Commissioner Bjerregaard discusses Fifth Environmental Action Programme
At the fourth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in New York on 1-3 May 1996, Mrs. Ritt Bjerregaard, Commissioner responsible for environment, discussed the current revision of the Community's Fifth Environmental Action Programme, commenting that there had been a mix of progress and problems in implementing the programme's objectives. The Fifth Environmental Action Programme (1993-2000) aims to achieve full integration of environmental and other relevant policies through the active participation of all the main actors in society, involving a broadening and deepening of the instruments for control and behavioural change including, in particular, greater use of market forces. It was felt that insufficient account had been taken in the programme of the role of citizens as environmental policy players, and that it had failed to make an adequate linkage between environmental and economic requirements. The Commissioner stressed that the areas of transport, agriculture, drinking water and energy should receive special attention in the programme, as well as pollution control systems and implementation and enforcement of environmental rules. She highlighted that, in terms of environmental performance, Europe is doing best in the industrial sector. In the future, voluntary agreements with industry, already used in the USA, will be explored. On the other hand, the European Union will avoid the US experience with Super Fund legislation on environmental liability.