The EU and eastern Europe’s pollution
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THE INTEGRATION of the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe into the European Union is turning out to be more troubled than that of the states that joined the initial nucleus in previous decades. A mute resentment crops up here and there over reasons such as relations with Russia - which they consider relatively undemanding when it comes to the issues of energy or human rights - the freedom of movement of workers in western Europe, and environmental policies. This last question has caused six of these countries - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia and Estonia - to bring the European Commission before the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, since they consider the allocation of carbon dioxide emission rights that Brussels has set for them for the next five years unjust.
These countries argue that it is discriminatory for limitations to be imposed on them that did not have to be respected by western European nations in their own industrial development. Concerning the construction of four-lane divided highways, for example, they are saying that if the present levels of environmental requirements had been applied, neither Spain nor France would have their present road network. This is the complaint of governments such as that of Poland, which is now entangled in litigation with Brussels over a project of this type, for which it has not presented an environmental-impact study.
As regards carbon dioxide, the EC maintains, with data to support its view, that its calculations do take into account the economic-growth forecasts of the new EU members. And that, for example, they have been allocated a greater quota of emission rights than the older members. In any case, the judicial action taken by these countries deals a severe blow to the credibility of the already shaky system of emission-rights bargaining, which the Commission itself plans to reform this year, to remedy substantial maladjustments that undermine its effectiveness.
The EU, as it proposed at the last G-8 summit conference in Germany, intends to lead the campaign against climate change, and to convince the great polluters, such as the United States - which has just called a summit conference on the matter for the end of September - and China, to adopt binding commitments to curb the heating of the planet. But its authority will be gravely compromised if a number of EU members come forward with arguments similar to those used by emerging countries in other continents, to refuse to accept commitments to reduce emissions of contaminating gases.
Filed by Maria Robson under Development, Climate Change, East-West Relations: Central and Eastern Europe