Sustainable development review: weak on ambition and targets

EurActiv.com, 14 December 2005
 
The
European Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) was agreed at the
European Council in Gothenburg in 2001. In the run-up to the
Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, the EU also
adopted a communication on the external dimension of SD to integrate
the global aspects of this strategy.
 
The Commission was supposed to review the
SDS “at the beginning” of the new Commission’s mandate but several
postponements indicated that the Commission’s services were struggling
with the review. In February 2005, the Commission agreed on an “initial
stocktaking and future orientations” communication and in May it
presented Guiding Principles on Sustainable Development, which were
adopted by the European Council one month later.
 
Sustainable development is enshrined in the EU Treaty as the
“overarching” principle of all European policies. But the vagueness of
the concept of sustainable development and inherent problems of
operationability, together with the EU’s increasing focus on economic
competitiveness and the effects of globalisation, has decreased the EU
leaders’ interest in this issue. It is significant that there is a
special Council of Ministers for competitiveness but not for
sustainable development.
 
Issues:
 
The Commission’s communication on the SDS
review present itself as a “fine-tuning” of the 2001 strategy. Although
the February 2005 stocktaking identified several unsustainable trends
(see EurActiv 15 Febr 2005) , the Commission apparently does not see a
need to strengthen the strategy.
 
The communication is a long list of implementations and actions that
were already in the pipeline and presents this as a “stronger focus”,
with a “clearer division of responsibilities, wider ownership, broader
support, a stronger integration of the international dimension and more
effective implementation and monitoring”.
 
The review’s chapter on “key issues” lacks
consistency. It mentions for example that the EU “uses a
disproportional share of the world’s natural resources” and states the
need to reduce the EU’s ‘ecological footprint’, but in the key actions
connected to the same chapter does not come further than the proposal
to “promote eco-innovation and to expand the market for
eco-technologies”.
 
In the chapter on sustainable transport,
it re-introduced the idea of promoting alternatives to road transport,
a strategy that was presented in its 2001 White Paper on Transport as
“modal shift” but that has not got off the ground in the last five
years.
 
The communication is a bit clearer on responsibilities and ownership:
* the Commission will submit a progress report every two years, based on the set of indicators adopted in February 2005
* Council and Parliament will discuss the progress made every two years
*
EcoSoc (the European Economic and Social Committee) and the Committee
of the Regions will have to build support for action and organise
regular stakeholder discussions;
* the Commission will review the SDS again in 2009;
*
member states are to review their SD strategies and undertake a peer
review process to identify good practices; they could also set up
independent advisory councils.
 
The chapter on instruments and tools shows weaknesses again:
*
the tool of “sustainability impact assessment” of EU policies is
mentioned in the background text but in the proposed action, the word
‘sustainability” disappears and the text states that all policies need
to undergo “impact assessments” the EU should use the “full range of
policy instruments” but the idea of “getting the prices right” is
mentioned in the background, not in the concrete actions proposed;
* the Commission should also “integrate sustainability into its new communication strategy”;
* business leaders and stakeholders should start a process of “urgent reflection”.
 
Positions:
 
Green NGOs expressed disappointment
over the Commission’s review. The European Environmental Bureau called
the document “a step backwards” compared with the 2001 Sustainable
Development Strategy and called on the incoming Austrian Presidency to
convert this Commission review “into the visionary, ambitious and
concrete strategy that the European Council asked for half a year ago”.
John Hontelez, Secretary of the EEB said: “The Commission basically
withdraws as leader for sustainable development”.
 
WWF called the review “a set of hollow
promises” and urges the Commission’s DGs to include sustainable
development “into their annual work plans and budget requests for all
measures proposed”.
 
Latest & next steps:
 
* The European Council will have a first debate on the SDS review on 15-16 December 2005;
* The EEB is organising a conference on the sustainable development strategy in Brussels on 20 January.
 
Links
 
EU official documents
 
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