Tag: environment policy

The European Commission is preparing an EU strategy to improve implementation of the bloc's environmental rules, with plans including stricter inspections on the ground and a greater role for national judges in promoting compliance.

The European Parliament's environment committee has called on the European Commission to distribute lists of member states that fail to properly implement EU legislation on waste, water and nature protection, arguing that the situation had become "absurd".

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be reformed to deliver not only on food but on climate change mitigation, biodiversity protection and energy production too, argues a new report by the RISE foundation, a rural conservation group supported by the European Landowners' Organisation (ELO).

Green organisations gave the current European Commission 4.4 out of 10 for its environmental record in the past five years, urging its successors to double its efforts to move from rhetoric to genuine action on the environment.

Spain is not doing enough to protect communities and the environment from abuse by developers, constructors and local government involved in its property sector, the European Parliament said yesterday (26 March).

Environment issues leapt up the political agenda last year, but implementation of measures is "lagging behind", according to a Commission review of EU environment policy in 2007 published yesterday (2 July).

Ahead of new proposals to tighten controls on illegal fishing in EU waters, Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg told ministers yesterday (18 February) that the phenomenon remains a major cause for concern due to "serious shortcomings" in the enforcement of the Common Fisheries Policy.

Stakeholders in sectors including insurance and chemicals have expressed concerns over the implementation of the environmental liability directive, with only eight member states having transposed this complex piece of legislation into national law some four months after the deadline.

In its new publication ‘Biofuels for Transport’, the Worldwatch Institute examines how biofuels can reach their potential to strengthen energy security, promote economic development and protect the environment.

The aim of integrated water resources management is to balance and meet all the different demands for water in the best way possible, writes Liz Kalaugher, editor of Environmental Research Web, in a July 12 article.

The only long-term solution to climate change is to reduce carbon emissions, not to compensate with carbon-offset schemes, says Wouter Buytaert – Department of Environmental Science, University of Lancaster - in a June article for the Environmental Research Web.

Halting the decline in biodiversity will require "unprecedented efforts", according to Parliament, which warns that fish might simply run out if no action is taken.  

A group of 10 leading environmental NGOs, known as the 'Green 10', has released an unfavorable mid-term review of the Barroso Commission's environmental record. The Commission received an overall score of 4.3 out of a possible 10, sending the message that the EU executive is "failing" with respect to resource and energy efficient economic development. 

A project carried out by a European consortium compared ex-ante and ex-post estimates of environmental regulation costs and offered a number of recommendations to improve their accuracy.

This special report by the all-party parliamentary environment group of the UK Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) looks at the new EU political context to assess possible futures for environmental policy. The Lisbon strategy, enlargement, the Barroso Commission and much more are examined to draw a general picture made up of challenges and opportunities.