Brussels, 18/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - From words to action is the watchword of the European Commission for the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg (South Africa) from 26 August to 2 September. Commissioners Pascal Lamy (Trade) and Margot Wallström (Environment), repeated it to the press on Thursday in Brussels, on the occasion of the "Green Week" that has drawn the attention of Union citizens to sustainable development, with a workshop devoted to preparations for the Summit.
"Most hopes raised in 1992 by the Rio Summit have not been given concrete substance. One person out of five in the world still lives on less than one dollar a day, forests are declining before our eyes, and consumption of water resources is increasing 2-3% per year", recalled Margot Wallström, who stressed the urgent need to remedy these non-sustainable trends and to fill in the gaps left by Rio, with the creation of "partnerships for action". The Commissioner expresses disappointment at the preparatory meeting in New York which, "in the absence of essential political leadership for limiting itself to the essential, has not served much purpose". She considers that the main thing is to set "realistic but ambitious" objectives and develop an action plan with concrete results, rather than getting lost in a plethora of agenda that are impossible to manage. The elimination of poverty and the promotion of methods of sustainable consumption are, in her view, the two aims that the Union should advocate, playing a leading role in Johannesburg. As far as the elimination of poverty is concerned, it is, she says, appropriate to focus on transversal priorities (creating a partnership for guaranteeing that everyone has access to drinking water by 2015 with good management of water resources and hydrologic basins; providing clean energy to one billion people who do not have access to energy; strengthening good governance in socio-economic and environmental fields, and implementing the aims of the Monterrey conference on development financing) and to precisely set out the means for effectively implementing such measures, as well as the sources of financing that can be mobilised to this end. "Good involvement of all players is therefore indispensable. I hope companies will be just as cooperative as NGOs were in Rio", stressed Margot Wallström, who insisted on the essential role that everyone can play: - civil society in the creation of networks to exercise pressure on political leaders in Johannesburg, and the private sector in the implementation of concrete solutions, such as the provision of clean technologies.
"Sustainable development concerns us all at the Commission. It is a cross-the-board priority to be integrated in the different portfolios to attain the aim of consistency between environmental concerns and socio-economic issues. This requires better governance at every level so that globalisation is a tool for sustainable development", said Pascal Lamy. In his view, the Johannesburg summit is a "link in a chain" that goes from Marrakech, to Monterrey (development financing) via Doha (agenda for development) and Tokyo (climate change). He went on to explain that, in commercial matters, the Union's priorities for Johannesburg are promotion for the implementation of the Doha Agenda and agreements for measures that go beyond this agenda, in order in particular to stimulate production that is environmentally friendly and social standards, to promote fair trade, to encourage new forms of biological agriculture, and to fight against unlawful deforestation and against trade resulting from any form of practices that are detrimental to nature. Recalling that the "Everything but Arms" initiative and the revised EU Generalised System of Preferences serve these aims, Pascal Lamy declared: "We are determined to play a leading role in Johannesburg Marrakech, Doha and Monterrey have shown that when it is united Europe can make all the difference." Giving his assurance that the Union's environmental concerns do have an influence on all trade negotiations conducted by the Commission, Pascal Lamy admitted that the notion of environmentally-friendly products was still very vague at the WTO and that it will take time to specify what it really means. "This is why we prefer bilateral agreements", he added.