Brussels, 01/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - EU co-funding of municipal waste management infrastructure, granted under the structural actions, is not efficient in helping the member states to achieve the objectives of the EU policy on waste management, due to deficient implementation of the accompanying measures, such as the organisation of awareness-raising campaigns, the revision of administrative procedures and the setting in place of financial incentive or deterrent measures, the Court of Auditors state in a special report (SR 20/2012), which was published on Thursday 31 January.
The Court's audit focused on the performance of 26 waste management infrastructures in eight regions of the EU. The Court flagged up great weaknesses in the communication of information on achieving EU objectives. Although improvements in terms of waste management were observed in practically all regions, the production of waste per head of population increased in six of the eight regions under review. Just 25% of the regions had considerably increased their rates of selective collection and generally achieve the EU's objectives. As a general rule, waste is put into landfill following deficient or non-existent pre-treatment.
The Court of Auditors therefore recommends: - that the member states focus on the infrastructure which carries out the treatment of waste sorted at source; - that the member states set in place reliable and complete databases on the management of waste and that the Commission checks the reliability of the statistics submitted, and that the Commission, Parliament and Council look into making the granting of EU financial aid conditional upon achieving the objectives of the EU waste management policy; - that the member states pay close attention to getting the public involved and on board, focus on selective collection to include biodegradable waste when such operations present a good cost-effectiveness ratio and institute a landfill tax to encourage the prevention and recycling of waste; reduced intervention rates should be applied whenever the principle of “polluter pays” is not followed; - that the Commission makes the granting of EU funding conditional on the implementation of accompanying measures, proposes objectives for waste prevention and clarifies the concept of treatment before disposal. The Court of Auditors is also of the opinion that the Commission should ask the member states to implement these recommendations before they are granted EU co-funding.
The stakes are high because it is estimated that each citizen of the EU produces on average 500 kilograms of municipal waste a year which, if it is not collected, processed and disposed of adequately, can have negative impacts on public health and the environment. The amounts allocated by the EU to the co-funding of infrastructure project in a number of regions under the structural actions are considerable (€10.8 billion for the period 2000-2013). (AN/transl.fl)