31. 12. 90 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 332/119 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a four-year programme 1990-1993 
to develop regular official statistics on the environment 
(90/C 332/33) 
On 8 August 1990 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under 
Article DOS of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned 
proposal. 
The Section for Protection of the Environment, Public Health and consumer Affairs was 
responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject. The Economic and Social 
Committee appointed Mr Vercellino as Rapporteur-General. 
At its 279th plenary session (meeting of 19 September 1990), the Economic and Social 
Committee unanimouslly adopted the following Opinion. 
1. General comments 
1.1. The Committee supports the proposal for a 
common four-year programme to develop regular 
official statistics on the state of the EC environment, 
and calls for the programme to be swiftly implemented. 
It also agrees with the aims of supplementing, standard­
izing and extending the collection of environmental 
data and, in particular, with the nine priority areas 
selected for 1990-1993, namely: 
— economic statistics of current expenditure and 
investment for environmental protection, 
— data collection in collaboration with the Organiza­
tion for Economic Co-operation and Developement 
(OECD) and the Economic Commission for Europe 
of the United Nations (ECE/UN), 
— statistics of the management of waste and dangerous 
products, 
— statistics of the quality and management of water, 
— linkage of transport statistics to environment stat­
istics (including transport of dangerous goods and 
waste), 
— linkage of energy statistics to environment statistics, 
— integration of environmental statistics in industrial, 
agricultural and forestry surveys, 
— linkage of environment with land information. 
1.2. In the Committee's view, the programme has 
a vital part to play in ensuring that the European 
Environment Agency operates efficiently and in pre­
venting long delays on the part of the Community and 
the Member States in collecting, processing and using 
data on the state of the environment; in implementing 
rules and Directives; in drafting and updating environ­mental policies; and in taking, and promptly coordinat­
ing, the necessary preventive and remedial action. 
1.3. The Committee beleives that it should be poss­
ible to implement the programme rapidly: although 
almost all Member States have fallen well behind sched­
ule with statistics on the environment [the situations 
comparable only in the tertiary sector (services and 
tourism)], it has to be said that about half of them have 
made significant headway in the last few years and the 
least-equipped countries are making a sustained effort 
to introduce the requisite instruments. 
The funds earmarket under the four-year programme 
will undoubtedly help speed up the process of filling in 
gaps and ironing out disparities. 
1.4. The Committee would remind the Commission 
that in its Opinions on the European Environment 
Agency and the CORINE(1) project, it said that a 
genuine European network of information on the 
environment was urgently needed so that environmental 
indicators and evaluations could be efficiently incorpor­
ated in all Community policies. 
1.5. The Committee would take this opportunity to 
urge the council to lose no time in setting up the 
environment Agency, given that a basic agreement has 
already been reached on its structure. An effective 
environmental policy, based on statistics, cannot be 
drawn up until a coordinating and monitoring body is 
in operation at Community level. 
1.6. The Committee would also like to receive copies 
of the progress reports on the programme referred to 
in Article 6 of the draft Decision. 
2. Comments on the programme 
2.1. The Committee realises that progress in compil­
ing specific statistics on the environmental varies widely 
among national statistics offices and that the task of 
(*) OJ No C 56,7. 3. 1990. 
No C 332/120 Official Journal of the European Communities 31.12. 90 
developing for the main sectors about one hundred 
uniform and reliable basic statistical indicators, each 
representing the culmination of the process of gathering 
and processing thousands and tens of thousands of 
physical, technical, economic and social data, is a 
methodologically complex one. 
2.2. This is a relatively new branch of statistics cre­
ated to meet recent demand, although it does not always 
succeed—only a few Member States have set up services 
for this purpose in their national statistics offices and 
adopted ad hoc legislation. 
2.3. In view of the possible introduction of economic 
or fiscal instruments to promote environmental protec­
tion, the Committee would recommend that work on 
measures to ensure that transport and energy statistics 
are linked with environmental statistics, and that 
environmental statistics are included in industrial and 
agricultural surveys, advances as swiftly as possible. 
Done at Brussels, 19 September 1990. The Committee would refer here to the points raised 
in its Opinion in the research and technological develop­
ment (R&TD) programme in the field of the environ­
ment (!) concerning the incorporation of environmental 
parameters into economic methodology, and in its own-
initiative Opinion on environmental policy and the 
Single European Market (2) concerning the short­
comings of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a 
quality-of-life yardstick and the need to quantify the 
cost of environmental degradation. 
2.4. Finally, the Committee would urge that all due 
care and attention be given to strengthening inter­
national coordination with similar projects being 
undertaken by the UN, the OECD and the World Bank, 
and with bodies being set up in Central and Eastern 
Europe, such as the regional centre for the environment 
in Budapest. 
(*) CES 1025/90 of 19 September 1990. 
(2) CES 1052/90 of 19 September 1990. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Alberto MASPRONE