A plastics strategy to protect our oceans, revision of the legislation on the quality of drinking water, deployment of means to ensure compliance with EU environmental legislation and suggestions for improvement of the REACH regulation all are praiseworthy initiatives from the European Commission but more needs to be done to help declining biodiversity and improve air quality in Europe, said the European Parliament’s environment committee, meeting in Brussels on Monday 26 March.
As part of the “structural dialogue”, Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner Karmenu Vella attended the meeting to discuss legislative progress and the initiatives for the next ten months. Like the MEPs, he acknowledged inclusion of environmental concerns in all sectoral policies – principally the CAP, on its mid-term review – was a matter of urgency.
In the face of MEPs’ fears that the EU could “yet again miss the boat on biodiversity if the CAP is not changed”, Vella suggested that a biodiversity- and environment-friendly CAP was “one of the greatest challenges”. He added: “We have a unique opportunity to get things right, otherwise we’ll have to wait another seven years. We have to stop subsidising harmful practices. I’m working closely with Mr Hogan”.
The commissioner welcomed the inclusion of the oceans on the agenda of the G7, arguing that “that will help us in the follow-up to the ‘Our Ocean’ conference in October last which saw us take global leadership”.
With regard to improving air quality, Vella confirmed that, “in the next round of infringements at the end of April”, he would put it to the College of Commissioners that some of nine member states challenged for persistent breaches of pollution levels be referred to the Court of Justice. Some MEPs stated that the Commission had not acted swiftly enough.
Vella also indicated that the proposal for the revision of the drinking water directive that is on the table would be supplemented “in the coming weeks” by a legislative proposal on re-using water for agricultural activities.
The commissioner further announced: - swift action to tackle the alarming decline in pollinator numbers; - new guidelines on 21 May on the Natura 2000 network for the implementation of the “EU Action Plan for Nature, People and the Economy” of April 2017 (see EUROPE 11811); - extension of the scope of the Environmental Implementation Review, the country-by-country evaluation of environmental performance, to include climate change and chemicals; - preparation of a proposal for the LIFE programme after 2020, which could bring together integrated strategic projects under CAP and regional funding.
The Commission is also planning to propose using the EU Ecolabel framework for a labelling scheme that would apply to financial services as part of the action plan unveiled on 7 March on a taxonomy for sustainable finance (see EUROPE 11987 and 11977).
To improve the implementation of REACH regulation (on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) and help SMEs in this task, the commissioner “is asking the member states for more resources”. He called on MEPs to support all the legislative texts currently on the table. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)