Brussels, 19/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - At the meeting of the Agriculture Council, which was held in Brussels on Monday 19 March, several member states, including Austria, Germany, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg and Portugal, voiced their doubts at the usefulness of a framework directive on soil protection, stating, amongst other things, that binding legislation in this field may end up duplicating the work of the existing instruments of the framework directive on water and the principle of conditionality in direct aid (whereby payment is made only as long as certain environment criteria are respected). This group of countries wanted subsidiarity (action to be taken at national, or local, level) to be taken into account. Only Greece, Cyprus and, to a certain extent, Slovenia, supported the adoption of the framework directive on soil protection (see EUROPE 9372 for the reactions of the environment ministers of the EU).
Stavros Dimas, Commissioner for the Environment, who presented the European agriculture ministers with his proposals on soil protection (thematic strategy and accompanying proposed framework directive), stated that a directive on soil protection would help to “plug the current gaps”, given that soil quality is consistently getting worse in spite of the existing provisions. He recommended more concrete and more harmonised soil protection measures and a synergisation of national strategies in this area. He also defended the “flexibility” of his proposal, which gives the member states a certain amount of flexibility in their scope of action and their level of ambition, in order to take account of the great disparity of local soils and other specifics. He then went on to point out that a transition period of five years was planned, to provide plenty of time for the development of knowledge on the nature of soils. The member states pointed out to the Commission that 320 different types of soil had been identified within the EU, and that it was essential to take account of these specifics before legislating.
Furthermore, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Finland called for acidification to be added to the list of natural threats for the degradation of soil identified by the Commission (land slips, erosion, settlement, salinisation, etc). Mr Dimas was inclined to do so, as long as the countries in question provide him with specific data to back up their arguments. Lastly, Romania called upon the Commission to take account of its forthcoming legislation on the high levels of soil humidity in the Danube Delta area. (lc)