Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe on accession strategies for environment: meeting the challenge of enlargement with the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe'
Date: 1998-12-02
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: Central and Eastern Europe, ESC opinion, enlargement of the Union, environmental policy

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EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

15.2.1999

Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Communication from the Commission
to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee
of the Regions and the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe on accession
strategies for environment: meeting the challenge of enlargement with the candidate countries
in central and eastern Europe’

(1999/C 40/07)

On 28 May 1998 the Commission decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee on
the above-mentioned communication.

The Section for External Relations, which was responsible for preparing the Committee’s
work on the subject, approved its opinion on 17 November 1998. The rapporteur was Mr José
Ignacio Gafo Ferna´ndez.

At its 359th plenary session on 2 and 3 December 1998 (meeting of 2 December), the Economic
and Social Committee adopted its opinion by 97 votes to one, with three abstentions.

1.

Introduction

1.1.
The Commission communication seeks to define
the main environmental challenges of the Central and
Eastern European countries’ accession to the EU and to
develop a possible strategy for meeting these challenges.

It identifies two main horizontal challenges —
1.2.
legislative and institutional aspects — and five of a
sectoral nature — air, waste, water, industrial pollution
control and risk management, and nuclear safety. Lastly,
it highlights the considerable investment required for
any such changes.

1.2.1.
Changes to legislation are hindered by the
failure to develop an adequate global strategy involving
a systematic and comparative examination of legislation,
and by a possible lack of legal experts in the field.

At the same time, applicant countries need to
1.2.2.
improve and fine-tune their administrative structures
so that they may draft and introduce the necessary
legislation, and subsequently check that it has been
properly enforced. This is further complicated by the
need to involve various government ministries and
take into account the environmental responsibilities
transferred to regional and local authorities.

As regards air pollution and its monitoring,
1.2.3.
the challenges lie in tackling emissions from large-scale
installations and monitoring emissions levels in urban
areas.

1.2.4.
As regards waste, applicant countries seem to
have stepped up their efforts to prepare for accession,
but there are still considerable difficulties in areas such
as the management and treatment of municipal and
industrial waste.

1.2.5.
The main challenges in terms of water pollution
relate to nitrate pollution caused by the use of agricul-
tural fertilizers. There has, however, been significant
progress on improving the quality of drinking water.

Relatively little progress has been achieved in
1.2.6.
industrial pollution control and implementation of the
Seveso Directive. A reason for this is that each of these
countries has specific industrial ‘hot spot’ areas where
pollution is extremely dense. It is therefore crucial
that these countries introduce the Integrated Pollution
Prevention and Control directive.

1.2.7.
Legal progress has been made in the field
of nuclear safety and radiation protection. There is,
however, an urgent need to establish the means, including
administrative structures and staffing, to guarantee and
oversee implementation.

1.3.
The Commission communication suggests tack-
ling these challenges by introducing the following four
specific measures:

— identifying priority areas;

— setting objectives to be reached by the dates of

accession;

— establishing timetables for full compliance;

— ensuring that all new investment complies with the

Community acquis.

Priority areas should be identified on the basis
1.4.
of a country-specific examination of legislative require-
ments and of the administrative capacity to fulfil these.
In 1997, the Commission carried out a preliminary
screening of national
legislation and its degree of
approximation to the Community acquis. This will be
completed by a case-by-case assessment of the economic

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implications of implementing Community legislation
and by increasing the consideration given to the environ-
mental dimension in any policies developed by the
applicant countries in the future.

2.2.
Such separate pre-accession strategies should
make it possible to define the priorities for each country
in line with its particular situation, thus ensuring
that resources — especially financial — and technical
preparation are adequate.

1.5.
Similarly, the Commission recommends, for the
purposes of economic efficiency, that current Com-
munity legislation be applied to all new investment
in these countries. Lastly,
it also recommends the
establishment of national nuclear regulatory bodies
which are both independent and have been approved as
technically sound.

1.6.
All such measures should result in the establish-
ment of a National Programme for compliance with the
Community acquis on the environment. The programme
needs to clearly define priority measures and deadlines
for compliance.

Community assistance has hitherto been released

1.7.
through the following channels (1):

— the Phare programme, and in particular the Large
Scale Infrastructure Investment Facility (LSIF);

— participation of these countries in Community pro-
grammes such as LIFE, Altener, SAVE, the Vth RTD
Framework Programme, or pre-accession financial
assistance;

— EIB and EBRD loans.

The future aim is to enhance these instruments
1.8.
using methods such as LSIF for 1998 and 1999, ISPA,
other Community initiatives such as Interreg, and
boosting participation in the sustainable development
programme of the Vth RTD Framework Programme.

Important elements

2.3.
accession environmental strategies are:

in these national pre-

— transposition, within a suitable time-frame, of the
Community acquis into national legislation, with
greater urgency where the acquis needs to be brought
into force (see point 2.6 with regard to the transitional
periods);

— training of officials at national but also at regional
and local level in their specific duties, so as to ensure
that the rules are implemented and applied correctly;

— establishing — in many cases as a matter of priority
in view of the urgent need to allocate Community
financial assistance — systems for measuring and
recording environmental pollution data, both emis-
sion and immission levels;

— creation and integration of these measuring systems
into a national network so that the data can be
forwarded uniformly to the European Commission
in Brussels and the European Environment Agency,
thus enabling compliance with obligations to be
checked;

— awareness-raising campaigns directed at industry,
local authorities, farmers and in general at those who
will have to implement the measures, agreements and
time-limits for compliance;

1.9.
The aim is also to reinforce the administrative
capacity to prepare and implement legislation by intro-
ducing TAIEX and IMPEL (Network for the Implemen-
tation and Enforcement of Environmental Law)
measures, and by stepping up cooperation with the
European Environment Agency.

— training plans specifically for engineers and workers
in the various sectors of the economy, including
local authorities, on the implications of Community
environmental policy and its efficient management
within the enterprise or institution for which they
work;

2. General comments

2.1.
The ESC approves the country-specific approach
for compliance with the Community acquis as proposed
by the European Commission. It is based on excellent
analytical work and meticulous preparation by the
Commission.

(1) See especially the ESC opinion on the Council Regulation
establishing an Instrument for Structural Policies for
Pre-accession (ISPA), OJ C 407, 28.12.1998.

— gearing of direct Community aid and EIB and EBRD
loans to compliance with the priorities established
and with the environmental rules for new industrial
and infrastructure investment (as set out in point
2.8).

The ESC is aware that the Community acquis is
2.4.
not fixed and immutable in time but is, on the contrary,
continually progressing both in the fields it covers and
in the level of requirements established by directives and
regulations. An example of this is ILO Convention 174
on the prevention of major accidents, which is awaiting
ratification by a significant proportion of Member States

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Official Journal of the European Communities

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and which could undoubtedly,
in keeping with the
Committee’s support for this type of convention (1),
become part of the Community acquis by the accession
date.

2.5.
The ESC considers that these individual pre-
accession strategies for the candidate countries should
as far as possible seek to comprise some criteria common
to all of them as regards, for instance, the transitional
periods for full application of the Community acquis, this
being the only way to avoid distortions of competition
between the applicant countries themselves.

The ESC therefore considers it necessary that the
2.6.
accession negotiations establish transitional periods for
the applicant countries based on the following factors:
— the transitional periods will have to be as short as is
technically and economically possible while allowing
the applicant countries to adjust smoothly to the
Community acquis;

— the transitional periods should if possible be the
same for all the applicant countries except where
there are overriding reasons justifying special treat-
ment;

— the transitional periods will therefore have to be the
same for all the countries for each directive and
specific regulation and will have to be consistent
within each sector (e.g. air pollution, waste, etc.), so
as to avoid an unwanted temporary migration of the
pollution from one sector to another;

— the transitional periods could be somewhat longer
in those cases where free competition in the single
market is not directly affected, as in the case of
urban waste treatment plants; on the other hand,
transitional periods should be allowed only in
exceptional cases and should be minimal where
competition is affected, be it between Community
enterprises or between national enterprises in the
applicant countries.

2.7.
The applicant countries are already informed
regularly of the Commission’s proposals and the nego-
tiations in the Council for the introduction of new
environmental
legislation; they should forward this
information immediately to their enterprises, local and
regional organizations and general public, so that they
can take suitable preparatory measures.

(1) OJ C 102, 24.4.1995.

Brussels, 2 December 1998.

2.8.
In the interests of greater efficiency, the ESC
considers that new productive investment in the appli-
cant countries, be it for the renewal of obsolete industrial
plant, expansion or for new plant, should comply with
the existing environmental acquis even if this is not yet
mandatory in those countries. This should take the form
of a non-binding recommendation, but could be made
mandatory for investment financed totally or in part by
the Community or, indirectly, by not applying any
transitional period to investment in modernization,
expansion or new plant undertaken after a certain date.

2.9.
The ESC considers that this application of the
environmental acquis can also be a source of wealth and
job creation in the candidate countries, provided that
industry can be mobilized and used wherever
local
possible to produce and install the necessary plant. For
this reason the ESC calls on the European Commission
to carry out a specific study taking stock, for each
applicant country, of their technological facilities, plant
manufacturing capacity and the level of training of the
engineers and workers who are to carry out these tasks.
On the basis of this study and as part of the pre-accession
strategy, regional-level projects could be financed (cover-
ing the manufacture of plant in each of the applicant
countries for the other applicant countries and even the
EU itself), which are able to offset the cost of adopting
the environmental acquis for these countries.

circumstances,

The Committee also takes the view that in
2.10.
certain
protection
schemes in these countries may prove a valuable source
of information for the EU itself and for the remaining
applicant countries. It asks the Commission to identify
such schemes.

environmental

2.11.
Finally, the ESC would point out the need to
reinforce regional preparatory measures between the
applicant countries in areas such as river network
management, control of transborder air pollution, risk
management in industrial concentrations near to bor-
ders, training and awareness-raising plans for entrepre-
neurs, workers and the general public.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice RANGONI MACHIAVELLI