PRESS RELEASE DRAFT CONSTITUTION TOO WEAK ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Brussels, May 28, 2003 The eight largest European environmental organisations, the Green 8 (1), with 20 million members and supporters, called for strengthening sustainable development and participatory democracy in the new draft of the Constitution presented by the Praesidium yesterday. “The Convention has to do more than pay lip service to these fundamental values. Europe‟s citizens expect and deserve better,” said a Green 8 spokesperson. Objective of sustainable development missing environmental dimension. While giving sustainable development a welcome place in the new Constitution, the Praesidium has failed to put the ecological dimension, “protection and improvement of the quality of the environment” on equal footing with the economic and social components of sustainable development. “This can still be accomplished by a simple shift of wording in new article I-3, thereby avoiding the risk of the ecological dimension being relegated to an afterthought,” explained the Green 8 spokesperson. The Green 8 supports the initiative of Commissioner Wallström to introduce a protocol on Sustainable Development to further clarify the nature of actions the EU needs to undertake to this respect. Principles of environmental policy integration and policy coherence maintained. Fortunately, the current principle of integrating the environment into all Union policies, the basic requirement in making sustainable development work, has been given a prominent place at the beginning of Part III on policies, thereby confirming its application to all policies and activities of the Union. Although its position in Part III is not as prominent as in the Amsterdam Treaty it nevertheless affirms a clear commitment and obligation by the EU. Welcoming the reappearance of the principle of policy coherence in the articles on external action the Green 8 spokesperson emphasised that “it will reinforce the Union‟s commitment to the sustainable development of developing countries”. "Participatory Democracy" remains vague and incomplete. Under the new draft the Commission is obliged in general terms only to „carry out broad prior consultations with parties concerned‟ (Article I-46). “The application of participatory democracy to the EU institutions has still not been clarified”, continued the Green 8 spokesperson. “In order to guarantee transparency the text must ensure consultations are organised „in an early, appropriate and adequate manner, and provide the public with the opportunity to comment, during each stage of decision-making.‟ Furthermore, we insist that the Convention not miss this opportunity to open the door to the European Court of Justice for citizens and their organisations to challenge decisions of the European Commission or other EU bodies.”
Opportunity missed to reform Europe’s outdated policies. The draft misses a unique opportunity to revise the objectives of many of the Union‟s policy chapters such as agriculture and transport. By undertaking what amounts to a technical revision, the Praesidium is endorsing out of date language that that fails to balance economic, social and environmental concerns. The Green 8 cautiously welcomed the new energy chapter, which highlights improvement of the environment as an objective and the need to promote renewable energy. The Praesidium failed to remove the unanimity requirement for decisions on environmentally related fiscal policies. Protocol on Euratom Treaty is unacceptable. The Euratom Treaty, which promotes nuclear energy at Community level, has been annexed to the Constitution virtually unchanged. “Nuclear energy is dangerous and controversial. It is unacceptable to connect it, without discussion to the future of Europe, giving it a preferential financial and institutional framework,” said the Green 8 spokesperson. Over the past months Convention members including French, German and UK Government representatives have tabled amendments echoing Green 8 concerns. These have been backed up by European environment Ministers. (2) “The Green 8 continues to propose amendments as we believe it would be regrettable if the Convention was remembered for having weakened Europe‟s commitment to the environment”, concluded the Green 8 spokesperson.
For more information contact: John Hontelez, Secretary-General, EEB, tel: +32 2 289 1090; fax +32 2 289 1099; email: hontelez@eeb.org; also see www.eeb.org; Ioli Christopoulou, WWF European Policy Office, tel: +32 2 740 0920; email: IChristopoulou@wwfepo.org; also see www.panda.org/epo. Jorgo Iwasaki-Riss, Greenpeace European Unit, tel: +32 274 1907: email: Jorgo.Riss@diala.greenpeace.org. Note for the editor: (1) The member organisations of the Green-8 are: BirdLife International, Climate Action Network Europe, European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Friends of Nature International, European Federation for Transport and Environment (T & E), Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE), Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). (2) For the position of environment Ministers see the Conclusions on “Sustainable Development as a core issue for the Future of Europe” of the Informal Meeting of Environment Ministers, May 3-5, 2003, Greece.