EU fudging green issues in neighbour states, NGO says
08.02.07 @ 17:43
BRUSSELS - Green groups are calling on the European Commission to put the environment on the same level as human rights and trade when working out new agreements with countries neighbouring the EU.
Looking after the environment is also important for sustainable development, WWF says (Photo: Socio-Ecological Union)
A team of NGOs led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has told the commission that environmentally-sustainable development should not be set apart from other goals of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in states such as Syria, Belarus and Ukraine.
"The environment is the basis for everything," Paloma Agrasot from WWF said. "If you don't protect the wetlands you will have no water to drink, and if you don't protect the sea you will have no fish to eat," she added.
Brussels is currently revamping its ENP with two new fund worth up to €1 billion in the next seven years, but the main thrust of the reform is to address criticism that Brussels has not done enough on human rights and democratic reform in former Soviet states in the past.
The ENP embraces 16 states stretching from Morocco around the Mediterranean sea all the way up to Belarus but excluding Russia - which has special status - in an attempt to boost EU trade and security levels in a zone of non-EU but EU-like states.
Speaking about the so-called "ENP plus" model for 2007 to 2013, Ms Agrasot said the environmental content was "nice" but "in practical terms the problem is that the governments don't necessarily think that the environment is a priority."
She suggested more money should be spent on public awareness campaigns to help make the environment a priority in North African and east European societies, as well as putting pressure on governments to take green issues seriously.
"Right now there is a lot of blah blah text [on the environment in the new ENP model] and not so much is being done," the campaigner told EUobserver.
It is hard to sell green issues to ENP governments, one EU official told EUobserver. "There is an [increasing] understanding in the countries that you need to work on the environment," he added, however.
