Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Biennial Progress Report of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy
Date: 2007-07-11
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU policy, report, sustainable development

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Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Biennial Progress Report of the
EU Sustainable Development Strategy’

(2007/C 256/15)

In a letter to Mr Dimitriadis dated 11 December 2006, the European Commission asked the European
Economic and Social Committee under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community to
draw up an opinion on the Biennial Progress Report of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy.

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment
(Sustainable Development
Observatory), which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its
opinion on 8 June 2007. The rapporteur was Mr Ribbe.

At its 437th plenary session, held on 11 and 12 July 2007 (meeting of 11 July), the European Economic
and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 70 votes to 21 with 10 abstentions.

1. Summary of the EESC's conclusions and recommenda-

tions

resource and energy consumption and/or pollution, to contribute to
the EU goals of
increasing employment and reducing negative
environmental impacts in a cost-effective way’;

1.1
The Committee welcomes the marked boost given to the
debate thanks to the ‘renewed’ sustainable development strategy
adopted at the EU summit in June 2006. The requirement to
produce biennial progress reports will, in particular, help ensure
that policymakers and society are, in a more practical way, kept
up to speed on positive developments and on areas where
implementation is proving difficult.

1.2
In its earlier opinions on sustainability, the Committee
has, in essence, welcomed the various documents submitted by
the Commission, the Council and the European Council, but it
has also been critical in the questions it has raised and, in some
cases, has put forward extensive proposals which the institutions
have frequently failed to take up. On this occasion too, the
Committee is critical of the fact that the objectives set in most
In particular,
of the priority areas remain excessively vague.
however, it is critical of the inordinate lack of clarity about the
instruments to be used.

1.3
The Committee particularly welcomes the key objectives
and policy guiding principles set out in the renewed strategy
and calls on the Commission, the Council and the European
Parliament to take these genuinely seriously and give them full
consideration.

The Committee hopes that

the first progress report,
1.4
which is due for publication in September 2007, will provide
more detailed information about, among other things:

— what economic instruments are envisaged by the Commis-
sion to ‘promote market transparency and prices that reflect the
real economic, social and environmental costs of products and
services (getting prices right)’;

— what specific time frame the Commission is setting itself for
implementation of
the European Council's objective of
gradually eliminating subsidies that have negative effects on
the environment, and whether consideration could be given
to the EESC's idea of
the
savings into a ‘EU sustainability fund’;

transferring at

least some of

— how in future the Commission intends to avoid the blatant
contradictions which still exist between aspiration and
reality in sustainability policy, for example in the transport
sector (see Points 4.15 and 4.16); and

— how to deal with Member States which have failed to

present adequate national sustainability strategies.

Given that climate impacts are,

in dramatic fashion,
1.5
growing ever more acute,
it is understandable that particular
attention is being paid to the fields of climate and energy.
However, the Committee feels that:

— this is a positive development, although it must not lead to

other key elements of the strategy being neglected;

— in spite of the urgent need for political action, all decisions
should be taken in line with the policy guiding principles
laid down in the renewed strategy, i.e. with the involvement
of citizens, businesses and the social partners, using best
available knowledge etc. The decision taken under
the
energy package to generate 10 % of European fuels from
biomass in future (as opposed to the 5,75 % agreed earlier)
did not comply with these principles. The Committee sees
the potential for major problems here, to be discussed in a
separate opinion on the relevant Commission progress
report (1).

— specifically how the European Council's call will be imple-
mented to ‘consider further steps to shift taxation from labour to

(1) COM(2006) 845 final.

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2. Key elements of the opinion and background

In 2001, the Gothenburg European Council adopted the
2.1
European Union Strategy for Sustainable Development. In December
the Commission submitted a communication to the
2005,
European Parliament and the Council on the Review of
the
Sustainable Development Strategy — A platform for action (2), the
purpose of which was to set out ‘further concrete actions for the
coming years’.

Over the past few years, the European Economic and
2.2
Social Committee has adopted a number of opinions dealing
with the sustainable development strategy (SDS), each time
stressing the tremendous importance of sustainable develop-
ment for the society in which we live. The Committee has given
broad backing to the Commission's various approaches in this
area and endorsed the European Council's view that the SDS is
the EU's overarching strategy, the aims of which must also be a
benchmark for the Lisbon strategy.

2.3
In its opinions on sustainable development, however, the
Committee has also frequently voiced criticism and raised
constructive questions, to some of which the Commission and
the Council have yet to provide an answer.

2005

the Commission's December

The Committee's most recent opinion on the subject —
2.4
communication
on
in what is
mentioned above — was critical of the fact that,
described as an ‘ambitious’ platform for action, the Commission
chose not to follow the EESC's recommendation of April 2004
or to meet its own undertaking of June 2005, failing once again
to comply with its promise to set out clear goals to be reached
under the sustainability strategy.

2.4.1
In that opinion, the Committee made the point that
any strategy should describe the means of achieving objectives.
The absence of specific objectives is bound to result in problems
when it comes to identifying instruments since if you do not
know exactly where you want to go, then you cannot decide
how you will get there. The Committee therefore felt that the
communication left more questions open than it gave answers
and direction.

2.4.2
As the Committee already pointed out in its 2004
opinion (3), however, where there is a failure to communicate
either objectives or instruments to the broader public and to the
social partners concerned — in other words, where there is
uncertainty‘as to what sustainable development actually means and
how future development will differ from the situation in which we live
today’ — ‘fears and resistance’ are generated ‘in the sectors potentially
affected’. The Committee regrets to say that the past three years
have seen little in the way of additional clarification of the
issues involved here — a fact that is without doubt compro-
mising the credibility of sustainable development policy.

2.5
The Austrian presidency that was in office during the
first half of 2006 presumably took a similar view of the overall
situation. It thus more or less set aside the Commission's 2005

communication and drew up a new, independent document for
consideration by the heads of state or government at the June
2006 summit, where it was then also adopted as ‘the renewed
strategy’ (4).

This renewed strategy gives the EESC a key role to play,
2.6
no doubt because of
to the issue.
Article 39 states that the EESC ‘should play an active role in
creating ownership inter alia through acting as a catalyst to stimulate
debate at EU level, and is invited to prepare input to the biennial
progress report of the Commission.’

its past commitment

In submitting the present opinion,

2.7
the Committee is
seeking to meet that request and satisfy its responsibilities in
this area. The opinion will begin with a few basic comments on
the renewed strategy (point 3). It will then briefly consider the
issues raised in the renewed strategy (point 4) before setting out
its views on certain substantive elements of the progress report
that is to be drawn up by September 2007 (point 5).

3. General comments on the renewed strategy

important EU political

institution
3.1 When the most
reviews and renews one of
its policies — as the European
Council has done in its EU Strategy for Sustainable Develop-
ment — then civil society also expects that the relevant docu-
mentation will make clear:

— why a review was necessary in the first place;

— what findings came to light in the deficit analysis (i.e. where

problems have been identified); and

— what specific changes are to be made in future (i.e. which
areas are to be removed and/or approached in a different
way, and which are to be added and why); and

— what approaches are envisaged, for example, for achieving
the essential objective of integrating sustainability into the
work of all Directorates-General.

3.2
Sadly, however, the document in question provides no
such context and no such findings but just presents a ‘renewed’
strategy.

3.3
The Gothenburg European Council, drawing on a
communication from the Commission, focused on four priority
issues, viz.:

— climate change;

— transport;

— public health; and

— natural resources.

(2) COM(2005) 658 final, 13.12.2005.
(3) OJ C 117, 30.4.2004, point 2.2.1.

(4) Council of the European Union, Document 10917/06, 26.6.2006,
Review of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) — Renewed
Strategy.

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3.4 Missing from the Gothenburg strategy were two addi-
tional issues which the Commission had also proposed in its
communication at the time — the eradication of poverty and
population ageing. The European Council failed to give a reason
for the omission and it was criticised by the EESC in its April
2004 opinion (5) as sending out an ‘inadequate signal’. There was
also widespread criticism that the strategy was not embodied in
a single document that could be communicated and promoted
publicly and that the external dimension was dealt with in a
separate process leading to a separate document.

3.5
The renewed strategy now sets out seven key challenges
along with corresponding targets, operational objectives and
actions. The areas concerned are:

— climate change and clean energy;

— sustainable transport;

— sustainable consumption and production;

— conservation and management of natural resources;

— health;

— social inclusion, demography and migration; and

— global poverty and sustainable development challenges.

3.6
As the above comparison between the original approach
and the new one shows, the renewed strategy does not involve
any great shift in priorities. To the points already incorporated
into Gothenburg strategy, it merely adds the key issues raised in
the Commission's 2001 communication — the eradication of
poverty and population ageing — and the question of sustain-
able consumption and production.

it

the mark,

3.7
The Committee can well understand this, as both the
issues included in 2001 and those that were not included at the
time remain unresolved, making it more urgent than ever that
level. However,
they be thoroughly addressed at a political
precisely because the political action taken to date has fallen
short of
is interesting to reflect on how the
renewed strategy actually differs from the old one and what
assessment can be made of the successes of the old strategy so
far. This question is particularly important in forestalling any
accusation that a continuous wave of new documents is more
likely to lead to confusion than to help secure the political
consolidation of a necessary process. As the Committee has
repeatedly pointed out, sustainable development policy is not
measured by the number of documents produced by govern-
ment or policymakers but by tangible and effective action.

3.8
This renewed strategy is based on an excellent set of
principles for sustainable development and endeavours to work
these through into a set of objectives and actions for each of the
seven priority areas selected, together with some actions on
cross-cutting themes and the development of processes for
implementing and monitoring progress. In these respects the
new strategy is certainly an improvement on its predecessors.

3.9
Early indications are that the parts of the strategy that
deal with climate change and energy are being vigorously
addressed at present. This is a positive development, although it
the strategy being
must not lead to other key elements of

(5) OJ C 117, 30.4.2004.

development

neglected. The present review of implementation is an impor-
tant opportunity to explore this question and to try to give the
strategy greater weight and driving force in all the key areas it
deals with. The Committee once again wishes to emphasise that
sustainable
integrating
a
approach and not a menu of separate options from which one
can pick and choose à la carte. The climate change objectives
and targets are now becoming sufficiently clear, precise and
urgent to act as real drivers for action. But for most of the other
themes of the strategy the sustainable development objectives
are too vague open-ended to be capable of driving significant
change.

comprehensive

is

3.10
Scope of the strategy: The seven themes in the new
strategy are an improvement on the inadequate four of the
previous one. There are however still some important omissions.
The Committee's exploratory opinion of April 2004 (6) already
called for agriculture to be included as a chapter in its own
right. The Committee now reiterates that call in the light of the
serious doubts it has repeatedly raised as to whether sustainable
agriculture as envisaged by the ‘European agricultural model’ is
at all feasible under world market conditions. The Committee's
scepticism as to whether the CAP is genuinely moving in the
right direction is reinforced by the fact that, for the 2007-2013
financing period, the heads of state or government have slashed
the resources available under the second CAP pillar that is parti-
cularly important for the development of sustainable agriculture.
The Committee has criticised this move on several occasions
and questions the compatibility of this decision with sustainable
Including agriculture in the renewed
development policy.
strategy under the heading of ‘natural resources’ is simply not
enough.

The question as to whether a European agricultural
3.11
policy that
is geared towards global, open markets can be
sustainable at all automatically also raises the fundamental issue
of global production and trade rules. The WTO is a body based
on agreements that are designed to foster global free trade. Yet,
as the Committee has repeatedly shown, it does not follow that
free and liberalised trade is necessarily also sustainable. Sadly,
the renewed strategy says nothing about how to turn free trade
into trade that is compatible with sustainability principles. That
is a major failing. Here too, the Committee can but regret EU
decision-makers' failure so far to address this issue, despite the
fact that it was raised by the Committee all of three years ago (7)
— though the EESC acknowledges that the EU has shown real
determination to negotiate new rules
for globalised trade,
including with the IMF and the World Bank.

Of course, the global dimension is closely relevant to
3.11.1
a European sustainability strategy, given that
the European
economy is also affected by external developments. Any
EU strategy must therefore be consistent with and actively assist
a global approach to sustainable development. This is recognised
in the renewed strategy by references
to supporting the
Millennium Development Goals, Kyoto, UNEP, and other world-
wide initiatives. The strategy also acknowledges the need to
make

(6) OJ C 117, 30.4.2004.
(7) OJ C 117, 30.4.2004, p. 22, inter alia points 0.8 and 6.4 et seq.

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‘globalisation work for sustainable development’. It notes that
the Commission is producing a Sustainable Consumption and
Production Action Plan in 2007 but the EESC believes a more
far-reaching analysis is required to have any hope of tackling the
issues of global
inequalities. The ‘drive for growth’ by newly
industrialising nations which justifiably are seeking much higher
standards of
living will almost certainly have a catastrophic
effect on global resources and systems. The strategy is therefore
a place to address the limits to the ‘carrying capacity’ of the
planet, already under strain from 200 years of unequally
distributed industrialisation.

these more specific objectives — and thus on the actual
‘strategy’ that is to be pursued. It is interesting to note, however,
that some indications at least are given — albeit between the
lines — of potential tools to be used in this area. Although
these indications are still far too vague for the Committee's
liking, the progress report could and should, therefore, provide
specific information on this front, thereby addressing the issue
at hand and providing some degree of guidance (see point 5
below).

3.11.2
The EESC suggests that the Commission should there-
fore produce a Communication on approaches to the manage-
ment and allocation of global common resources. This would
focus on a long-term framework to stabilise atmospheric green-
house gas (GHG) concentrations at a ‘safe’ level by international
sharing of a contracting global emissions budget. At the end of
an agreed timeframe, during which per capita emissions would
converge,
those rights would be equal. Such an approach,
already being widely debated and known as ‘Contraction and
is able to take into account the implications of
Convergence’
both population growth,
industrial capacity, globalisation and
the demands for an equitable and practical reallocation of our
planetary atmosphere as a shared resource.

3.12
Clarity of objectives: Sustainable development is widely
accepted as an overall goal for society. But in order for a sustain-
able development strategy to have any real driving force or trac-
tion it needs to be carried through into specific measurable
objectives and targets, based on rigorous analysis. The new
strategy certainly contains a large number of objectives and
actions. But it does not relate these to any quantified analysis of
data and trends or to any qualitative analysis of issues and
problems. So it is frequently not clear why particular objectives
and actions have been selected, how progress towards them will
they may contribute to overall
be evaluated, and how far
sustainability even if achieved. The current
review should
provide an opportunity to sharpen up and clarify all these
points, so that in future it will really be possible to assess
progress more systematically.

Having made these rather critical comments,

3.13
the
Committee would, however, also like to say something positive.
Compared with the platform for action submitted in December
the renewed strategy clearly does contain a greater
2005,
number of specific objectives, designed, for instance, to curb
climate emissions or boost energy efficiency. The fact that some
objectives are now becoming clearer, however, is due in particu-
lar to the March 2007 European Council's specific conclusions
on climate issues and, to some extent, energy policy.

for

Tools

3.14
the renewed
implementation: That
strategy — and the March 2007 European Council conclusions
— are still far too vague on the tools to be used to achieve

said,

4. Specific comments on the renewed strategy

4.1
inte-
The revised strategy outlines the importance of
grating the dynamic of the Lisbon strategy process into the
it does not
broader goals of sustainable development. But
follow this through with a serious analysis of how patterns of
growth and development in the world will need to change to
achieve a more sustainable world in the future. The impact of
non-sustainable developments are becoming ever more evident,
including, in particular, the dire effects of climate change, the
continuing global decline in biodiversity, the ever-growing gulf
between rich and poor, and the foreseeable depletion of raw
materials.

Such an impact will have dramatic economic repercus-
4.2
sions.
the present-day
the very basis of
In some places,
economy is at risk of complete collapse. In Switzerland, for
instance, banks are no longer lending to investors in winter
sports infrastructure if the location is less than 1 500 m above
sea level. There is also great — and increasing — uncertainty
about the future of farming and tourism in the Mediterranean
area should it become even hotter and drier.

‘Public expenditure in the EU dedicated to coastline
4.3
protection against the risk of erosion and flooding has reached
an estimated EUR 3,2 billion, compared to EUR 2,5 billion in
1986, and studies indicate that the cost of coastal erosion will
average EUR 5,4 billion a year for the period 1990-2020.’ Yet
these vast amounts are enough to avert or mitigate only some
of the emerging adverse impacts.

living, as we do,

in an
4.4 We face a grave situation,
economic system which, for instance, at a macroeconomic level,
views health costs and environmental damage — the billions
spent in the wake of storm Kyrill in early 2007 for example —
in a favourable light because they contribute to higher GDP. The
Committee is pleased that, in its renewed strategy, the European
Council is at last beginning — albeit, sadly, only on the margins
— to address this contradiction in a more forthright way. The
European Council
its
is quite right when,
renewed strategy, it notes that ‘the core system of national income
accounting could be extended by inter alia integrating stock and flow
concepts and non-market work and be further elaborated by satellite
accounts e.g. environmental expenditures (and) material flows’.

in point 20 of

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4.5
At this point, the Committee would reiterate a point it
made back in 2004: ‘As part of the sustainable development strategy,
… the Committee feels it is right to discuss issues that have so far
been seen as well-nigh taboo. One of these questions concerns perma-
nent economic growth as the primary goal and the key aspect of all
policies’ (8). The point the Committee was making is that growth
can no longer be seen in purely quantitative terms; rather, a
new concept of growth is needed, which puts qualitative objec-
tives based on sustainability criteria first. The Commission and
the Council should use the upcoming report:

— to determine whether there is not a clash — hitherto unrec-
ognised or unarticulated — between the sustainable devel-
opment strategy on the one hand, and the Lisbon strategy
on the other, particularly as regards the use of GDP as an
indicator of social welfare and economic prosperity; and

— to indicate the requisite features of any new ‘prosperity indi-

cator’ more in line with sustainability principles.

Numerous examples demonstrate that progress in terms
4.6
of
the economy and of environmental policy does not
necessarily generate GDP growth, but can very well create jobs
and relieve environmental pressures. Using energy-saving bulbs
instead of
less efficient conventional bulbs reduces electricity
consumption, and even taking account of the investment, this
would tend to lower GDP. Nevertheless, this is another area in
which the EESC would like to see more ‘growth’ — including in
terms of insulation for buildings, fuel-efficient engines, ener-
gy-efficient appliances, etc.

4.7
The Committee therefore welcomes the work now being
put in hand by the Commission to explore alternatives to GDP
as measures of prosperity and will wish to take a close interest
in this work.

As the Committee has frequently highlighted, sustainable
4.8
development does not come free of charge. The Committee has
also repeatedly made the point that drastic structural changes
are inevitable at macroeconomic level, and will happen whether
we want them to or not. The policymaker's task should be to
provide a smooth lead-in to these necessary changes so as to
avoid any major disruptions and mitigate the most serious nega-
tive impacts.

The European Council points out (9) that the renewed
4.10
strategy ‘forms the overall
framework within which … economic,
social and environmental objectives can reinforce each other’. The
Council also considers that all the EU's political decisions should
be made after ‘assessing in a balanced way the social, environmental
and economic dimensions of sustainable development and taking into
account the external dimension of sustainable development and the
costs of inaction’. However, the moment it comes to resources,
the renewed strategy no longer looks towards social dialogue,
but towards an institutional dialogue between the Commission
and Member States, on the one hand, and ‘businesses’, on the
other,
in order to set performance targets for products and
processes.

4.11
The Committee would stress how important it is to
have a truly broad-based discussion with all social players of the
policy measures to be taken and to consistently bear in mind —
and genuinely take seriously — the key objectives and policy
guiding principles set out in the renewed strategy. This is the
only way to avoid potential mistakes, to secure broad acceptance
within society, and to ensure that action is indeed guided by the
principle of sustainability.

the procedures used,

The European Council's decisions as part of

4.11.1
the
energy package to require a 10 % share of biofuels (instead of
the 5,75 % agreed earlier) are a good example of how, in terms
of
things should not be done. The
Committee expressly backs the European Council's objective to
cut CO2 by 20 % or 30 % by 2020 (depending on commitments
from non-European partners) and also endorses the more far-
reaching objective (i.e. cuts of 60 % to 80 % by 2050). As well
the biofuel
as being a conduit
requirement also has to comply with the other guiding princi-
ples.

to achieving this objective,

Account must

therefore be taken of

4.11.2
the energy
balance and of impacts on the natural world and the environ-
ment, as well as the effect of any potential competition for land
use (at both national and global level). The debates that are gath-
ering increasing pace at the moment — for instance on the
extremely high use of fossil energies in the production of appar-
ently CO2-free biofuels (10), on the true climate relevance of
such fuels (11) or on the impact on foodstuff production (12) —
shows that by no means all sustainability issues have been
adequately addressed. The Committee will be devoting a separate
opinion to this extremely important question.

4.9 With regard to responsibility for resolving these issues,
the Committee notes that, at the microeconomic level, it is not
only policymakers who are called upon to make sure the right
conditions are in place. Action is also required of industry —
and of each and every individual. The Commission has for a
number of years now rightly been drawing attention to corpo-
rate social responsibility which brings together economic, social
social
and environmental aspects
dialogue.

through the conduit of

(8) OJ C 117, 30.4.2004, p. 22, point 2.3.9.

4.12
The Committee is pleased that further objectivity has
been brought to bear in the discussion of the economic and
financial
thanks, among other
things, to the publication of the Stern Review which, as we

implications of sustainability,

(9) See point 8 of the renewed strategy.
(10) 83 % of the energy contained in ethanol produced from maize comes

from fossil energies.

(11) High proportion of nitrous oxide generated in rapeseed production
(study to be available before the summer break and thus before the
plenary session).

(12) Look at the situation in Mexico which has seen unrest at rising tortilla
prices as the maize required is increasingly being used as car fuel.

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know, calculates that ‘just’ 1 % of GDP will, for instance, be
enough to largely avoid the impacts of climate change. A study
by Vattenfall submitted to the Davos World Economic Forum
than that. Even
it would be even cheaper
concludes that
although, expressed in real monetary terms, 1 % of GDP still
seems like a vast sum, it must be put into the context of other
policy fields that also cost a great deal of money. In the trans-
port field, for instance completion of the TINA projects (13)
would, in the specific transport corridors alone, require annual
investment up to 2015 of around 1,5 % of GDP — more, there-
fore,
than the figure the Stern Review calculates would be
needed to mitigate climate change impacts.

The renewed strategy's handling of the ever-increasing
4.16
is,
the
if anything, disappointing. As
transport problems
Committee sees it,
the EU is now pursuing a much more
tangible course of action in energy policy than in the transport
sphere, where damaging impacts on the climate, the environ-
ment and nature conservation are set become even more acute.

4.17
In its conclusions, the March 2007 European Council
indicated (15) that the Emissions Trading Scheme might possibly
be extended to surface transport. The sustainable development
strategy progress report should consider this issue and assess its
potential impact, not least when set against other instruments.

However, as was pointed out above, this is not just
4.13
about money, but in many cases about structural change. The
Committee welcomes, for instance, the renewed strategy's call to
decouple ‘economic growth and the demand for transport with the
impacts’. However, this also raises
aim of reducing environmental
questions
‘just-in-time’ production, with businesses
about
cutting out warehousing and associated costs and turning trucks
and freight trains into mobile warehouses.

Just

thirteen days exactly after

That said, the Committee is sad to note that gaps are
4.14
appearing — remarkably quickly — between aspiration and
likely reality.
the European
Council had adopted this point as an operational objective and
target,
the European Commission submitted the mid-term
review of its 2001 transport white paper (14). According to this
document, GDP is likely to grow by 52 % in the period
2000-2020, road freight transport by 55 % and air transport by
108 %. The desired ‘decoupling’ is set to be achieved above all
in rail freight transport (+ 13 %) and rail passenger transport
(+ 19 %).

4.15
The Committee can only look on with amazement at
the apparent lack of coordination between the drafting of the
mid-term review of the transport white paper and the renewed
sustainable development strategy, as no allusion at all is made to
this blatant contradiction between aspiration and reality. In the
transport sector it appears that the Commission has virtually
abandoned the sustainable development strategy's first specific
objective of decoupling economic growth from growth in mobi-
lity. In future, the Commission must do everything possible to
ensure that such contradictions are not allowed to arise in the
first place. And in the transport sector, there needs to be a
renewed quest to find ways of shaping our towns and commu-
nities and patterns of different activities in ways that will tend to
shorten lines of communication and journeys rather
than
constantly expanding the distances that people and goods have
to travel to meet their needs and desires. This will require adap-
tation of fiscal policy, spatial policy and adequate coordination
at all levels of government, from the EU down to local bodies.

5. Content of the progress report

5.1
The EESC is pleased that, under point 33 of the renewed
strategy, the Commission is to submit every two years (starting
in September 2007) a progress report on implementation of the
sustainable development strategy in the EU and the Member
States, also including future priorities, orientations and actions.
The Committee hopes that this process will supply answers to
questions that have so far remained unresolved.

5.2
This is particularly important in relation to the manage-
ment and economic instruments, which are alluded to only in
somewhat vague terms. Point 22, for instance, states: ‘The most
appropriate economic instruments should be used to promote market
transparency and prices that reflect the real economic, social and envir-
onmental costs of products and services (getting prices right)’. This
brings us back to the call — repeatedly made by the EESC,
among others — for the internalisation of external costs and
also touches on the instruments needed to do that. The
Committee recalls that this debate has been going on for many
years — largely to no avail. After a delay of three years, in late
March 2007 the Commission finally published its Green Paper
for environment and related
on market-based instruments
policy purposes, which provided the debate with a fresh
impetus. The Committee will work to ensure that, using the
progress reports as a vehicle, we at last get some movement on
this issue which is of such key importance for sustainable devel-
opment.

5.3
In point 23, the European Council — that is to say the
heads of state or government — calls on the Member States to
‘consider further steps to shift taxation from labour to resource and
energy consumption and/or pollution, to contribute to the EU goals of
increasing employment and reducing negative environmental impacts in
a cost-effective way’. The Committee welcomes this call and asks
the Commission to give this point extensive consideration in
the progress report and to submit practical proposals on how
this can be done. A precise analysis will be needed of the envir-
onmental
in
order to ensure that socially disadvantaged persons are not
particularly hard hit by tax changes.

impact and of how the burden is to be shared,

(13) TINA = Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment.
(14) COM(2006) 314 final.

(15) See point 35.

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5.4
The Committee also welcomes the announcement that
‘by 2008, the Commission should put forward a roadmap for the
reform, sector by sector, of subsidies that have considerable negative
effects on the environment and are incompatible with sustainable devel-
opment’. The Committee also subscribes to the objective of
‘gradually eliminating’ these subsidies, although it does feel that a
specific time frame for such a move would be useful and that
consideration should also be given to the possibility of transfer-
ring the savings thereby made to a new ‘EU sustainability fund’,
on which the Member States can draw when an environmental
measure involves costs that are disproportionate to their budget
(Article 175(5) and 174(1) of the Treaty of Nice).

5.8
The Committee would be reassured if this cross-sectional
data, which is to be incorporated at all levels of policymaking
(in the EU and in Member States), were also taken into account
in the strategy in order to render it operational. However, no
mention is made of how this would be guaranteed, probably
because, as the current texts stand (as confirmed by the draft
Constitutional Treaty),
the EU's competence in the area is
shared, and the Member States are responsible for funding and
the
implementing environmental policy (Article 175(4) of
Treaty of Nice). The players are therefore not identified.

the Committee has,

In its earlier opinions,

5.5
time and
again, noted the importance — for the public, for companies
and for other stakeholders — of having a clear overview of
what specific policy plans are in the offing and the reasons
behind them. Only then will people be willing to take an active
part in the action needed and give it their support. Thus, the
Council's request that the Commission ‘produce a layman's guide
to this strategy, including good practice and good policies in Member
States’ (point 26) is correct but, once again, the absence of a
specific timetable is a matter of regret that should be addressed
in the progress report.

The strategy commits to better policymaking through
5.6
wider use of
impact assessment and greater involvement of
stakeholders. The Committee welcomes this commitment and
urges the Commission and Member States to review experience
with sustainable development impact assessment methodology
and to make sure that it is effectively applied in all fields of
policy and action.

5.7
The Committee feels that the plan to ‘elaborate a concrete
and realistic vision of the EU on its way to sustainable development
over the next 50 years’ is very important (point 27). Once again,
however, the question must be asked as to what specifically has
to be done and by when. The Committee would ask that,
already at this stage, any vision of this kind should also look
beyond 2060, as, given the key objectives and commitments
announced in the renewed strategy document (16), decisions
about society's future direction should, even for the very long
term, be taken as early as possible. At its summit in early March
2007,
the ball
rolling by advocating a ‘collective’ reduction in emissions ‘by 60 %
to 80 % by 2050 compared to 1990’ (17). We may well have
enough stocks of certain fossil or non-renewable raw materials
to last us more than fifty years but these stocks are, nonetheless,
finite, so it is right, even at this stage, to give consideration to a
policy with a time frame of more than fifty years — if we are
serious about securing a fair deal between the generations.

the European Council did,

in essence, start

(16) These are: to enable ‘future generations’ to ‘meet their needs’, to respect
‘social equity and cohesion’, to achieve ‘high living standards’ and ‘full
employment’, and to implement the guiding principles, i.e. to ‘place
human beings at the centre of the European Union's policies by
to ‘combat discrimination in all
promoting fundamental rights’,
forms’, and to contribute to ‘the reduction of poverty and the elimina-
tion of social exclusion’.

(17) See point 30 of the conclusions.

5.9
The renewed strategy states that each Member State is to
appoint a representative to act as focal point. The Committee
trusts that
these
appointments have already been made and how cooperation has
been developing.

the progress report will

indicate whether

5.10
The first progress report should also indicate whether
all Member States have now completed their (first) national stra-
tegies which, as announced, are due by June 2007. The
Committee wonders who checks these national strategies, what
benchmarks are used, and what happens if Member States fail to
complete the strategies or if the strategies are ‘below par’.

5.11
In point 41, the European Council speaks of ‘voluntary
peer reviews’ of the national strategies which were to start in
2006 with a first group of Member States. The progress report
should provide details of the outcome of these peer reviews and
the concomitant repercussions for the European strategy.

5.12 While fully respecting the competence of Member
States and regional and local government in many aspects of
sustainable development, and the importance of their devel-
oping their own approaches and commitment to many of the
problems, the Committee believes that maintaining progress on
sustainable development at the rate that is needed will also
require a strengthening of capacity in the Commission to
monitor overall progress and to be ready to initiate new
measures where implementation appears to be falling behind
and a collective European approach is needed. The Committee
doubts whether the coordination and exchange of good prac-
tices alone is enough. The Committee would like to receive,
each year, the compiled results of the Member States submitted
for examination.

in stimulating action in Member States,

The strategy recommends the establishment or strength-
5.13
ening of national councils for sustainable development. National
councils play an important role in the preparation of
the
national sustainable development strategies and can also play a
involving civil
part
society with action on sustainable development and monitoring
progress. Their duties also include the application of the prin-
ciple of sustainable development while maintaining a dynamic
balance between its economic, social and environmental parts.
The Committee is not aware of much progress on this recom-
mendation. It intends to examine this issue later in the year, and
meanwhile recommends that the implementation review should
also examine this issue with Member States.

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C 256/83

It

is also important

5.14
that Member States and the
Commission should consider further how to secure the coordi-
nation of sustainable development issues within their own struc-
tures. Sustainable development is a cross-cutting and integrating
concept, which should transcend and sometimes modify the
more sectional concerns of particular departments and agencies.
Experience suggests that this can only happen operationally if
there is a strong central unit for promoting sustainable develop-
ment in a government that has the knowledge and authority to
challenge and debate sectional or departmental orthodoxies. The
progress report should indicate how the Commission feels that
its own departments could be further improved in this respect.
The EESC has no doubt that some room for improvement exists
here (cf. Points 4.15 and 4.16).

5.15
The strategy rightly points out that sustainable develop-
ment must be thoroughly integrated into the remit and practice
of regional and local governments at all levels. Some European

Brussels, 11 July 2007.

local and regional authorities have been leaders in adopting a
sustainable development approach to their work and in devel-
oping imaginative responses
to climate change and other
sustainability challenges. The implementation review provides a
good opportunity for taking stock of the progress on sustain-
able development at regional and local
level and considering
how the practice of the best players can be more widely dissemi-
nated.

5.16
Point 45 states that, in 2011, a decision will be made
on when a ‘review’ of the sustainable development strategy is
needed. The Committee cannot endorse this. If it becomes clear
from the progress reports that Europe is encountering difficul-
ties on the road to sustainable development, then there is some-
thing wrong with the strategy (which is the means to the end).
If that happens, a review is needed immediately — and not just
in 2011.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Dimitris DIMITRIADIS

APPENDIX

to the Committee Opinion

The following amendments which were supported by more than a quarter of the votes cast, were rejected:

Point 2.4

Modify as follows:

‘2.4. The Committee's most recent opinion on the subject — on the Commission's December 2005 communication mentioned
above — was critical of the fact that, in what is described as an’ ambitious ‘platform for action, the Commission chose
not to follow the EESC's recommendation of April 2004 or to meet its own undertaking of June 2005, failing once
again to comply with its promise to set out clear goals to be reached under the sustainability strategy.’

Voting

For: 35

Against: 61

Abstentions: 4

Point 2.4.1

Modify as follows:

‘2.4.1. In that opinion, the Committee made the point that any strategy should describe the means of achieving objectives. The
absence of specific objectives, which are difficult to set in order to meet the requirement of taking into account the different
aspects of sustainability, is bound to result in problems when it comes to identifying instruments since if you do not know
exactly where you want to go, then you cannot decide how you will get there. The Committee therefore felt that the
communication left more questions open than it gave answers and direction.’

Voting

For: 34

Against: 63

Abstentions: 3

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Point 3.11

Modify as follows:

‘3.11. The question as to whether a European agricultural policy that is geared towards global, open markets can be sustain-
able at all automatically also raises the fundamental issue of global production and trade rules. The WTO is a body
based on agreements that are designed to foster global free trade. Yet, as the Committee has repeatedly shown, it does
not follow that free and liberalised trade is necessarily also sustainable. Sadly, tThe renewed strategy says nothing about
how to turn free develop trade into trade that is towards being compatible with sustainability principles. That is a
major failing. Here too, the Committee can but regret EU decision-makers' failure so far to address this issue, despite
the fact that it was raised by the Committee all of three years ago — though the EESC acknowledges that the EU has
shown real determination to negotiate new rules for globalised trade, including with the IMF and the World Bank.’

Voting

For: 35

Against: 63

Abstentions: 8

Point 3.11.2

Delete

Voting

For: 38

Against: 63

Abstentions: 3

Point 4.2

Modify as follows:

‘4.2.

Such an impact will may have dramatic economic repercussions. In some places, the very basis of the present-day
economy is at risk of complete collapse. In Switzerland, for instance, banks are no longer lending to investors in winter
sports infrastructure if the location is less than 1 500 m above sea level. There is also great — and increasing —
uncertainty about the future of farming and tourism in the Mediterranean area should it become even hotter and drier.’

Voting

For: 41

Against: 57

Abstentions: 3

Point 4.4

Modify as follows:

‘4.4. We face a grave situation, living, as we do, in an economic system which, for instance, at a macroeconomic level, views
It is a well known problem that health costs and in some cases environmental damage — the billions spent in the
wake of storm Kyrill in early 2007 for example — in a favourable light because they contribute to higher GDP, while
some important activities are not covered by it. The Committee is pleased that, in its renewed strategy, the European
Council is at last beginning — albeit, sadly, only on the margins — to address this contradiction in a more forthright
way. The European Council is quite right when, in point 20 of its renewed strategy, it notes that “the core system of
national income accounting could be extended by inter alia integrating stock and flow concepts and non-market work
and be further elaborated by satellite accounts e.g. environmental expenditures (and) material flows”.’

Voting

For: 35

Against: 56

Abstentions: 8

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Point 4.10

Modify as follows:

‘4.10 The European Council points out that the renewed strategy “forms the overall framework within which … economic,
social and environmental objectives can reinforce each other”. The Council also considers that all the EU's political deci-
sions should be made after “assessing in a balanced way the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustain-
able development and taking into account the external dimension of sustainable development and the costs of inaction”.
However, the moment it comes to resources, the renewed strategy no longer looks towards social dialogue, but towards
an institutional dialogue between the Commission and Member States, on the one hand, and “businesses”, on the
other, in order to set performance targets for products and processes.’

Voting

For: 41

Against: 55

Abstentions: 3

Point 4.14

Modify as follows:

‘4.14. However, as was pointed out above, this is not just about money, but in many cases about structural change. The
Committee welcomes, for instance, the renewed strategy's call to decouple “economic growth and the demand for trans-
port with the aim of reducing environmental impacts.” However, this also raises questions about “just-in-time” produc-
tion, with businesses cutting out warehousing and associated costs and turning trucks and freight trains into mobile
warehouses.’

Voting

For: 39

Against: 56

Abstentions: 6

Point 4.16

Modify as follows:

‘4.16. The Committee can only look on with amazement at the apparent lack of coordination between the drafting of the
mid-term review of the transport white paper and the renewed sustainable development strategy, as no allusion at all is
made to this blatant contradiction between aspiration and reality. In the transport sector it appears that the Commis-
sion has virtually abandoned the sustainable development strategy's first specific objective of decoupling economic
growth from growth in mobility. In future, the Commission must do everything possible to ensure that such contradic-
tions are not allowed to arise in the first place. And in the transport sector, there needs to be a renewed quest to find
ways of shaping our towns and communities and patterns of different activities in ways that will tend to shorten lines
of communication and journeys rather than constantly expanding the distances that people and goods have to travel to
meet their needs and desires. This will require adaptation of fiscal policy, spatial policy and adequate coordination at
all levels of government, from the EU down to local bodies.’

Voting

For: 36

Against: 63

Abstentions: 4