ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL: UK PRESIDENCY (Hansard, 21 January 1993)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Strathclyde)

At the outset of our Presidency my right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for the Environment set a number of objectives:

first, to follow through the agreements reached at Rio and to begin to formulate the Community's response to them. This was to be carried forward in many ways. Environment Ministers discussed the way forward at their informal meeting at Gleneagles in September following the lead given by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in the eight-point strategy that he put to the Lisbon European Council in June. Development Ministers have also given priority to UNCED follow-up in their declaration on the future of development policy. Much of the work in Brussels over the last six months has also been about measures to help put into practice the agreements reached at Rio. Foremost among these has been the consideration and endorsement by the council of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, which will not only provide the blueprint for the Community's environmental policy up to the end of the century, but will also constitute the basis for Community's response to Agenda 21;

second, to improve the integration of environmental considerations into other policy areas as the key to sustainable development. This is also a central theme 83WA of the Fifth Action Programme, and reflects the strengthened text we had successfully negotiated into the Maastricht Treaty.

Improved integration is a long-term objective, but good progress was made over the last six months. We commissioned a widely acclaimed report from the Institute for European Environmental Policy and made that subject the centrepiece for ministerial discussion at the Informal Council, where useful ideas for improving integration at Community level were generated. These were reflected not only in the conclusions of that meeting, but also in the council resolution on the Fifth Action Programme. The Department of the Environment also collaborated with other departments to influence and monitor the activities of other EC policy areas. Environmental issues were discussed in eight different Councils during the UK presidency, and a number of special conferences linked to the integration theme were organised or supported.

Third, to secure improvements in the implementation and enforcement of environmental legislation across the Community. We secured significant achievements here. We hosted the first meeting of the Network of Environmental Enforcement Authorities, securing participation from all member states and agreeing terms of reference and a programme of work for the future. This should ensure that the network is now firmly established as a mechanism for improving standards across the Community through exchanges of information, personnel and ideas between environmental regulators. We also secured an undertaking from the Commission to produce regular reports for the Council of Ministers on the application of existing Community legislation in the member states, held a first formal debate on this subject at the December council meeting, and obtained the council's agreement that such debates should take place annually in future. We have continued to press the Commission to bring forward proposals for a Community body to audit the application of EC environmental legislation, and have secured growing support from other member states for this idea.

We also made progress on a broad range of detailed measures in the council:

Waste: agreement was finally reached on a regulation controlling the movement of waste within, into and out of the Community. This important and hard-won agreement opens the way for Community ratification of the Basel Convention on trade in hazardous waste.

Ozone layer: a regulation was agreed accelerating the phase-out dates for the production and consumption within the Community of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances.

Vehicle emissions: agreement was reached on stringent emission standards for vans and other light-duty vehicles to fill the gap between those already agreed for cars and for heavy-duty vehicles.

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Fifth Action Programme: the council agreed a resolution setting out its response to the Commission's Fifth Environmental Action Programme, which maps out a broad strategy for the Community's environment policy until the end of the century. The resolution included a passage taking account of the Edinburgh European Council conclusions on subsidiarity, which will now guide Community environment policy.

Eco-Audit Scheme: broad agreement was reached on a Community eco-management and audit scheme, the aim of which is to encourage effective environmental management of industrial sites and regular public reporting of their environmental impacts.

Climate change: discussions were taken forward on all elements of the Commission's proposals for Community action. The proposed carbon/energy tax was discussed by Finance Ministers and remitted to experts for further work on a number of specific questions. The Energy Council discussed the draft directive on energy-saving measures and agreed new measures on the exploitation of renewable energy sources. Environment Ministers made good progress towards agreement on a mechanism for monitoring national programmes on greenhouse gas emissions.

Endangered species: good progress was made towards agreeing a workable basis for strict new Community controls on the wildlife trade. Member states' concerns about the complexity of the Commission's original proposals have largely been overcome.

Packaging: a good start was made in discussions on new Commission proposals for a directive on packaging and packaging waste.

Air pollution: the council formally adopted a directive on air pollution by ozone, and work was started on two new measures concerning emissions from hazardous waste incineration and evaporative emissions from petrol distribution.

In addition, we made strenuous efforts to overcome the blockages which have prevented the establishment of the European Environment Agency. Although it proved impossible to obtain agreement on a site during the course of the presidency, there is every indication that the main obstacles have now been removed, and that agreement should be possible under the Danish presidency. In the meantime, we worked closely with the Commission to identify tasks which could usefully be set in hand in the interim to anticipate the future work and needs of the agency.

My right honourable and learned friend the Secretary of State for the Environment and my honourable friend the Minister of State for the Environment and Countryside also represented the Community as presidency at several international meetings such as the UN General Assembly in October and the Copenhagen meeting of the parties to the Montreal protocol. In November officials from my department also spoke for the Community and 85WA chaired Community co-ordination meetings as appropriate at various international meetings held at official level.

This represents a substantial record of achievement during the six months of our presidency. We achieved the objectives which we set ourselves at the outset, and worked hard to carry forward the environmental protection policies of the Community efficiently and effectively during our term of office. We look forward to further progress under the Danish presidency.