WRITTEN QUESTION E-0723/02

by Jonas Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(15 March 2002)

Subject: Report to the Barcelona Summit on economic and social issues

According to Domingo Jiménez-Beltrán, Executive Director of the EEA (interview in Dagens Nyheter of 13 February 2002), the Commission considers the time is not right to include a survey of the environment in the report on economic and social issues that is to be submitted to the Barcelona Summit.

According to Mr Jiménez-Beltrán, there is fresh evidence that emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are no longer falling as before, and he now wants to see this information discussed. He also says that the Commission is choosing to publish out-of-date and more positive emissions data, instead of the new, gloomy figures. The Union's aim is that transport activity should grow more slowly than the economy. That objective is not being met at present, which means increased pressure from greenhouse gases.

This, then, is what Mr Jiménez-Beltrán considers the Commission should be putting in the report to the Barcelona Summit. Has the Commission taken this criticism on board, and is it planning to change the contents of the report in the run-up to the summit?

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(29 April 2002)

The Commission is aware of the interview in Dagens Nyheter to which the Honourable Member refers. Shortly after this interview (on 18 February), the Commission received a copy of a letter from Mr Jiménez Beltrán to the editor of the newspaper, explaining that he was misunderstood when he was quoted as suggesting that the Commission had wilfully hidden information.

In this letter, however, Mr Jiménez Beltrán reiterates his opinion that the environmental dimension is not sufficiently covered in the Commission's report and thatt the Report doesn't take into account important information provided by the European Environment Agency and Eurostat.

As to the environmental dimension of the Commission's report for Barcelona, the Commission has started to deliver on its commitments following the Union's adoption of a strategy for sustainable development at the Gothenburg European Council.

The spring report is based on the set of structural indicators specifically agreed with Council for this purpose. This set now includes seven key environmental indicators which will allow the performance of the Union and its Member States to be measured and compared in areas like greenhouse gas emissions, transport growth, etc.

On this basis, the spring report provides inter alia a first assessment of progress on sustainable development and how the economic, social and environmental strands of the Lisbon strategy are being integrated.

Given the relatively short period since the launch of the Sustainable Development Strategy, the spring report depicts progress of the environmental strand of the Lisbon Strategy and proposes sustainable approaches in the fields of transport and energy (e.g. creating incentives for the use of clean technologies through progress on energy taxation, the use of transport infrastructure pricing mechanisms, and an EU-wide emission trading system).

Following the conclusions of the Barcelona European Council, the Commission remains fully committed to ensuring a full and prominent role for the environmental dimension in further versions of its Spring Report in agreement with the Gothenburg European Council.

With regard to problems in terms of data availability and time lag in the field of environment, it should be recognised that a number of environmental indicators will be available with a longer time lag than that observed for other structural indicators. The Commission will continue its cooperation with the Member States and the European Environment Agency on the availability for future reports of the best up-to-date information. The policy analysis in these future reports, amongst others with regard to the issue of climate change, will reflect the data available.