Brussels, 11/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 10 April, the European Parliament adopted the report by Riita Myller (PES, Finland) on the mid-term evaluation of the Sixth Environment Action Programme, and showed itself far less optimistic that the European Commission had been a year previously. When it assessed progress made since the programme was launched in 2002, the Commission was satisfied with the state of the current strategic environmental policy framework, while calling for extra effort to achieve targets by 2012 (see EUROPE 9419). The report, which was approved by 599 votes to 19, with 19 abstentions, regrets that the action programme had missed a number of deadlines, and felt that some objectives would not be met by 2012. The Parliament called on the EU to “do everything in its power to attain the objectives agreed in the Sixth EAP, as failure to attain them would damage the EU's credibility, inter alia in the eyes of members of the public who are concerned about the state of the environment”.
With regard to thematic strategies in the 6th framework programme (soil, sea, environment, air, pesticides, urban environment, natural resources and waste recycling), MEPs said that these strategies had improved stakeholder involvement and developed a more strategic approach to environmental policy, says an EP press release published after the vote. MEPs regretted, however, that they “have also lengthened the duration of the environmental policy-making process by delaying the formulation of concrete policy proposals and the adoption of resulting measures”. Arguing for better results, Parliament “recalls that full and correct implementation of the existing legislation is a top priority and considers that binding legislation remains central to meeting environmental challenges”. It called on the Commission and member states to “promote stronger and more coherent environmental policy integration in all EU policy-making”. For this, “there is a need to draw up binding sectoral targets and timetables”. The report also criticises the ineffectiveness of the EU emissions trading scheme which “has not so far led to reductions in CO2 emissions because of the overly generous allocation of emission allowances”. The EP argues that the system for after 2012 should “include a sufficiently stringent cap, full auctioning and a quantitative and qualitative limit of the use of certified emission reductions (CERs) and emission reduction units (ERUs)”. The Commission and member states are also invited to devote more effort to ecological tax reform, including a gradual shift of the tax burden from welfare-negative taxes towards welfare-positive taxes, such as resource use or pollution. (A.B.)