EC budget should take greater account of environmental policy
Mrs. Ritt Bjerregaard, European Commissioner for the environment, addressed a meeting between NGOs and EC Institutions, held in Brussels on 28 November 1996, on reform of the EC budget and environment policy. In her speech, Mrs. Bjerregaard raised a number of critical questions, including the relationship between budget reform and environmental policy and the priorities for such reform, and she placed the concept of budget greening into a wider context. In the review of the 5th Environment Action Programme, completed earlier this year, five key priorities were highlighted. Commissioner Bjerregaard stated that three of these, the development of a wider range of policy instruments, the integration of environmental concerns into other policies and raising awareness have particular significance to the topic of budget reform. She suggested that the highest priority for reform relates to the integration of the environment into other policy areas. This should be targeted at ensuring that Community expenditure is no longer contributing to environmental decline and is increasingly oriented towards positive action for environmental protection and sustainable development. The agricultural budget should be at the top of the list for attention, she said. She also underlined the need to integrate the environment into the Structural Funds. Particular attention should go to the areas of energy and environmental technology, and the Commissioner stated that it was "totally unsatisfactory that the Council reduced the funds available for SAVE II (the proposed programme for the promotion of energy efficiency in the Community, to run from 1996 to 2000) from ECU 150 million, as proposed by the Commission, to only ECU 45 million". Finally, Commissioner Bjerregaard underlined the need to put the greening of EU budgets into a wider context. Whilst the Community's budgets have an important input to the achievement of sustainable development, Member States and local authorities must also take responsibility for the integration of the environment into their own policies and programmes. And, she noted, individual citizens also have a responsibility to think of the environment in the choices they make.