Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1990 > Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities (6th Committee) > Report No. 06 - Aspects of EC Environment Policy

ANNEX III

THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPERATIVE

DECLARATION BY THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL

The natural envlronment which forms the life support system of our planet is gravely at risk. The earth’s atmosphere is seriously threatened. The condition of water resources, including the seas and oceans, is causing concern, natural resources are being depleted and there is growing loss of genetic diversity. The quality of life - indeed, the continuation of life - could no longer be assured were recent trends to proceed unchallenged.

As Heads of State and Government of the European Community, we recognise our special responsibility for the environment both to our own citizens and to the wider world. We undertake to intensify our efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment of the Community itself and the world of which it is part. We intend that action by the Community and its Member States will be developed on a coordinated basis and on the principles of sustalnable development and preventive and precautionary action. We have, therefore, adopted the following Declaration setting out guldellnes for future action.

The Community Dimension

The obligations of the European Community and its Member States in the area of environmental protection are clearly defined in the Treatles. There is also an increasing acceptance of a wider responsibility, as one of the foremost regional groupings in the world, to play a leading role in promoting concerted and effective action at global level, working with other industriallsed countries, and assisting developing countries to overcome their special difficulties. The Community’s credibility and effectiveness at this wider level depends in large measure on the ability to adopt progressive environmental measures for implementation and enforcement by its Member States. The internal and external dimensions of Community environment policy are therefore inextricably linked.

Completion of the internal Market in 1992 will provide a major impetus to economic development in the Community. There must be a corresponding acceleration of effort to ensure that this development is sustalnable and environmentally sound. In particular, the environmental risks inherent in greater production and in increased demand for transport, energy and infrastructure must be countered and environmental considerations must be fully and effectively integrated into these and all other policy areas.

The Community and the Member States must find effective solutions to all forms of pollution, including that created by the agricultural sector, and should support efforts to promote clean technology and non-polluting processes and products in industry. Better arrangements are also needed to protect the seas and coastal regions of Member States from the threat posed by the transport of oil and hazardous substances. This applies in particular to the marine waters to the west and south of the Community where new co-operation arrangements should be developed without delay, with the help of the Commission.

While welcome progress has been made in recent times in the adoption of environmental measures at Community level, much more needs to be done taking due account of the subsidiarity principle, the differing environmental conditions. In the regions of the Community and the need for balanced and cohesive development of these regions. We urge the Council and the Commission to press ahead with their work on this basis. The forthcoming intergovernmental conference should address ways of accelerating Community decision-making on environmental legisiation with a view to providing the Community with the necessary capacity in all respects to respond to the urgency of the situation.

Community environmental legisiation will only be effective if it is fully implemented and enforced by Member States. We therefore renew our commitment in this respect. To ensure transparency, comparability of effort and full information for the public, we invite the Commission to conduct regular reviews and to publish detailed reports on its findings. There should also be periodic evaluations of existing Directives to ensure that they are adapted to sclentific and technical progress and to resolve persistent difficulties in implementation; such reviews should not, of course, lead to a reduced standard of environmental protection in any case.

Standards designed to ensure a high level of environmental protection will remain the cornerstone of Community environment policy. But the traditional “command and control” approach should now be supplemented, where approprlate, by economic and fiscal measures if environmental considerations are to be fully integrated into other policy areas, if pollution is to be prevented at source, and if the polluter is to pay. We therefore call on the Commission to accelerate its work in this field and to present, before the end of 1990, proposals for a framework or guidelines within which such measures could be put into effect by the Member States in a manner consistent with the Treaties.

Implementation of Community environmental measures and the protection of the common European heritage can give rise to unequal burdens for individual Member States. In this context, we welcome the recent ENVIREG Initiative, under which support from the structural Funds will be provided for the management of hazardous wastes and the treatment of coastal waste water discharges. We invite the Commission to review the over all level of budgetary resources devoted to Community environment policy, currently disbursed through a number of separate funding mechanisms, and to submit its findings to the Council as soon as possible.

Global Issues

The Community and its Member States have a special responsibility to encourage and participate in international action to combat global environmental problems. Their capacity to provide leadership in this sphere is enormous. The Community must use more effectively its position of moral, economic and polltical authority to advance international efforts to solve global problems and to promote sustainable development and respect for the global commons. In particular, the Antarctic deserves special protection as the last great unspolled wilderness. The Community should also support efforts to build into international structures the capacity to respond more effectively to global problems.

Depletion of the ozone layer is a major cause for concern. The Community has already agreed to press for revision of the Montreal Protocol on substances which deplete the ozone layer so as to speed up considerably the complete ellmination of these substances. It is also committed to the provision of additional financial and technical resources to assist developing countries in implementing the protocol. We call on all the Contracting partles to the protocol to support these proposals and we call on States which have not already done so urgently to ratify or accede to the protocol.

Recent scientific assessments show that man-made emissions are substantlally increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and that a business-as-usual approach will lead to additional global warming in the decades to come. We urge all countries to introduce extensive energy efficiency and conservation measures and to adopt as soon as possible targets and strategles for limiting emissions of greenhouse gases. We call on the Commission to expedite its proposals for concrete action and, in particular, measures relating to carbon dioxide emissions, with a view to establishing a strong Community position in preparation for the Second world Climate Conference. The Community and its Member States will take all possible steps to promote the early adoption of a Climate Convention and associated protocols, including one on tropical forest protection.

We are gravely concerned at the continuing and rapid destruction of the tropical forests. We welcome the commitment of the new Government of Brazil to halt this destruction and its promote sustalnable forest management. The Community and its Member States will actively support this process. We have asked the Commission to open discussions as a matter of urgency with Brazil and the other Amazonlan Pact countries with a view to developing a concrete action programme involving the Community, its Member States and these countries. Elements for priority consideration should include dept for forest conservation exchanges; codes of conduct for timber importing industries; and the additional resources necessary to enable the forests to be preserved and managed on a sustalnable basis, making optimal use of existing agencies and mechanisms. We appeal to other industriallsed countries to join us in our efforts. In our own countries, we will work to protect the forests and to extend and strengthen programmes of afforestation.

Destruction of the tropical forests, soil erosion, desertification and other environmental problems of the developing countries can be fully addressed only in the context of North-South relationships generally. Nevertheless, the Community together with the Member States should play a major role is assisting these countries in their efforts to achieve long-term sustainable development. In this context, we welcome the provisions of the Fourth Lomé Convention under which increased assistance is to be given to ACP countries, at their request, in the field of population, environment and sustainable resource development. We also welcome the strategy set out in the Resolution on Environment and Development agreed by the Council on 29 May 1990, particularly in regard to the recognition of the need for additional resources to help deal with the environmental problems of developing countries. More generally, the cooperation agreements between the Community and the countries of Asla and Latin America falling outside the Lomé framework should increasingly emphasise our shared environmental concerns.

The environmental situation in Central and Eastern Europe presents special challenges. We endorse the agreement reached in Dublin on 16 June 1990 between the Environment ministers of the Community and those of Central and Eastern Europe on the steps to be taken to improve the environment in Europe as a whole and in Central and Eastern Europe in particular. Remedial measures must be taken by these countries to clear up problems which have developed through years of neglect and to ensure that their future economic development is substalnable. They need the support of the Community and its Member States in order to achieve these objectives. Action already taken within the PHARE programme is encouraging but will need to be developed further, both in the context of the expanded G24 programme and in the co-operation agreements between the Community and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We look forward also to the contribution to be made by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in this regard.

Personal Attitudes and Shared Responsibilities

Increased public awareness and concern for environmental issues is one of the major developments of our time. We note with satisfaction the adoption of the Regulation to establish the European Environment Agency which will provide reliable and objective information on the state of the environment for the citizens of Europe.

Another important development is the adoption of the Directive on Freedom of Access to Environmental information which will greatly increase the availability of information to the public and will lead to the publication of regular State of the Environment Reports. We invite the Member States to accompany these reports by national environment action plans, prepared in a form which will attract maximum public interest and support.

We urge Member States to take positive steps to disseminate environmental information widely among their citizens in order to build up more caring and more responsible attitudes, a. greater understanding, based on sound scientific assessments, of the nature and causes of problems, and a better appreciation of the costs and other implications of possible solutions.

The development of higher levels of knowledge and understanding of environmental issues will facilitate more effective action by the Community and its Member States to protect the environment. The objective of such action must be to guarantee citizens the right to a clean and healthy environment, particularly in regard to-

+the quality of air

+rivers, lakes, coastal and marine waters

+the quality of food and drinking water

+protection against noise

+protection against contamination of soil, soil erosion and desertification

+preservation of habitats, flora and fauna, landscape and other elements of the natural heritage

+the amenity quality of residential areas.

The full achievement of this objective must be a shared responsibility. Problems cannot be resolved without concerted action. In each country, everyone - Government, public authorities, private undertakings, individuals and groups - must be fully involved. Acceptance at all levels of this concept must be promoted.

Mankind is the trustee of the natural environment and has the duty to ensure its enlightened stewardship for the benefit of this and future generations. Solidarity must be shown with the poorer and less developed nations.

We note with interest the conciusions of the Siena Forum on international Law of the Environment and suggest that these should be considered by the 1992 UN conference on Environment and Development.

All of our decisions matter. The environment is dependent on our collective actions and tomorrow’s environment depends on how we act today.

The European Council invites the Commission to use these principles and objectives as the basis of the Fifth Action programme for the Environment and to present a draft of such a programme in 1991.