Continuing the ‘just and green transition’ is the watchword that will guide the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council in the environmental field as it gets underway, with the priority for the six-month period being to finalise the initiatives of the ‘European Green Deal’ in response to “the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution”. Given the amount of legislation on the table and the initiatives still to come, it's fair to say that Belgium has its work cut out.
“To reduce vulnerabilities to climate change, the Presidency will strive to enhance the Union’s circular economy and adaptive and preparedness capacities. It will also promote sustainable water management”, the work programme emphasises.
The Belgian Presidency will be responsible for starting work on the initiative on water resilience. According to the Commission’s work programme for tackling water shortages – the outline of which was unveiled last summer by the European Commissioner for the Environment Virginijus Sinkevičius – this is expected to happen in the first quarter, and will integrate this concern into the practices of major water users in the various sectors of economic activity and water pricing (see EUROPE 13274/18).
With regard to the legislative dossiers on the table, the Belgian Presidency intends to make progress in the inter-institutional negotiations, in particular on three dossiers that it considers to be major.
In this regard, it cites: the proposed regulation on packaging and packaging waste, a key text for the circular economy on which the EU Council has just adopted its negotiating position (see EUROPE 13316/5); the proposed revision of the Ambient Air Quality Directive aimed at closer alignment with WHO recommendations (see EUROPE 13294/3); and the proposed modernisation of the directive on the treatment of urban waste water, aimed at combining the fight against residual pollution and saving energy from wastewater treatment plants. Interinstitutional negotiations on this dossier began at the end of November (see EUROPE 13299/39).
The Belgian Presidency also intends to continue work on several other legislative texts:
- the proposal for a directive in March 2023, which will establish a framework for the substantiation and communication of green claims by companies in order to put an end to the proliferation of misleading or unfounded claims (greenwashing), creating confusion among consumers (see EUROPE 13286/9, 13147/6).
- the revision of the framework directive on waste (2008/98), proposed last July to set targets for reducing food and textile waste (see EUROPE 13216/3), and the revision of the regulation on the management of end-of-life vehicles, which the Commission also presented in July to increase the circularity of the automotive sector, its sustainability and the resource-efficient management of end-of-life vehicles (see EUROPE 13222/16).
In addition, the Presidency has announced that it will do its utmost to move forward negotiations on the proposal for a directive on soil monitoring and resilience, on which the Member States held an initial policy debate in December (see EUROPE 13316/6).
It will also do its utmost to “continue the successful implementation” of the 2020 Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, which has so far remained in limbo. In particular, it intends to encourage discussions on certain aspects, such as microplastics and PFASs – the perennial chemical pollutants that have become the talk of the town, particularly in Belgium.
The Belgian Presidency plans to hold an informal meeting of the Member States’ environment ministers on 15 and 16 January, at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels.
Internationally, the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council intends to “promote Europe’s green ambitions on the world stage”. It will be responsible for preparing the EU’s position for the 6th UN Environment Assembly and for the ongoing negotiations on an “ambitious and legally binding” global treaty to put an end to plastic pollution.
See the programme:https://aeur.eu/f/a4i (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)