Health & Environment: Council wants inclusion of quantifiable objectives 

On 27 October, the Environment Council will adopt conclusions on the European strategy for health and environment. The Commission (together with stakeholders) is currently developing its strategy in order to draw up the 2004-2010 Action Plan.

In their draft Council's conclusions, Member States' representatives underline:

• the importance of establishing concrete operational and quantifiable objectives on the basis of existing databanks in the drawing up of the Action Plan 2004-2010. They consider that priority should be given to developing broader health Impact Assessment Methodologies, Information Surveillance Systems, an Early Warning System as well as reliable indicators on Health and Environment. They support the Commission's intention to establish a European Integrated Environment and Health Monitoring and Response System to help better understand the interactions between health and environment through the sharing of data and methodologies;
• The need for more research to be done on the 'less explored health and environmental threats' such as indoor environmental factors (SeeEurActiv, 25 September 2003), the socio-economic determinants of environmental health, the impacts of climatic change, contaminated water and noise;
• the need to establish a linkage between this strategy and other Community and International Organisations' initiatives so as to avoid duplication of work.

The Commission aims to adopt its Action Plan 2004-2010 in Spring 2004. It will be presented to the Inter-Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health in Budapest in June 2004.