Brussels, 21/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The first, mainly positive, reactions to the Sustainable Development Strategy set out by the European Commission ahead of the European Summit in Gothenburg (see EUROPE of 17 May, p. 7), express the importance of what it at stake and also bear witness to the general desire to make sustainable development a priority for EU and international summits.
For the Swedish Council Presidency, the Commission's Communication is a good basis for the deliberations of the EU Heads of State and is an important contribution to addressing the future development of Europe. "The Commission proposal for a strategy is a good start. However, I think that we have to be more ambitious when it comes to the most important issues", said Kjell Larsson; Swedish Environment Minister. He feels that the EU should a) adopt concrete objectives to address pressing unsustainable trends; b) take a leading role in global cooperation by stressing the global aspects of sustainable development, in particular by making clear the long-term commitments to addressing climate change; c) establish a good process that guarantees a successful implementation of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy, including full and effective participation of all stake holders.
Environmental NGOs constructively criticise the strategy, suggesting ways for improving it
In a press release, the European Environmental Bureau (EBB) welcomed the Commission's move as a step in the right direction. The EEB Secretary General, John Hontelez, said that "the Strategy may be the starting point for a new development model that really integrates environmental and long term challenges. It sets out clearly the Commission's vision on sustainability, stresses that all EU policies need to fulfil a sustainability test, sets an interesting framework for actions in the coming years and commits the Commission to a set of legislative and market oriented proposals that are on target indeed". The EBB wants, however, to "discuss specific elements that are not always ambitious enough", in the hope that the "Strategy can be improved further by the European Council in Gothenburg".
The EBB is pleased that the Strategy includes many elements it considers to be vital, such as greening the economy, including phasing out environmentally perverse subsidies, environmental tax reform and using public procurement to promote clean technologies. It also welcomed the Commission's determination to have a strict environmental liability Directive in place by 2003, which the EEB feels will work well for internalisation of environmental costs in the price of goods and services.
Some of the weak points of the Communication quoted by the EEB as requiring improvement are:
1. the timetable for phasing out environmentally perverse subsidies. The target of 2010 for fossil fuel subsidies is not ambitious at all, given that governments should have been phasing out these subsidies for a long time, and the absence of any deadline for abolishing agricultural subsidies that lead to environmental degradation is seen as a big omission;
2. the annual target of cutting greenhouse gas missions after the Kyoto period by 1% between 2012 and 2020 is "interesting but not sufficient". The EEB points out that to prevent a major warming of the earth, the EU must work towards an 80-90% reduction of greenhouse gases at home within the next fifty years. The EEB stresses the importance of clarifying whether this 1% reduction will be entirely realised 'at home' or whether it includes reductions realised in other countries with EU investments (using the Kyoto Protocol's clean mechanisms).
3. the absence of an unambiguous objective to stop the growth of transport, and within that a shift towards a larger share of public transport by rail and water.
In a joint letter sent to the EU Heads of State, the EEB, Friends of the Earth and International Friends of Nature call for the EU to become the most resource efficient economy in the world… reaching levels of resource use and environmental impact that are in line with the carrying capacity of the European and global environment". The NGOs feel that Gothenburg should "result in at least one bold and concrete programme, which is greening the economy" where the "abolition of environmentally perverse subsidies and promotion of sound subsidies, greening procurement policies, application of environmental liability and producers responsibility, and tax incentives for environmental protection are essential elements".