This is where the doubts begin to set in. The biggest question mark hangs over the commitment of the member states to see this project through. The sad fact is that member states have an appalling record of implementing environmental legislation. One only has to look at the record of nature conservation legislation where every single target under the Birds and Habitats Directives has been missed by just about every Member State to see the carefree way environmental laws are routinely ignored. That is bad enough but, compounded by failure to meet international commitments such as those made on reducing climate gases at Kyoto, it leads to a danger of global humiliation for the EU, not global leadership.
New dangers are on the horizon.
The costs of bringing accession countries into line with the environmental standards in the rest of the Union, for instance in the area of water quality, are frightening some people into believing that long transition periods will be needed for environmental compliance in these countries, creating a kind of two-speed Europe. The first whispers are being heard that the present reorganisation plans for the Commission spearheaded by Commission Vice-President Neil Kinnock will look hard at whether the Commission needs to be involved in some of these environmental issues at all. The recent threat by Commissioners Margot Wallstrom and Michel Barnier, strongly supported by the European Parliament , that structural funds will be withheld, or at least delayed, to member states who refuse to implement the EU's environmental laws is being greeted with outright hostility by certain of them. How to get the member states back on board with this vision for Europe as a global environmental leader is the challenge facing organisations like my own. There are some powerful new arguments at our disposal - and potentially some powerful new allies.