Entec Bulletin
Enlarging the European Environment
"Enlargement to the east may be the EU's greatest challenge, but I also believe it is its greatest opportunity." So said Tony Blair three years ago. This opportunity is now upon us. From six founding member states in 1950, the European Union had 15 members by 1995, and 10 more are expected to join on 1st May next year, creating the world's largest single market with 450 million citizens.
Background
The countries expected to join in 2004 are: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia. In addition, Bulgaria and Romania are expected to join in 2007, while the other candidate, Turkey, is not currently negotiating membership. In order to join, they need to fulfil the so-called Copenhagen criteria, essentially political and economic conditions for entry. Not insubstantial in this process is the integration of these countries into the environmental legislation that governs the EU as a whole, and this is one of the areas where the candidate countries need to catch up most with EU standards. Despite progress in recent years, there are still significant challenges: air emissions, for instance, are on average much higher per capita than in the EU.
In broad terms, EU environmental legislation covers environmental quality protection, polluting activities, production processes and products. Quality standards are set for air, waste management, water, nature protection, industrial pollution control, chemicals, genetically modified organisms, noise, nuclear safety and radiation protection. Many of these issues will require enormous efforts in a number of accession countries due in no small part to the industrial legacy of the communist era.
Financial Impact
It has been estimated that the cost of compliance with the environment acquis (the formal name for the entire body of EU legislation) alone will require an investment of around €80 to €120 billion for the ten central and eastern European countries. For example, the cost for Poland to comply with the Urban Wastewater Directive will be almost €7 billion alone. However a study financed by the European Commission shows that implementing the EU environmental directives will bring significant benefits for public health and reduce damage to forests, buildings, fields and fisheries, and places a value of between €134 and €681 billion on savings that this will represent over the next 20 years.
Threat to Nature?
The candidate countries will bring with them many of the last great wilderness areas remaining on the European continent. They include Europe's last stronghold of large carnivores and virgin forests, the Carpathian Mountains, and one of the largest and most important wetlands on earth, the Danube delta. Besides their own intrinsic worth, these and many other natural treasures will gain increasing appreciation for their economic value as well. But there may be negatives also. The WWF, for instance, has identified threats to the future of these riches, in light of the EU's agricultural and rural development policies, and stresses that the ongoing shape of the Common Agricultural Policy will be critical in determining the future of the rich cultural landscapes of the accession countries. On 26 June 2003, EU farm ministers reached a final agreement on a mid-term CAP reform, though leading European farmers', business, consumer and environmental organisations have expressed deep disappointment with the compromise, and the debate is far from over.
Decoupling Resource Use
Overall, stricter legislation in accession countries will bring broad environmental benefits, but they may have to be tempered by the effect of likely developments to the economies of the accession countries. Much work is underway as part of the EU's sixth environmental action programme. Within this, Entec is currently working on a research project for the European Commission to investigate the feasibility of decoupling resource use from economic growth. The study will be used to develop the Commission's thematic strategy on the sustainable use of resources. While per capita use of natural resources in the EU has remained nearly constant for the last two decades despite high economic growth, strong policy intervention may be necessary to achieve absolute rather than relative reductions, and accession will provide particular challenges.
Entec's project manager Chris Radway comments: "It's true that in both the EU and candidate countries relative decoupling is being achieved, with growth in resource use lower than growth in GDP. But what is arguably much more important for Europe's environment is the absolute level of resource use. GDP per capita is nearly 8 times less in the candidate countries than in EU, but resource use per capita is only one third less. This means that the resource productivity of the candidate countries is five times poorer than for the EU. The big challenge for enlargement therefore is to increase the economic output of the accession countries while also increasing their resource productivity. This way their environmental burden should not rise uncontrollably. In our study, as well as addressing decoupling feasibility, we will be starting to look at the best ways to improve resource productivity through both policy and technology initiatives."
Much progress
has been made by those set to join the EU next year, though the process of
integration is far from complete and all the countries have been
permitted some transitional arrangements allowing more time for compliance.
Ultimately,
the enormous efforts being made to improve environmental performance in the
accession countries will prove their worth - and not only for those countries
themselves:
their neighbours and the global environment will benefit too. After all,
pollution knows no boundaries.
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