Brussels, 10/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's environment committee, chaired by Miroslav Ouzky (EPP-ED, Czech Republic), backs the framework directive on soil protection unveiled by the European Commission as the cornerstone of the EU's 'thematic strategy' for soil protection (see EUROPE 9271), as long as it is left to the member states and regional and local authorities to decide on the measures to be implemented. Adopting a report by Cristina Gutierrez Cortines (EPP-ED, Spain) on 9 October by 45 to 13, the environment committee basically backed the draft directive in first reading, a directive which has many critics at the European Parliament and in the member states (see EUROPE 9389). The vote results from a compromise deal that brought EPP-ED MEPs on board - they had been opposing the idea of any draft binding EU legislation on soil protection.
Gutierrez Cortines said the MEPs had amended the draft directive to establish soil protection criteria to be met by all member states but leaving it to the member states themselves on the measures to be adopted to achieve the common objective of soil protection.
The members of the environment committee decided it would be a good idea for national de-contamination policies to be drawn up by the member states seven years after the directive comes into force in their legal systems (as the European Commission has suggested), but an amendment specifies that the policies have to be taken at 'the administrative level they (Ed: the member states) consider appropriate'.
Alongside a national inventory, open to the public, of contaminated sites that the member states will have to draw up (as specified in the draft directive), the MEPs want the option of regional inventories being drawn up, which would be updated at least every five years to include new contaminated sites and remove de-contaminated sites. The environment committee has added to the draft directive a definition of 'contaminated sites', specifying that these are sites where at least 5 dangerous chemicals caused by human activity, and which present a serious risk to health, are found on or in the soil.
To reduce red tape, the MEPs scrapped the measure whereby, for the sale of sites used for activities which might contaminate the soil, sellers or purchasers would have to provide a report on the state of the soil to the authorities and to the other party in the sale. Rather than drawing up a report, all known information must now be provided to the purchaser.
The environment committee reaffirmed that the member states will be free to change their farm policies to protect the soil but want the EU27 to improve soil capacity to absorb carbon and thereby help combat climate change.
The MEPs want member states to identify, within five years of transposition of the directive, priority zones to be granted special protection against soil erosion, declining organic matter, soil biodiversity loss, compaction, salinisaton, landslides, desertification and acidification. They said that the choice of measures to combat these phenomena should be left to member states.
The Greens/EFA slam the compromise as watering down what is already a weak directive. German Green MEP Hiltrud Breyer said in a press release that it was vital that EU legislation tackled the serious problem of soil degradation in Europe. The Greens believe 'key articles on requirements for identifying and assessing contaminated sites were narrowly rescued but proposals on soil remediation were weakened, while a provision giving prospective land buyers the right to know about possible contamination was also made meaningless.' They add that the environment committee denied the public the right to participate in measures to be taken by the member states and regional authorities to tackle soil degradation, or at least to be informed about the measures, and this flies in the face of the Aarhus Convention.
Opponents of the directive are not planning to give up. Hartmut Nassauer (EPP-ED, Germany) opposes the idea of a directive on the grounds of subsidiarity, arguing that a majority vote at the EP's environment committee did not mean that serious reservations about the very existence of such a directive had been swept aside, as was demonstrated by the votes from the 'rejection front'. He said he supported effective soil protection but it was a matter for the member states not the EU. In the absence of any European value-added, there was no need for legislation, he argued. He is counting on the European Parliament plenary to change tack when it decides on the draft directive in November. (an)