Meeting of G9 group of environmental NGOs European Parliament

EUROPA ^ | 25 January AD 2005 | Stavros Dimas

[Ryan Bailey]

Meeting of G9 group of environmental NGOs European Parliament, Wednesday, 26 January 2005

I am very pleased to be here this evening to address representatives of the Green 9 environmental NGOs. They have played an important role in moving forward and communicating the EU environmental agenda. I look forward to working with you over the coming years.

I am also grateful to John Bowis for hosting this event. The European Parliament plays a crucial role as co-legislator and advocate of environmental protection and I am committed to working closely with the EP during my mandate.

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Earlier this afternoon, President Barroso presented Parliament with the Commission’s strategic objectives for the next five years. These are the priorities that will define our work until 2010 and I am very pleased that the version agreed by College is based on the three pillars of: prosperity, solidarity and security.

The Communication presented today recognises that: “Actions that promote competitiveness, growth and jobs, as well as economic and social cohesion and a healthy environment reinforce each other. These are all essential components of the overarching objective of sustainable development, on which we must deliver”.

The issue of sustainable development is expanded upon under the pillar of solidarity. Here the Commission explicitly recognises the need for “sustainable management and protection of our environment” and concludes that environmental protection is a “key duty” that we have for future generations. Climate change is recognised as a specific challenge that needs to be addressed without delay.

I think that this document is a proof that keeping a high level of environmental protection remains at the heart of the European project – even at a time when the EU is, quite rightly, focussing on achieving the sustainable growth that will lead to long-term prosperity.

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Growth that ignores environmental considerations will clearly not be sustainable. And what is more, I firmly believe that a strong environment policy contributes to EU competitiveness. The Communication makes explicit references to the potential of eco-innovation, increased eco-efficiency and the development of environmental technologies.

But this is a point that we must continue to demonstrate in practical terms. We must drive home the message that a new, “greener” approach to production makes business sense. For example:

We need to remind policy makers that the eco-industries are an engine for growth, expanding at around 5% per year. Some sectors, such as wind power equipment, are already dominated by European companies and are growing at 30% a year. We need to emphasise OECD findings that the impact on the labour market of environmental policy is at worst neutral. We need to stress that greater energy efficiency means cost savings, increased security of supply, and less vulnerability to oil price volatility. * *

Over the next 5 years my own priority will be to see the 6th Environmental Action Programme successfully implemented. This means making progress in the four priority areas of action - climate change, biodiversity, environment and health, and resource use.

A particular priority for this year will be the completion of the seven thematic strategies on: sustainable resource use, waste pesticides, air quality, the marine environment, soil and the urban environment. I intend to see all of these adopted by the Commission this year.

The thematic strategies embody a new broad and integrated approach to environmental policy making. Each will propose a range of actions, identify responsibilities among the different actors, and establish clear timelines. The strategies have been developed together with you and other stakeholders. I am confident that through this process we will reach a good understanding about the objectives to be achieved and the means to do so.

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The thematic strategies break ground in many new areas. However, we also need to focus on effectively implementing existing legislation. We will have to work together with the Member States providing guidance and information. At the same time, I will not hesitate to use the Commission's legal powers whenever necessary.

You may have read in the press that the Commission has just taken legal action against all the EU-15 Member States in cases for violations of environmental law. We have also sent first warnings to most of the new Member States for non-communication of environmental Directives.

We must also have the courage to review existing legislation, to change things which are not working, and to find new ways of delivering results as cost-effectively as possible. To this end, we need to develop innovative policies, such as market-based instruments, fiscal measures, voluntary initiatives and flexible framework laws.

We also need to strengthen our knowledge base, grounding it in sound science and economics. And we have to continue to help the new Member States implement the environmental acquis.

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I see great scope for NGOs helping in all these areas. You have the expertise we need to enhance the quality of our policy initiatives. Our consultation and involvement of stakeholders is now systematic and increasingly extensive. We need you to continue to provide focused and targeted inputs.

But we also want to reach out to the general public. This means better communication - clear, understandable and accessible information on the environment for citizens is essential. And convincing the general public is the best way of ensuring that politicians continue to place environmental issues high on the political agenda.

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We all recognise that it is impossible to achieve our environmental goals through the work of DG Environment alone. This is why integration remains very high on my priority list. A useful development has been the introduction of impact assessment for all major new policy initiatives by the Commission.

But we have to make greater efforts to ensure that environmental costs and benefits are fully factored in to all decisions.

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At the Spring Council, the EU Heads of Government will make some fundamental choices about the future direction of the Union. Together, we need to make our voices heard and push for sustainable growth and an acknowledgement of the contribution that environmental policies can make to competitiveness.

And I am convinced that these arguments will win the day. A narrow focus on growth alone will alienate a European public which has become used to the environmental improvements of the last 30 years. No one would accept a return to exhaust fumes that poison our children, acid rain that kills our trees and rivers that are biologically dead.

This is a time when Europe, more than ever, needs to demonstrate its “value-added” to European citizens. A strong and successful set of environmental policies is one of the best ways of doing this.

[Ryan Bailey]

In the spectrum of sustainable growth developments across the world today, most strike us as at best strange and at worst evil. Among these would be the Federalists odd fetish with populational disintegration, which seems to our mind symptomatic of a grander style of suicidalism than has yet been recorded.

The Federalists and like minded policy reformers in the stratification of global diplomacy for the subject matters of population control and environmental protection, seem to have found for us all a convergence whereby the most optimistic development could be the decline of civilised man, which has by their reckoning accomplished very little good for the planet. This atheistic worldview has now begun a new paradigm for mankind's future, and one with which we are greatly distressed. This would be the base view that that which benefits the planet must harm the sum progenity of the human race and that which aids mankinds propagation in any wise must needs be detrimental to the planet.

This thinking raises not a few questions of ethical concern which must be examined at some length ( to this end I am here launching a series of commentaries on the subject of threats and opportunities for America- and I would suppose the greater world suzerainty of the Anglo-American Imperium- in the New World Order, for which my working title is; " The Global Test" ) and considered in the light of the readjusting power structures of our world, in particular Continental Europe.

The European Union is currently designing their programme of environmental regulation for the future, designed to place the moral impetus squarely on the need to protect the environment above man whenever and wheresoever possible. The stratagem is, to our thinking, aimed at least as much at limiting human population growth as it would be at limiting western corporate profiteering. The corporate profits are indeed an unquestionable red herring on this issue. Economics being what they are, the political scientist must indeed take all factors into account when conglomerating an analysis on global policies and the politicking which goes into arranging them. In this case, however, we have, arguably, a very blatant step toward eliminating the abilities of governments to function in their most essential directive.

The European Union's motivation has shifted from benefiting man to benefiting the environment; and where these two conflict, man has now chosen to be a sworn enemy to himself. How long can a race exist under such conditions ?