SECOND EU SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABILITY A
FAILURE
(Barcelona, March 16, 2002)- The European
Environmental Bureau (EEB) and Friends of the
Earth Europe concluded that the Barcelona
Summit was a wasted opportunity for
sustainable development. Not one new decision
to implement the EU Sustainable Development
Strategy was taken, nor new incentives given
to the EU institutions to balance economic
development with particular environmental
conditions.
John Hontelez, Secretary General of the
EEB said:
"The Goteborg Summit in 2001, decided that
the Spring Summits are to complete the
economic and social renewal agenda with an
environmental dimension and therefore
establish a new approach to policy making.
The Barcelona Summit, however, treats the
environmental dimension as a formality
only, taking stock of what is happening,
but not giving any new incentives.
Complacency instead of urgency, this is a
dramatically wrong attitude of Europe's
political leaders. The decision on
postponing environmental taxes on energy
products is an outrage."
EEB and FOE Europe are upset by the
Summit's decision to postpone a decision on
environmental taxes on energy products until
2004, and to connect it with the dispute on
the liberalisation of energy markets.
The environmental organisations also
deplore the failure of the Summit to
criticize the complacency of several Councils
of Ministers regarding the environmental
policy integration process, an obligation
laid down in the EU Treaty. This process,
started at the 1998 Summit in Cardiff,
suffers from the absence of clear sectoral
targets, timetables and the obligation to use
instruments that make prices of goods and
services reflect their environmental
impact.
According to the organisations, the
Barcelona Summit does not give any further
direction to the Commission and the Member
States to take urgent steps to reduce the
environmental and health impacts of their
economic and sectoral policies. The making of
a new chemicals policy was delayed and risks
complete failure due to a strong subversive
campaign from industry. Environmental pricing
of transport needs explicit high level
political support, given the strong
opposition of interest groups. Biodiversity
is declining and needs uncompromised
implementation of current EU laws, as well as
new initiatives. The public opposition to
GMOs in food production needs to be
respected. Dramatic initiatives are needed to
combine innovation with a reduction of
resource use targets. All of these elements
are absent in the Summit's conclusions.
The organisations welcome the
reconfirmation of the objective to ratify
Kyoto before the upcoming World Summit on
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. But
more initiatives are needed from the EU to
make that Summit a success. The organisations
urge the EU governments to develop a
promising external dimension for its
Sustainable Development Strategy in the
coming months, dramatically improving the
weak proposals the Commission produced last
month.
Finally, the EEB and FOE Europe regret to
see that the Sustainability Impact Assessment
for all major policy proposals has been
postponed further and made more and more
dependent on another exercise with a very
different purpose, one on "better
regulation".
Contact in Barcelona: Frederic Thoma
(FoEE), +32-486-401895
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