Strasbourg, 16/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission President, Romano Prodi, after having briefly presented, on Tuesday evening to the European Parliament, the two main parts of the strategic document on sustainable development (see other article), answered questions from MEPs who questioned in particular the respect for European legislation in terms of the environment. In answering a question on the issue of subsidies to tobacco farming, Mr Prodi recognised that this presents one of the problems which the Commission strategy wants to tackle, that of the compatibility of European policies between themselves - in this case, between the Common Agricultural Policy and Health protection.
Mr Prodi was also questioned, on the eve of his departure to Moscow for the EU/Russia Summit, over his intention to raise the problematic of sustainable development with President Putin, and replied that, notably thanks to the "serious and constructive insistence" by Finland, the European Union had decided to contribute, with financing from the EIB, towards actions aiming to resolve the ecological problems in the Gulf of Finland. We will also more generally discuss energy, underlined Mr Prodi, when stating that the dossier had greatly progressed, following several "technical meetings". The problem that concerns me is that of nuclear waste in Russia, he admitted. To the MEPs who are concerned with the follow-up of the Commission initiative, Mr Prodi said that the Commission had, in its strategic document, decided in particular to establish a "roundtable of independent experts", which will keep us permanently informed.