Parliament committee approves environment plan...with 250 amendments
The European Parliament's Environment Committee has approved the Commission's proposed Environment Action Programme for the next ten years, but insisted on numerous amendments seeking to pin programmes down to specific objectives and a firm timetable. The committee adopted some 250 amendments. It endorsed the Commission's four priority areas: climate change, bio-diversity, the environment and health and the sustainable management of natural resources and waste, but indicated that the programme should be more strategic, with compulsory thematic programmes and long term goals that reach beyond 2010. It would also like to see the programme form the environmental pillar of the EU's sustainable development strategy to be adopted at the Gothenburg summit in June. Finnish rapporteur Riitta Myller also stressed that the programme should pay much greater attention to enlargement, which will take place during the period covered by the programme.