Brussels, 18/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - Steered by the ambition of the Council President Pieter Van Geel to work towards "a clean, intelligent and competitive Europe", the environment ministers of the EU have submitted their written recommendations to breathe new life into the Lisbon strategy and allow the EU to achieve its goal of being the most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010, making full use of the potential of innovative environment technologies.
The conclusions adopted last Thursday in Luxembourg formalise the debate held by ministers on "Eco-technologies as an opportunity for the economy", at the informal meeting in Maastricht last July (see EUROPE of 20 July, p.10). These conclusions are the Environment Council's contribution to the Spring European Summit, which, in March 2005, will proceed to a review of the Lisbon strategy and of the EU's sustainable development strategy. Here is the content of the message sent to the Heads of State and Government of the EU:
Reinforcing and making full use of positive synergy between environmental protection and competitiveness is a major challenge to guarantee that the Lisbon strategy will help towards the objectives the EU has set itself as part of its sustainable development strategy adopted in 2001.
Ecologically efficient innovations are a positive contribution to competitiveness in Europe, not only because they help business to keep costs down due to increased energy efficiency and more economic use of resources, but also because they create new carrier markets. Therefore, it is by taking full advantage of these opportunities that the EU will adopt a profile which is much more competitive, and will benefit from upturns in job creation and economic growth. But in order to take full advantage of the opportunities made available by eco-efficient innovations, conditions favourable to this sector must, as a priority, be identified and created. This, in partnership with the business world and all the actors involved should be mobilised around this objective, said the Council.
The conclusions stress the urgent need to offer ecologically efficient innovations the prospects of a competitive market governed by fair conditions, and to guarantee that the prices of products will accurately reflect the costs of their impact on the environment (internalisation of costs).
The Council feels that the swift implementation of the Action plan for environmental technologies (presented by the Commission in January 2004) is a necessary phase towards the creation of such a market, and that the fair price of products must be facilitated by using a whole range of instruments including notably "green" public contracts, tax instruments and a reform of subsidies which have considerable negative impacts on the environment and which are incompatible with sustainable development, and access to venture capital for business, especially SMEs.
In order to facilitate the development and market penetration of eco-efficient technologies, the EU's future policy and legislation will have to have long-term objectives, and aim at getting results.
The Environment Council calls upon the European Commission and the other configurations of the Council to include the positive effects of eco-efficient technologies into the Lisbon objectives when they prepare their own contribution to the Spring Summit, and to adopt the measures needed to make the best of these clean and innovative policies.