EU back-room deal could leave contaminated soil at hospitals, schools
LEIGH PHILLIPS
30.07.2008 @ 17:29 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Schools, playgrounds, hospitals and other public sites with contaminated soil could remain polluted as the result of a back-room deal between Germany, France and the UK on European legislation covering soil degradation and clean-ups.
Two years ago, the European Commission proposed a directive that would see member states obliged to identify and clean sites polluted by industry. The bill was also to require the designation of farm land at risk of different forms of degradation such as erosion, landslides and becoming too salt-ridden.
Soil absorbs up to 20 percent of carbon emissions (Photo: wikipedia)
The proposal was blocked by the three countries at last December's European Summit, together with Austria and the Netherlands. France, currently chairing the six-month rotating EU presidency, had said it would attempt to revive negotiations on the bill, a move initially welcomed by environmental groups.
But Paris has not yet put the topic on any agenda at the official level before the October summit and is currently co-ordinating unofficial meetings between the five blocking countries.
A leaked draft seen by EUobserver of changes sought by the main blocking countries shows that they are seeking to strip the bill of almost all of its key requirements.
"What little substance was in the original directive proposal has now been gutted," said Pieter de Pous, a soil policy expert with the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), an pan-European alliance of local green groups.
The document was produced by the French environment ministry, as it is not an official document of the French EU presidency, which would have to be distributed to all member states and the European Commission.
Only the five countries that voted against the original proposal have been invited to the discussions.
Massacre
"It's been cooked up in secret meetings in Paris," a commission source told EUobserver, describing the changes as "a total massacre of the key elements."
The commission's proposal had been to have member states identify which sites were contaminated, maintain a public list of these sites, and announce when they would clean them up.
But according to the compromises currently being discussed, member states would no longer be required to systematically identify sites. Instead, member states would now have complete freedom on how and when they would identify and remediate the contaminated soil.
France wants the identification of contaminated sites to happen only when a site is sold, and the list of sites is no longer to be made public.
"It's a market approach rather than a systematic approach," said Mr de Pous.
"This means that the only time that a contaminated site would be identified would be when some sort of transaction takes place. But there are all sorts of sites - such as schools or hospitals - that are not going to be sold or change hands any time soon, and so would not be able to be identified in any list if they are indeed contaminated."
Germany, for its part, wants member states to be free from any obligation to identify areas at risk of soil degradation and from any requirement to rectify the situation.
Mr de Pous accused Germany, along with the Netherlands and Austria, of succumbing to pressure from their farm lobbies. "To take these elements out of the directive makes the exercise pointless - they are the whole point of a soil directive," he said.
Soil sealing
Meanwhile, the UK is worried about language surrounding the issue of "soil sealing." This occurs when soils are covered - or "sealed" - by an impermeable substance such as concrete or tarmac, as when building a road, a building or a car park.
Soil sealing prevents the soil from performing other functions such as food production and storage of carbon, and restricts habitats for wildlife, reducing biodiversity. With around 20 percent of CO2 absorbed by soils, the reduction of soil sealing plays a large role in counteracting global warming.
The original text would have seen environment ministers committed to "reducing" soil sealing. While there was no detail as to how this reduction had to be achieved, and so was already quite weak, the language was still too strict for the UK.
Now the text reads that ministers only have to analyse to what extent soil sealing causes problems.
"We are worried that France will come to the October council with this back-room deal between the UK, France and Germany and present it to the other member states as a fait accompli, saying: 'Take it or leave it - either a lousy directive or no directive at all'," the EEB analyst said.
A spokesperson for the German mission to the EU, Martin Kotthaus, refused to comment on the document, saying only: "Berlin is currently checking the new proposal" and that "It is up to the French presidency to decide how to go about this."
The UK and French missions were not immediately available for comment.
