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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 whole debate on implementing the EU's environmental rulebook
is becoming "increasingly absurd," according to MEP Dagmar
Roth-Behrendt (Germany, S&D). It is a "sobering fact"
that member states are trying at all costs to avoid implementing
the legislation they themselves adopt, she argued.
During an exchange of views with the Commission on the implementation
of EU green laws, MEPs on the Parliament's environment committee
said they have the right to know who is failing to transpose
the various EU laws and suggested that the EU executive should
hand out country lists on the matter. Some even suggested
establishing an early-warning system to identify those who
are not on track.
In a resolution
adopted earlier last month, the Parliament called on the Commission
to provide the House with more and quicker information on
all infringement procedures if requested.
Pia Bucella, director of legal affairs at the Commission's
environment directorate-general, said the EU executive is
"bound by the existing rules on what we can say and transmit,
what access-to-documents is allowed to us ... and we obey
the rules".
She added the Commission tries to issue press releases on
the "big infringements" at every stage of the procedure, which
gives its allegations in different cases "publicity".
Bucella also said various infringement scoreboards are found
in the Commission's annual reports and that the environment
department publishes every year its annual statistics on infringements.
The latter show how quickly or slowly the EU executive is
moving with different infringements.
MEPs also pointed out that late implementation in the member
states does not seem to affect the Commission's agenda on
reviewing legislation. For example, while statistics show
that a number of countries have done next to nothing to implement
the EU's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive
(WEEE), the Commission has already tabled a recast version.
In its November 2008 communication
on implementing European environmental law, the Commission
stressed the need to speed up handling of infringements. Janez
Potocnik, the EU's new environment commissioner, recently
said that implementation of existing legislation would be
one of the main priorities of his five-year term.
In a feasibility study published on 1 February, the European
Commission explored the possibility of setting up a specific
EU body to carry out inspections in member states to enforce
compliance of national waste laws with EU legislation.
The Lisbon Treaty also allows for quicker and easier court
judgements and fining of member states than before, Bucella
said.
The fact that the environment directorate-general was split
into two separate directorates - climate action and environment
- for the Barroso II Commission will also allow DG Environment
"to pay even more attention than we did in the past to implementation
in some key sectors" such as waste, water, air quality and
nature protection, she added.
"It is not always possible to achieve good implementation
status merely through encouraging member states to do their
work. Therefore, we need to make the best out of our enforcement
machinery," Bucella said.
She said the EU executive had identified four priority areas
on which it would improve enforcement. These include lack
of transposition, non-respect of European Court of Justice
rulings, systemic breaches of EU law - such as tolerating
illegal landfills and multiple failures to treat urban waste
water - and breaches of infrastructure, such as failure to
conduct proper environmental impact assessments.
To bridge the gap between adoption of legislation and its
implementation, the Commission has developed "implementation
action plans," which should help member states "from day one,
when the legislation is adopted," Bucella said. The EU executive
is also establishing transposition plans with member states
to help check how far they have come and where there are gaps
to be foreseen.
She acknowledged that the Commission has problems checking
that the transposition measures are in line with EU legislation,
as the measures are submitted by regions and checking them
takes time.
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