Baltic and European news
Environment policy "needs holistic approach"
2338, 12/06/07
Environmental problems are best dealt with through policies that also deal with other areas of economic activity, European commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told delegates at the opening session of the commission's Green Week event in Brussels on Tuesday.
"Real progress is made by linking the different files," Mr Barroso said. He cited EU leaders' recent approval for a series of commission climate and energy proposals as an example: "If the commission had presented to member states only a package on climate change [and not energy] we could not have got it approved," he said.
"We must do much more to integrate [policies]," Klaus Toepfer, ex-head of the UN's environment programme and a former German environment minister, agreed. "Environment ministers are more or less end-of-the-pipe ministers.. we are always at the end.. we are not integrated," he told the audience.
Both said the lack of a fully integrated world environment strategy has hindered sustainable development. "We cannot yet say we are firmly on the path to sustainable development," said Mr Barroso.
This year's Green Week is assessing the lessons learned from fifty years of EU environment policy. Climate change, biodiversity, resource use and health dominate the agenda in a week of seminars, presentations and events dedicated to green issues. Commission vice-president Margot Wallstrom, a former environment commissioner, said the quest for a sustainable future would be "won or lost in urban areas."
Jacqueline McGlade of the European environment agency stressed the need for reliable, up-to-date data to inform environment policy. "You can make no progress unless you collect information to tell people what the state of the environment is," she said. "Real-time data for real-time decision-making will be our real contribution in the next 50 years."
Follow-up: See Green Week website http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenweek/home.html, plus Barroso speech
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