Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Towards a thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources’ (COM(2003) 572 final)
Date: 2004-04-28
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU environmental policy, environmental impact, evaluation of resources, management of resources, renewable energy, renewable resources, sustainable development

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Official Journal of the European Union

30.4.2004

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Communication from the
Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Towards a thematic strategy on the
sustainable use of natural resources’

(COM(2003) 572 final)

(2004/C 117/09)

On 1 October 2003, the Commission decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee,
under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the ‘Communication from the
Commission to the Council and the European Parliament - Towards a thematic strategy on the sustainable
use of natural resources’ (COM(2003) 572 final).

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing
the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 5 April 2004. The rapporteur was Mr Ribbe.

At its 408th plenary session on 28 and 29 April 2004 (meeting of 28 April), the European Economic and
Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 54 votes to one; with six abstentions:

1. Preliminary remarks

— policy integration, i.e. to integrate resource-related environ-

mental issues more fully into other policy areas.

1.1
This communication must be considered as the Commis-
sion's first, preparatory step towards a strategy on the sustain-
able use of natural resources that is to be submitted in 2004
and is due for adoption in 2005. The communication seeks to
launch a debate with all the stakeholders concerned – thus also
including sections of civil society – with the ultimate aim of
arriving at a broadly coordinated and widely accepted strategy
paper.

1.2
To advance this coordination process, the Commission
has, for instance, set up a Stakeholder Forum that has now
started in-depth consultations (1).

1.3
The purpose of the upcoming strategy is to develop and
set out ideas for a further, necessary reduction in the environ-
mental impacts of resource use. The essential aim is to substan-
tially step up moves to decouple future economic growth from
resource use.

1.4
The scheme is thus to be understood as a kind of
‘substrategy’ designed to give practical shape to the EU's
sustainability strategy that is currently being revised.

The upcoming strategy is to be built on three strategic

1.5
components:

— ongoing knowledge gathering about

the often intercon-
nected impacts throughout the life cycle of the resources
used (from extraction, through use, to the waste phase);

— a policy assessment, designed, among other things,

to
demonstrate that
‘there is currently no mechanism for
assessing how far policy choices … are compatible with the
overall aim of decoupling economic growth from the
impacts of resource use’; the resource strategy will be calcu-
lated to set matters to rights on that front in future;

(1) Also involving the European Economic and Social Committee.

initiatives

1.6
In material terms, this paper must be considered in close
like this
connection with two other
strategy, by the Commission as part of the implementation of
the sixth environment action programme – i.e. the framing of
(i) a strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste and (ii)
integrated product policy. The European Economic and Social
Committee adopted opinions on both those issues at
its
December 2003 plenary session (2).

launched,

1.7

The timescale given for the strategy is twenty-five years.

2. General comments

2.1
The Commission paper begins by defining the term
‘natural resources’. Natural resources include the (renewable
and non-renewable) raw materials necessary for human activ-
ities, and the different environmental media, such as water, soil,
air and the landscape.

2.2
The Commission paper explicitly refers to the Johannes-
burg World Summit on Sustainable Development where it was
agreed that, ‘protecting and managing the natural resource base
of economic and social development are overarching objectives
of, and essential requirements for, sustainable development.’ (3)

(2) Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the
Communication from the Commission: Towards a thematic strategy
on the prevention and recycling of waste, COM(2003) 301 final,
and the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee
on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and
the European Parliament:
Integrated Product Policy, building on
environmental life-cycle thinking, COM(2003) 302 final, OJ C 80,
30.3.2004, p. 39-44.

(3) Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Devel-

opment, Introduction, paragraph 2

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2.3
In other words, sustainable development is impossible
without the proper protection and sound use of resources. The
Commission therefore also explicitly views the planned strategy
as one (of a number) of ways in which environmental protec-
tion can help foster sustainable development.

2.4
In findings that may come as a surprise to many people
with an interest in environmental protection and are likely to
fuel much controversial debate during the framing of
the
strategy, the Commission considers that, while some renewable
resources, such as fisheries and freshwater, face major difficul-
ties, non-renewables are seen as giving much less cause for
concern. Given that, in the 1970s and 1980s, so many basic
studies of the then nascent environmental movement focused
on the impending depletion of non-renewable resources (1),
statements such as ‘the fact that a given resource is finite does
not automatically imply that this resource will become scarce’
not only require some detailed explanation, but are also liable
to send out the wrong political signal and be misconstrued as
somehow giving the all-clear.

2.5
In the long-term, of course, such statements are clearly
without any foundation. Despite continued finds of new non-
renewable resource deposits over the past few years, and the
fact that earlier forecasts about the timeframes for expected
resource depletion have not proved wholly accurate (2),
it is
clear that, for instance, oil, coal and other non-renewable raw
materials are finite. To compound matters, although moves to
decouple resource consumption and growth have already seen
some success over the past few years, that has not yet been
enough to resolve the overall issue. One reason is that world-
wide growth rates have more than made up for any successes
on this front.

2.6
The Commission's comments can thus only be consid-
ered in conjunction with the strategy's timeframe. In fact, in
the coming twenty-five years, there may not yet be any critical
shortages of non-renewable resources. Indeed, the Committee
feels that, for a sustainability strategy and for the potential
implementation of the ‘factor ten’ project touched on by the
Commission, (3) a twenty-five-year
timeframe is much too
short.

2.7 Hence,
the strategy must also carry a clear message
about non-renewable resources that looks beyond that time-
frame, as it is vital, even at this stage, to prepare the ground for
an appropriate sustainable policy in this sector too.

(1) Cf. The Limits to Growth: a report for the Club of Rome's project

on the predicament of mankind, 1972

(2) For instance, the forecasts of the Club of Rome (see footnote 4) or
the US Council on Environmental Quality, Global 2000 – Report to
the President, 1980

(3) Under which the same level of economic performance is to be
achieved in future while cutting resource use to just a tenth of
current levels.

2.8
The Commission is undoubtedly right to point out that,
as far as non-renewable resources are concerned, the main
environmental problem is not, for instance, their continued
availability, or otherwise, in the ground. As the examples of
coal, oil and gas show, the real environmental problem lies not
in whether these raw materials are available or not, but rather
in how they are actually used (extraction and,
in this case,
combustion, with the resultant carbon dioxide emissions).

2.9
In terms of sustainable development – which is undoubt-
edly the Commission's point at issue here – the question of
availability is certainly of relevance, because even if it were
possible to limit or even eliminate the environmental impacts
of resource use, we have a duty to future generations not to
allow resources to be depleted or exploited in what is, in histor-
ical terms, such a short space of time.

2.10
The EU is currently working on a range of (necessary)
new strategies or revising existing ones. As well as the over-
arching sustainability strategy, these cover areas such as waste
avoidance and recycling, integrated product policy, the protec-
tion of the marine environment, aquacultures and the field of
health and the environment. The Committee endorses all these
initiatives but would ask the Commission to consider the risk
that those parties not directly affected might lose sight of the
overall picture and find it difficult to see which issues are
addressed by each particular strategy – and how each one fits
into the ‘hierarchy’ of the various strategies that are in place.

2.11

The Committee therefore feels it would be useful

— to detail exactly how each strategy fits into the overall

policy framework;

— to identify the links to the other strategies and topical
policy areas at EU level and in the Member States; and

— to set out where and how the various strategies ultimately
come together. The Committee, however, has no doubt that
the sustainable development strategy is paramount and that
it is from that that the resource strategy – and other strate-
gies – must be derived.

The Committee also considers it vital to outline in the
2.12
broadest possible terms the practical
impact of each of the
planned strategies on potential stakeholders. That also includes
setting out the responsibilities involved and identifying which
players are responsible for which specific issues at which poli-
tical level – and the degree of authority they enjoy – as well as
what the issues that have to be addressed actually are. The
Committee thus expects that the upcoming strategy will not
only set out in detail the scope for EU action in the field of
natural resource use, but will also identify the responsibilities
that accrue at the level of the Member States (or the local and
regional authorities as the case may be).

The Committee sees conveying the relevant knowledge

2.13
to broad sections of the population as a key task.

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The strategy must

2.14
focus strongly on the potential
impact on industry, working life and the labour market. At
numerous junctures and in many different documents,
the
Commission has consistently stressed that job creation and
environmental protection are not opposite poles, but can
complement each other effectively. This strategy must prove
that to be the case. Companies are right to want, as far as
possible,
long-term legal certainty and the security to plan
ahead. The strategy must indicate what companies have to
expect in the coming years.

It is of course also important to signal the changes needed in
the overall framework in order to facilitate synergies of this
kind. Clarification is needed as to whether new initiatives on
taxes and charges can promote the sustainable use of natural
resources. As regards the development of the use of economic
instruments, more environmental taxes and charges have been
used in the last few years, and there is a slow but growing
move towards environmental tax reform as some countries
change their
reducing labour-related taxes and
increasing taxes and charges on environmental pollution,
resources and services (1).

tax base,

3. The EESC's specific comments

3.1
The Committee very much endorses this paper. A
resource strategy is sorely needed to achieve the goal of decou-
pling resource use (and the concomitant environmental impact)
even further from economic growth.

3.2
The Committee feels that the twenty-five year timescale
is clearly too short. It backs moves by the Commission to focus
on difficulties that can be resolved in the short- and medium
term. However, that must not mean more or less shelving
already identified long-term issues.

3.3
It is essential, therefore, to insert a section on long-term
issues, which are, in the main, likely to relate to non-renewable
resources, as otherwise misunderstandings might arise about
the strategy as a whole. Consideration should thereby be given
not only to the environmental difficulties involved, but also to
issues of overall physical and/or political availability. The
Committee therefore welcomes those sections of the communi-
cation that address regional and European availability. The
problem with oil, for instance, relates not only to how much of

Brussels, 28 April 2004.

it there actually is. Availability (and thus dependence) are very
serious political
issues, as witnessed by the oil crisis of the
1970s and a number of other, more recent events. The main
global economic blocs appear to have very different approaches
to this question.

3.4
The Committee feels that the strategy focuses too much
on tangible resource use and that too little attention is paid to
the protection aspect, i.e. the intangible dimension of the issue.
The Committee therefore recommends not only expanding the
title of the strategy to include a reference to protection, but
also to give a higher profile to the concept of protection
overall. This could also be tied in with the Johannesburg delib-
erations (see also point 2.2 above).

landscapes (e.g.

3.5
Landscapes are clearly another example of key resources.
The Alps, for instance, have a sensitive ecosystem and are also
a tourist attraction (2). The strategy must also address the
through spiralling traffic levels).
overuse of
Specific examples such as these would also make it possible to
clearly establish the links to other policy fields (e.g. agriculture)
and to the areas of responsibility mentioned above. The diver-
sity of European landscapes – the result, among other things,
of highly heterogeneous agricultural land use – is an important
part of European culture and identity, and must be preserved.

As the Commission rightly points out, some renewables
3.6
are being overexploited at an alarming rate.
In the case of
wood, for instance, the Commission notes that only part of the
annual growth is actually exploited, leaving considerable poten-
tial for its further (environmentally sound) use as a raw mate-
rial. On the one hand, this is no doubt true, but two points
also have to be borne in mind. Forests, like all ecosystems, not
only have a tangible function, but are also of key intangible
importance as, for instance, ecosystems or recreational areas.
These considerations - and forests' protective role, for instance,
in flood and avalanche control - may well clash with any all-
out commercial exploitation by the forestry industry. On the
other hand, forest resources are distributed very unequally and
the tremendous forest damage in parts of the accession coun-
tries (e.g. in the Erzgebirge/Krušné hory, Krkonoše and Jizerské
hory mountains) has not only destroyed potentially useful local
resources but, along with other factors, was also to blame for
some of the torrential flooding on the rivers Oder, in 1997,
and Elbe, in 2002.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Roger BRIESCH

(1) See,

for example,

the latest Eurostat publication: Environmental
Taxes in the European Union 1980-2001: First signs of a relative
‘green tax shift’ – Eurostat 2003.

(2) Cf. Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on
the future of upland areas in the EU, OJ C 61, 14.3.2003, p. 113-
122.