Brussels, 17/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, within the framework of its recent "Action Plan on the Simplification and Improvement of the Regulatory Environment", the European Commission adopted a recommendation on environmental agreements at EU level in areas where the Union has not yet adopted legislative measures or where the Commission has not demonstrated its intention to introduce legislation.
The Communication identifies three different kinds of existing agreements: those which result from spontaneous decisions taken by interested parties in the sectors where the Commission has introduced no legislative measures or displayed any intention of proposing any; agreements resulting from reactions from interested parties after the Commission has shown an interest in legislating, agreements launched at the initiative of the Commission. The recommendation defines assessment criteria and procedural requirements in setting up agreements, criteria and demands that depend on who has initiated the agreement.
The Commission proposes that environmental agreements at Community level can be acknowledged in the framework of self-regulation or co-regulation. In the case of self-regulation, an agreement can be acknowledged by an exchange of letters or by a Commission Recommendation. In order to ensure that the agreement effectively contributes to the attainment of the environmental objective, proper monitoring and reporting mechanisms are crucial. The Recommendation could therefore be complemented by a Decision of the European Parliament and the Council establishing an appropriate monitoring system. Such a model has already been applied in the past when the Commission decided to acknowledge the commitments of the European, Korean and Japanese carmakers on the reduction of CO2 emissions from passenger cars. In the case of co-regulation, environmental agreements are integrated in a more binding and formal manner into a legislative act. The co-legislators (Council and European Parliament) establish the essential aspects notably the environmental objective to achieve at a given deadline as well as monitoring requirements whereas the economic operators themselves commit to implementing the detailed modalities under an environmental agreement.