Environmental▼News PERSPECTIVE Bigger EU could affect environmental policies Will an expanded European Union continue to pursue aggressive environmental policies? With 10 new member states—many with significant environmental problems and limited funds to tackle them—joining the EU, experts expect major impacts on policy. Some predict that EU environmental policy will stagnate as the new states struggle to implement and comply with Western Europe’s much tougher regulations. Others say that future EU policies could tend to more market-based approaches rather than old-fashioned command-andcontrol laws. EU’s newest members, which joined the union in late May and raised the total membership to 25, are Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. The new states “have less of a tradition of environmental management and could exert a downward pull on the existing [member states],” says Miranda Schreurs, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. “For the next 5 to 10 years, the EU will probably focus on implementing existing legislation rather than pushing forward with yet more progressive laws,” she adds. Despite dramatic improvements in air and water quality in many former Soviet bloc countries in Central and Eastern Europe— mainly because of economic reform and the closing of inefficient factories—substantial problems remain, particularly in Czech Republic and Poland. For example, while these states have moved away from heavily polluting industrial and energy plants, they still depend heavily on coal. And the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania lack adequate waste disposal facilities and suffer from illegal waste dumping (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2002, 36, 414A–421A). Andrew Farmer of the Institute for European Environment Policy in London suggests that the new
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It’s not the same old European Union. The 10 new members of the EU, many of which have significant environmental problems, could push the region toward more marketbased solutions to problems, say experts.
states could put a hold on policy advances. “It’s not likely that new [member states] will sign up to more legislation or be a major driver of future legislation, and they could drag the whole EU back,” Farmer argues. He points out that if the new states stick together, or team up with small states such as Portugal, they could block a decision in the Environment Council of Ministers, the final arbiter in the law-making process. “This gives them a very strong negotiating position if they all agree.” It also seems clear that the enlarged EU will further embrace market-based approaches rather than standards and deadlines, says
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Jacqueline Karas of the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. The new members tend to be pro-business and anti-regulation because of their communist pasts, creating a stronger voice for market-based mechanisms in new areas such as water quality, she predicts. At the same time, these accession states also could be a good testing ground for new policy instruments, Schreurs adds, such as voluntary agreements for eco-labeling and market mechanisms such as emissions trading and energy taxes. Regardless of approach, EU enlargement is expected to bring major environmental benefits to
of the EU’s gross domestic product in the coming years. The EU has been providing environmental aid since 2000 and tripled that amount in May to ¤8 billion, which is around 10% of the new member states’ investment requirements until 2006. Other financial sources providing help include international institutions like the European Investment Bank, private groups, and consumer charges, such as fees on water and taxes. However, current expenditures are generally well below the target amount. For example, Poland, which is the most populous of the new states, currently spends only about half the old, 15-member EU average on environmental protection, says Schreurs. “The Polish government has estimated that it must spend ¤40 billion—one year’s total budget—in the coming years to comply with EU environmental standards,” points out Schreurs. “The EU will provide perhaps ¤6 billion. It remains a big question where the rest will come from. Emissions trading will help, increased fuel taxes will help, but they will only make a small dent. There is reason for some of the skepticism that is out there about the ability of new member states to meet EU standards.” Most nongovernmental aid agencies agree. According to a survey of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the new MS by the European Environment Bureau (EEB), an umbrella organization of environmental NGOs, inadequate funding and a lack of administrative resources are the biggest impediments to bringing about environmental and legal change. EEB’s Mara Silina says the public sector cannot compete with industry when it comes to salaries for the talented people needed to build up the necessary ministries, monitoring agencies, and inspectorates. “It is a big problem that environment agencies and ministries are often small and weak,” warns Schreurs. “A small number of bureaucrats must learn a vast body of law and try to implement it without adequate resources.” —MARIA BURKE
News Briefs GHG corporate reporting Businesses now have another tool to build an effective strategy to manage and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A revised edition of the GHG Protocol: Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, released by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, provides guidance on how companies and organizations can implement the standard for accurate reporting of GHG emissions. This edition reinforces and harmonizes the standards of the earlier edition, adding more case studies and explaining how to set achievable GHG reduction targets. GHG calculation tools are available both online (www.ghgprotocol.org) and in the report to calculate emissions from stationary or mobile combustion sources, process emissions, and industrial sector sources such as cement, iron and steel, pulp and paper, or office-based organizations. More than 30 companies in 9 countries have tested the standard. For more information on the report, go to www.wri.org.
EPA’s sustainability site Until recently, searching for the word “sustainability” on the U.S. EPA’s homepage did not show that the agency was investing much energy in the topic. But the situation has changed substantially since EPA quietly added a sustainability webpage (www.epa.gov/sustain ability) to its site. The page offers a wealth of links to EPA tools, programs, databases, publications, and other sustainable development resources, such as green chemistry, environmental indicators, and community-based environmental protection. The site also includes information about how to get EPA funding for sustainability research.
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the new member states. The accession countries, some with poor environmental protection records, have agreed to strict EU laws and must pass national laws that implement the EU’s directives. “These countries, with their levels of economic development, would not have adopted this type of legislation otherwise,” says Schreurs. All the new member states have submitted step-by-step implementation plans and have to report on their progress to the European Commission (EC). Officials say that the accession countries are mostly on track to implement EU environmental legislation. However, EU officials note that some countries, which they won’t name, need to do “significant work” on waste management. In the meantime, the EU has agreed to let all the new states transition to the tougher laws, mainly for regulation of water, waste, and industrial pollution. These transitional plans differ by country and include legally binding and non-negotiable intermediate targets and deadlines. For example, Latvia and Hungary have until 2015 to meet urban wastewater treatment requirements, Estonia and Lithuania must comply with air pollution requirements on large combustion plants by 2015, and Cyprus and Czech Republic are expected to meet recovery targets for packaging waste in 2005. The EC will apply its normal enforcement procedures if countries don’t comply. Karas has been surprised at the level of the new member states’ progress so far and says that the governments of several countries are trying really hard to implement the EU laws through their own national laws. Poland passed an Environmental Protection Act in 2001, for example, and set renewable energy targets to expand its share of renewable energies from 0.7% of all energy sources in 2001 to 7.5% by 2010. “But,” she adds, “it remains to be seen how rapidly [the EU regulations] will happen.” Complying with EU environmental law will require significant investment. The EC estimates it will cost the 10 member states ¤80–110 billion in total, or on average 2–3%
