Brussels, 15/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The day before the signing ceremony of the Accession Treaty in Athens, the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) launched an appeal to the Union of 25 to take every potential advantage possible from enlargement while avoiding repetition of past mistakes made in the name of Common Agricultural Policy and rural development policies, mistakes which later proved fatal for the environment.
"The unprecedented enlargement of the European Union will bring the bulk of the continent's remaining natural wealth into the EU's fold. But holding onto this wealth will be a challenge not only for the accession countries, but for the EU as a whole. The ten accession countries that are expected to join the European Union next year, and those that are expected to follow in 2007, bring with them many of the last great wilderness areas and rich cultural landscapes remaining on the European continent. They include for example Europe's last bastion of large carnivores and virgin forests, the Carpathian Mountains, as well as the Biebrza National Park in north-eastern Poland, one of the world's most outstanding wetland areas", the WWF stresses in a press release.
Recalling that the CAP and rural development policy are, to a large extent, responsible for the environmental damage caused in the current Member States, WWF fears the same could happen again in the new Member States if these policies and programmes are not fundamentally reformed. From this, the defence protection organisation considers that the decisions to be taken in the Union in the next two years will have a decisive influence on the future of this natural wealth.
"At the moment, we seem bent on encouraging, and even forcing, the accession countries to repeat our own past mistakes. We must avoid using structural and cohesion funds as we have done in countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal, to fund yet more and more road construction subsidised by the EU taxpayer", warns Andreas Beckman, WWF EU Accession Coordinator.
The WWF expresses concern about several controversial projects included in the Accession Treaty in the context of the trans-European transport network. Above all, it cites the Via Baltica project for which the highway goes straight through the Biebrza National Park and many of Poland's most outstanding natural areas, despite the existence of less environmentally destructive alternatives, or the project for development of a canal to link the Danube to the Oder and the Elbe.
Irek Chojnacki, WWF Poland Director, adds: "the outcome of negotiations on the future shape of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy will be critical in determining the future of the rich cultural landscapes in Poland and other accession countries".