Preserving our environment.

Introduction

The following article is reprinted in its entirety from Centre Point, the journal of the NW Centre of the Institution of Environmental Health Officers in the United Kingdom.

The E.C. is now key factor in environmental policy making. Whatever the other implications of the Danish Referendum result environmental policy making will remain a major area of competence in the European Community.

Environmental health officers need to be aware of EC decision making and be actively engaged in its development. In this paper I intend to examine:

i) The political background to E.C. environmental policy;

ii) The E.C.'s environmental policy agenda for the 1990s;

iii) The implications for environmental health officers.

i) The political background to E.C. environmental policy

a) The E.C. is now very different from 10-15 years ago. It has increased in size with the accession of Greece, Spain and Portugal, in competence in the fields of research and development, social policy, economic policy and environmental policy. It has changed internally and the European Parliament is now a major component of the E.C. alongside the Commission and Council and the European Parliament increasingly has real influence over E.C. policy. b) The development of E.C. environmental policy reflects the changes in the Community during the 1980s.

The early environmental policy was based on economic logic (the level playing field), and on an unanimity amongst Member States resulting in lowest common denominator decisions.

The Single European Act (1986) formally included an environmental policy in the Treaty, and, by Article 100A, started to allow decision making by qualified majority voting, and the European Parliament started to have power over community decisions and not simply influence.

c) Regardless of the Danish referendum the Community will continue to undergo change in the 1990s and this will be beneficial for Community environmental policy.

Enlargement of the Community may take place through membership being extended to Austria, Switzerland, Finland. Norway and Sweden, all countries which place environmental issues high on their political agendas.

Enlargement eastwards -- Eastern European countries face very great environmental problems. Decades of Marxism-Leninism have ruined environmental conditions (life expectancy, for example, in on a par with that of developing countries). It must also be remembered that environmental movements laid ground for political change in these countries.

d) The Maastrict Treaty, in some way or other, will come into force. It does go some way towards democratising E.C. environmental policy further, but it must also be recognised that one motivation of the Danish electorate was that Maastrict did not guarantee a sufficiently high environmental standard. A genuinely open participatory, and, above all, democratic Community would lead not only to higher environmental standards but also prevent the kind of public reluctance developing which resulted in the Danish "No" vote.

ii) E.C.'s environmental policy agenda for the 1990s

a) The development of policy is now a major area of E.C. activity. Some 30 items of new E.C. environmental legislation have been produced by my Committee in the last three years together with an equal number of public health and consumer protection measures. It is important that the Parliament's Committee is responsible for public health and consumer protection as well as environmental policy; there are definite connections between these areas of policy (for example -- Healthy Cities, cooperation with WHO).

b) The legislative programme for this year is wide ranging; in some ways it also sets the agenda for the rest of the decade. This is most clear in our consideration of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme. The Fifth Programme will set a framework for the policy for the 1990s. Its overall objective is sustainable development. In other words, "a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technology, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs {Brundland (Prime Minister of Norway) 1987}.

Hence the Community is proposing an economic strategy (land and social strategy and a transport strategy ...) which is sustainable.

d) Other elements of E.C. environmental policy are also directed to creating sustainable development, and also to continuing European industrial competitiveness and an improved quality of life.

Environmental auditing is a means of assessing company activities in terms of environmental considerations. There is a proposal now before my Committee and the debate revolves on whether it should be obligatory, the size of the company to be "caught in the net" and the independence of the auditors.

Landfill waste -- This is highly controversial and the Rapporteur is currently negotiating with the Commission; co-disposal is to be very tightly restricted, and only sludges (i.e., not liquids) will be permitted to be added to solid landfill.

Waste shipments within, into and out of the E.C.; the European Parliament is seeking to ban the export of hazardous waste from the E.C. to developing countries; the export for disposal is already banned and the Committee's view is that it is not possible to police satisfactorily the export of hazardous waste.

Incineration of toxic/dangerous waste -- The Rapporteur has just started work on the proposal setting standards for incinerators throughout the E.C.

Coming before the Committee shortly are ecological water quality (a global approach to the quality of E.C. waters), an amendment to the Severso directive, major accidents, and packaging, with this latter demonstrating a classic need for E.C. measures because of the potential disruption of markets in the absence of such regulation.

c) The Community is also diversifying its means of achieving policy objectives by such activities as market mechanisms -- e.g. environmental auditing (in the shareholders interests), ecolabelling to give consumers information and, possibly the use of price mechanisms in the context of C|O.sup.2~ emissions (the carbon tax).

In connection with the implementation this is a theme of importance to environmental health officers because the E.C. needs to be in the position where it can "inspect the inspectors." This is as much in the interests of Member States as in the interests of the environment.

The European Environmental Agency when established will develop "uniform criteria of assessment" which is the start of ensuring that monitoring and implementation authorities in the member states each measure against the same standard.

There will develop a greater interdependence of policy, and the integration of environmental policy into other policy areas will be taken much more seriously during the 1990s.

iii) Implications for environmental health officers

a) E.C. policy making has not just broadened; it has also speeded up. Legislation is now agreed in the E.C. in months instead of years so that the time scales are similar to those in Westminster. Much greater emphasis is placed on the programming of legislative work between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council.

b) This means for environmental health officers that there is a need to be clear at a much earlier stage in the legislative process as to the effects the proposed legislation will have.

c) The implication from that is that an early input is needed from those who will be responsible for the practical implementation of the legislation on the field. In many areas of pollution control this means an input from environmental health officers, although, increasingly, standards will be set at E.C. level.

d) It is not possible to rely on closed discussions with the UK department of the Environment as the UK is only one participant in a complex system with many other participants. Some things will be sacrificed for package deals.

e) Much environmental legislation is implemented by local or regional authorities. In many ways converting E.C. legislation is a mere formality and as the scrutiny of the House of Commons is very poor it behooves those who can exert appropriate presses to do so.

It is usually much too late to influence events at that stage and, hence, there must be an input with the European Parliament and the Commission.

Conclusion

The key word in the E.C. is subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is not an excuse for inaction, but it is about making decisions at the most appropriate level. It is also about partnership. It is not coincidental that one of the key themes of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme is partnership between different levels of decision making, different agencies, and different economic factors. Environmental health officers must be prepared to cooperate and act in partnership with the Community in the development of good environmental legislation which will lead to practical and effective implementation in the field.

A "Policy for Europe" is, therefore about partnership and mutual benefit.

Kenneth D. Collins MEP, Chairman of the Environment Committee at the European Parliament, member of the European Parliament (Labour) for Strathclyde East (Scotland) since 1979.