Blog
22.January 2002 - 00:00
Public Participation: A Necessary Step
To implement the — without doubt — progressive environmental Community legislation, it might require at least as progressive environmental public throughout the Community. Otherwise, it might give only a little credibility for the international leadership the EU has laid hold of in the environmental field.
Now, the EU is in the process of hammering some practical tools for the public to be able to play its role and help putting the politics into practise. The toolbox is labelled "Aarhus, Denmark", while it was there the pan-European environmental ministers met in June 1998.
In order to contribute to the "protection of right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being", the Aarhus Convention requires to give information, ask for comments and incorporate these comments to the decision making. The Convention came into force on October 30, 2001.
The Commission has chosen to give the proposals needed for the ratification in three parts. The proposal concerning consulting public is for a horizontal directive, intended to ensure opportunities for public participation at the early and decisive stages of environmental decision-making. The participation would concern the drawing-up of certain plans and programmes, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure, and integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC).
In some areas, the public is for the first time to be given the opportunity to participate in the drawing-up of plans and programmes. Such provisions are to be inserted, for example, in the directives on air quality, the protection of waters, packaging or landfill of waste. The Parliament has amended the proposal to extend it further to all plans and programmes which "may have a significant effect" on the environment and human health.
The Commission proposal consistently omitted those provisions of the Aarhus Convention, which are not couched in entirely imperative terms. Their inclusion, albeit sometimes for implementation at the discretion of Member States, is a consequence of the efforts made in the report to fully implement the spirit of the Convention.
Perhaps, incorporating environmental convention in the Community legislation is different from drafting other directives and conventions. In the environmental policies, the idea is to reverse, step by step, the adverse global development. Therefore the processes must be kept dynamic and exploit the experience gained. As the political Union has claimed an international leadership it cannot confine to duplicating the minimum of the internationally agreed standards, but use the entire margin within the realism. EU must act with a forward-looking approach; incorporation of an environmental convention should take shape that can cause propulsion for further improvement internationally.
In that it amends Community law to bring it into line with the Aarhus Convention, the directive constitutes a second pillar in a procedure designed to bring about the Convention’s ratification within the Community by 2004. The first pillar concerned public access to environmental information and was considered at first reading in March 2001; the rapporteur was the same as for this report. The last pillar consists of the proposal concerning legality and review; the Commission is still drafting this proposal.
At the moment, 17 countries out of which only 2 are Members of the EU have ratified the Convention. Some environmental NGOs and Accession Countries have raised concern about this; it gives a bad example internationally, they maintain. Normally, the EU ratifies a treaty once there is appropriate legislation in place. This order of proceedings is well justified but seems painfully slow. In the case of Aarhus Convention, the process will even take extra long time because of the controversies in the pillar on the access to justice.
It seems to me that there is no reason for panic. But maybe it still would be worth while thinking about the possibility that EU states it has done adequately for the ratification as soon as the directives on the two first pillars have been published in the OJ. This kind of shortcut to ratification would be possible since there already are minimum provisions for legal review included in the two directives. Once the proposal for the third pillar is mature, it could replace the earlier provisions, but processing it would not make the Union lag behind in ratification the Aarhus Convention.
Eija-Riitta Korhola
The Parliament Magazine, 22.01.2002
To implement the — without doubt — progressive environmental Community legislation, it might require at least as progressive environmental public throughout the Community. Otherwise, it might give only a little credibility for the international leadership the EU has laid hold of in the environmental field.
Now, the EU is in the process of hammering some practical tools for the public to be able to play its role and help putting the politics into practise. The toolbox is labelled "Aarhus, Denmark", while it was there the pan-European environmental ministers met in June 1998.
In order to contribute to the "protection of right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being", the Aarhus Convention requires to give information, ask for comments and incorporate these comments to the decision making. The Convention came into force on October 30, 2001.
The Commission has chosen to give the proposals needed for the ratification in three parts. The proposal concerning consulting public is for a horizontal directive, intended to ensure opportunities for public participation at the early and decisive stages of environmental decision-making. The participation would concern the drawing-up of certain plans and programmes, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedure, and integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC).
In some areas, the public is for the first time to be given the opportunity to participate in the drawing-up of plans and programmes. Such provisions are to be inserted, for example, in the directives on air quality, the protection of waters, packaging or landfill of waste. The Parliament has amended the proposal to extend it further to all plans and programmes which "may have a significant effect" on the environment and human health.
The Commission proposal consistently omitted those provisions of the Aarhus Convention, which are not couched in entirely imperative terms. Their inclusion, albeit sometimes for implementation at the discretion of Member States, is a consequence of the efforts made in the report to fully implement the spirit of the Convention.
Perhaps, incorporating environmental convention in the Community legislation is different from drafting other directives and conventions. In the environmental policies, the idea is to reverse, step by step, the adverse global development. Therefore the processes must be kept dynamic and exploit the experience gained. As the political Union has claimed an international leadership it cannot confine to duplicating the minimum of the internationally agreed standards, but use the entire margin within the realism. EU must act with a forward-looking approach; incorporation of an environmental convention should take shape that can cause propulsion for further improvement internationally.
In that it amends Community law to bring it into line with the Aarhus Convention, the directive constitutes a second pillar in a procedure designed to bring about the Convention’s ratification within the Community by 2004. The first pillar concerned public access to environmental information and was considered at first reading in March 2001; the rapporteur was the same as for this report. The last pillar consists of the proposal concerning legality and review; the Commission is still drafting this proposal.
At the moment, 17 countries out of which only 2 are Members of the EU have ratified the Convention. Some environmental NGOs and Accession Countries have raised concern about this; it gives a bad example internationally, they maintain. Normally, the EU ratifies a treaty once there is appropriate legislation in place. This order of proceedings is well justified but seems painfully slow. In the case of Aarhus Convention, the process will even take extra long time because of the controversies in the pillar on the access to justice.
It seems to me that there is no reason for panic. But maybe it still would be worth while thinking about the possibility that EU states it has done adequately for the ratification as soon as the directives on the two first pillars have been published in the OJ. This kind of shortcut to ratification would be possible since there already are minimum provisions for legal review included in the two directives. Once the proposal for the third pillar is mature, it could replace the earlier provisions, but processing it would not make the Union lag behind in ratification the Aarhus Convention.
Eija-Riitta Korhola
The Parliament Magazine, 22.01.2002