SPEECH/11/789
Janez Potočnik
European Commissioner for Environment
Introductory
committee
remarks
to
petitions
Petitions committee meeting (European Parliament)
Brussels, 22 November 2011
Madame Chair, Honourable Members,
It is a great honour for me to be with you today for the first time. I would like to
thank you for giving me an opportunity to address your Committee because…
Implementation is for me a clear priority and you a strong partner and ally in
improving it.
Environment is an area with the highest number of petitions. Environment is also an
area with the highest number of infringement cases. As shown in the recent
assessment of the 6th Environmental Action Programme, this reflects the fact that
the environmental acquis is important and challenging, and that we need to do
much more to ensure that it is properly implemented. So, it does not matter how
well-drafted European Union environmental law may be, it will not be effective
unless the principles, standards and procedures it lays down are properly applied
and enforced.
Implementation matters because it concerns the health and well-being of citizens as
well as the quality of the environment. To give just one example, 20 to 50% of the
European population lives in areas where the air quality exceeds European limit
values. For air quality alone, we therefore still have a major challenge to address –
and the same goes for other environmental areas. A recent report has estimated
the costs of non-compliance at €50 billion per year. There are significant benefits
for economy as well: full implementation of EU waste legislation is estimated to
generate 600,000 jobs and have costs that are €67 billion lower than if legislation is
not implemented.
We certainly benefit from your work and respect it
.
For all of us, implementation is a priority, and I therefore see your Committee as a
natural ally in finding new ways of improving our record. I am especially grateful
that Mrs Mazzoni and Mrs Auken participated actively at the Stakeholder
Conference on implementation of environmental law last June.
While the Commission is legal guardian of the Treaty, the Petitions Committee
provides a political dimension to the monitoring of implementation.
That political dimension is demonstrated in many ways. Your members are drawn
from different political families and from different Member States, so together you
present a European political perspective on issues that European citizens are
concerned about. Therefore, you help to provide us with a "political pulse" for the
work that we do because citizens trust you.
I am also conscious of the practice you have developed of making fact-finding
visits to Member States, of meeting petitioners and engaging Member State officials
– down to the regional and local level - and preparing reports on the basis of these,
as you just adopted the report on Bulgaria this morning. This is useful information
for us in our daily work.
I also appreciate the more strategic approach that this Committee has taken when
analysing individual petitions to draw more horizontal policy recommendations. The
recent report of Vice-President Iturgaiz on the implementation of waste legislation is
a good example of that.
In the same vein, and even if this does not lead to a formal report, it is indeed good
practice to discuss several petitions dealing with the same topic in different Member
States, as you did for example in October on the wind farms issues. As you know,
equal treatment of petitions is also key to maintaining a level-playing field for
economic operators who might be affected.
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From your work, you know how strong European citizens sometimes feel about the
environment yet how difficult and complex the factual and legal issues often are.
This can make reaching satisfactory decisions sometimes very difficult.
The challenge we are all grappling with – and this is reflected in last June's
Stakeholder Conference on implementation – is how to ensure that citizens can
have the confidence that rules agreed at European level will effectively deliver
positive results on the ground.
Having a right to petition the European Parliament is in itself of course an important
means of ensuring confidence.
However, European environment policy is based on the principle of preventing
environmental problems wherever possible – and not simply on reacting to them
once they arise. How then can we use the mutual experience that both institutions
have gained from dealing with petitions in order to try to improve even more the
situation for citizens in the future?
Let me focus now on new ideas for a better implementation.
I believe we need to think of two broad areas where systemic improvements can
be made. The first involves better knowledge base, and the second, greater
responsiveness at national level.
Good knowledge and information is key to environmental protection. I would like
Member States to be much more open about the existence and the degree of
environmental problems as well as about the steps they are taking to rectify them.
What often frustrates citizens most is a sense that environmental problems are
either being denied or that nothing is being done about them. I would mention one
example in order to illustrate what I mean. Your Committee is aware of the petition
on the toxic waste site at a former steel-works in the Irish harbour of Cork. Faced
with a possible threat of fines, Ireland finally agreed to a proper site clean-up. But
what is more, the Irish authorities agreed that all future steps would be regularly
published online so that petitioners, Members of this Committee and citizens
generally, can follow what is happening on the ground.
I would hope that such an "active dissemination" approach would become the
normal way of addressing environmental challenges – in other words, identifying the
problem, setting out the solution and reporting online the work being done to
implement the solution.
For example, I think that more information should be available online on the state of
the implementation of key directives. The Bathing Waters Directive and its yearly
reports is a good example of the power of such a tool to improve concretely the
quality of waters in Europe, through pressure from citizens and economic operators.
In this respect the user-friendliness of information provided is important so that
citizens can find quick answers to questions such as: Is the air quality good in my
city? Is the landfill next door permitted and inspected? Where are the Natura 2000
sites in my area?
I have also mentioned responsiveness – by which I mean the capacity and
willingness of national authorities to engage constructively with citizens on
environmental problems. As you all see in your daily work, environmental
problems are often very local problems, and therefore, need local solutions. We
do good work through the petitions or the infringements, but often we also come to
our limits. And that is when – because of the nature of the problem – it might be
more appropriate and efficient to address problems at a national, regional or even
local level.
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How can this be supported? Initiatives I have in mind relate in particular to
-
improved inspection mechanisms to help local enforcement on the basis of
credible evidence;
-
helping Member States to deal with citizens' complaints in a structured way at
national level, to find the solution more quickly;
-
improving access to justice, because at the end of the day, it is the local judge
that is best placed to offer adequate remedies when the law is breached and no
other solution has worked. In this context, I hope that our 2003 proposal for a
Directive implementing the "3rd pillar of the Aarhus Convention" can be a source
of inspiration.
All of this I hope to discuss in the near future with all stakeholders so as to arrive at
concrete suggestions of how to achieve improved knowledge and responsiveness.
There is now a strong consensus that the European Union should move towards a
7th Environmental Action Programme. I would like it to reflect the outcome of
such discussions in form of concrete initiatives that improve implementation that we
all, Commission, Member States and others should be prepared to take over the
years to come.
I very much hope that I can count on the full support of the members of this
Committee in this endeavour. I am sure that your expertise with implementation
justifies a strong role for you.
As a final point, I would like to refer to one specific piece of legislation, the
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive. I am aware that, based on
experience, the Committee has expressed several concerns about redress in cases
involving environmental impact assessments. This Directive shows how we can
work concretely on monitoring the implementation of EU law, but also on bringing
about recommendations for improving EU law.
A large number of petitions are indeed related to alleged deficiencies in EIAs
carried out for projects in all 27 Member States. The EIA Directive is per se an
instrument for environmental protection and integration.
It ensures a more transparent decision-making process in a large number of
decisions where different interests are conflicting, for example nature protection and
economic development (be it wind turbines in Denmark or ski lifts in Bulgaria). But it
is not an instrument that gives absolute veto rights to local communities, as some
petitioners seem to believe.
Overall, and given the widespread use of EIAs in the Union, I am satisfied with the
implementation of the EIA Directive. However, there are still problems.
One of our main concerns is related to the "screening" procedure of projects listed
in Annex II of the Directive, a problem also stressed by the Petitions Committee.
The EIA Directive gives Member States broad scope to determine whether an EIA is
required for such projects. Experience shows that Member States often exceed their
margin of discretion, for instance by exempting some projects in advance from any
obligation for an EIA or by using inappropriate criteria. We will vigorously bring
infringement cases against Member States that abuse their discretion, but also
provide guidance to Member States authorities to prevent such abuses.
In parallel, the Commission has initiated the process for the review of the EIA
Directive. The existing experience from the implementation of the EIA Directive,
including the lessons learnt from the investigation of petitions and complaints will be
a valuable source of information.
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I think that the example of the EIA illustrates how the interaction with the Petitions
Committee can improve implementation of the EU legislation: we listen to the
concerns of the citizens, we try to find appropriate solutions in the framework of
existing legislation, and, where appropriate, we take legislative action.
To conclude, I want to make improvement of implementation a central point of the
7th EAP, to be delivered in the second half of the next year. I count on help of a very
dedicated incoming Danish Presidency and also Cypriot Presidency which will follow
later.
I would have also hoped for your active participation in this process. Your
knowledge and experiences gained in your work are extremely important. We would
certainly like to profit from them also through my personal active engagement with
your Committee.
Thank you very much.
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