Brussels, 12/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Friday in Brussels, Environment Ministers from thirteen candidate countries signed the El Teide Declaration, thus committing themselves to doing everything in their power to put a halt on the decline in bio-diversity by 2010. The signing ceremony took place during the informal Ministerial meeting between candidate countries, Margot Wallström, Commissioner of the Environment and Hans Christian Schmidt, Acting President of the EU Council (see EUROPE yesterday p 14). Union Member States preceded this commitment by signing a declaration on 25 June that seeks to implement one of the objectives of the Community strategies on sustainable development, which is contained in the sixth Action Programme on the Environment.
The El Teide Declaration is the result of the joint work of the Commission and the Spanish Presidency of the Council and was presented for the first time in Tenerife on 9 May during a tenth commemorative anniversary of the "Habitats" directive. This directive is one of the major political instruments of the Union in nature conservation and aims to establish a protected natural habitats network.
During this meeting the candidate countries also confirmed their determination to work toward the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, already ratified by some of them (Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Malta and Cyprus, even if these two last countries are not key for the Protocol entering into force as they do not figure on the list of industrial countries compelled to reduce their greenhouse emissions). The others made commitment to speed up their ratification procedures to ensure the entry into force of the Protocol during the world Summit on sustainable development (Johannesburg 26 August- 4 September).