A coalition of ten influential environmental organisations has said the European Commission has been too slow to implement meaningful green policies. Releasing a report to mark the halfway point of its current term of office, the ‘Green10’ said the European Commission is falling behind in its efforts to create sustainable long-term prosperity in Europe.

The report, which assesses the Commission’s environmental performance since 2010, shows the current Commission, the second under José Manuel Barroso’s leadership, has so far acted to protect the environment even less than the first Barroso Commission and is on track to having one of the worst ever environmental records of any yet assessed.

The Green10, which includes Friends of the Earth, the European Environmental Bureau, Greenpeace and WWF, said the commission has been quick to crumble in the face of corporate lobbying and has consequently welched on conservation issues, chemical regulation and pollution. Although the Commission has responded to the report, claiming it is superficial, commissioners have acknowledged that greening work is harder to achieve in the current ‘economic climate.’

The coalition of environment groups said, “Despite encouraging statements on the need for a smart, inclusive and sustainable economy, the Commission has so far failed to harness the potential for environmental policies to create jobs, improve health and reduce energy and resource use. Industry lobbyists have continued to pull the strings on many political files, leading to woefully inadequate policies.”

According to the report, progress has been too slow on halting environmentally and socially damaging problems linked to resource depletion, pollution and ecological destruction; in its report, the Green10 denigrates the Commisison’s flagship reform proposals, the EU fisheries and agriculture policies. The group said current proposals will not halt animal and plant extinctions, nor soil and water and pollution.

The organisation argued that the Common Agricultural Policy reforms as they stand do not make the link between agriculture, land management and biodiversity, which is in freefall Across Europe. CAP spending accounts for around 40 per cent of the entire EU budget and green groups have consistently stated that, as such, it should be delivered in a way that is acceptable and beneficial to the European population. Polls have shown that 90 per cent of European citizens want EU expenditure to be linked to climate and environmental improvement.

Last week, Tony Long of WWF, one of the Green10’s member organisations, said that EU CAP policy has been watered down by agriculture councillors “who had been clearly been working under strong pressure from the agricultural industry and the big farming unions.”   He said policy makers had failed in their duty to secure environmental benefits over economic ones, stating, “‘Flexibility’ in Eurospeak is now synonymous, it seems, with compromising environmental standards.”

In Europe, agriculture accounts for 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, the sector is responsible for around 92 per cent of fresh water consumption. In Europe alone between 1980 and 2008, farmland bird populations fell by an average 49 per cent, with some species seeing over 90 per cent losses. However, the organisations feel that measures proposed to redress these issues are being chipped away before they can offer meaningful protection.

The Commission’s track record on renewable energies also attracts criticism in the review. The environmental organisations said that, although the Commission had “acknowledged the economic and environmental rewards offered by clean energy and transport and an end to fossil fuel subsidies, its mixed record on energy policy has not delivered clear measures to bring Europe closer to a modern energy system built around renewables and efficiency.”

The green10 lamented that the Commission’s  “Failure to live up to its own rhetoric has contributed to another low score for energy policy.”

The report, which is available here, also provides a number of policy recommendations, which its authors feel would shift the Commission in a more sustainable direction for its remaining two-and-a-half year term.
 

Tweet