoènik, European Environment Commissioner, points out that: “Europeans agree on the need to step up efforts to combat biodiversity loss. I encourage everyone concerned by this vital issue to contribute and to help shape our policy”.
The EU's goal of stopping the decline in biodiversity by the end of 2010 will not be attained. In March this year, the Environment Council had taken a stance in favour of establishing a post-2010 vision with the fixing of a new objective to “halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of the ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, restore them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss”. See: http: //ec.europa.eu/environment/consultations/biodecline.htm. (A.N./transl.jl)