The Environmental Challenge of EU Enlargement in Central and Eastern Europe
Chapter 7
The Policy Dilemma
From the beginning of the current wave of the enlargement, one of the primary challenges has been the high cost of achieving compliance with the EU environmental standards. The risk is that the to succeed at the enlargement may undermine the pressure on the CEE countries to meet the environmental standards. The implications are two fold:
| (1) | relaxing the environmental precondition will reduce the incentive in the accession countries to invest in environmental infrastructure and delay environmental clean-up in the CEE; |
| (2) | the EU will end up paying a much larger share of the cost of environmental infrastructure in the CEE than previously expected. |
It will be important to keep the right balance in these areas in order to provide a
positive example for the CIS countries. Most of the countries in the CIS are experiencing
not only a profound economic contraction, but rapidly deterioriating environmental
infrastructure, including water supply and general sanitation. The health impacts are
leading to higher mortality rates and lower life expectancy rates. The reduced public
budgets have left little funding for environmental investments in these countries. In
particular, there is significant donor fatigue. Moreover, the commitment of donors tends
to wane for those countries where there is not an immediate geopolitical interest. There
has been a great difference, for example, between the resources provided to the three
Baltic States (and the gains they have made) to that provided to the countries of the
Caucasus.
Most of the countries in the CIS have signed Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) with the EU committing them to harmonisation with the EU acquis over time, including the environmental obligations. At the same time, the EAP Task Force convened within the "Environment for Europe" has focused its attention on the CIS. Nonetheless, the pace of legal and economic reform is slow and it is difficult to see results. It is the CIS countries that may be most in need of the discipline and momentum of a drive for EU accession. A diminution in the emphasis on the environment during the enlargement process will send these countries the wrong message.
There is another risk. Upon accession, the new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe will also have the rights of EU membership, including to help set future EU environmental policy and to enact new environmental legislation. The signals given to the CEE applicant countries now and in the remaining period before the enlargement will be read not only by their Ministries of Environment, but by Ministries of Finance, Transport, Energy, Agriculture, Economic Development etc. If the signals given by the EU are that in the end environmental protection is not all that important, environmental protection may become a lower priority on the CEE political agenda.
That could have a negative impact on the EU constitutional commitment of maintaining a high level of environmental protection. It will be important in the remaining period for Member State governments and citizens to make sure that the enlargement moves ahead, but not at the expense of relaxing the pressure for the CEE countries to achieve compliance with the EU standards.
The applicant countries are well aware that the Member States also do not always follow the EU rules with respect to the environment. Recent moves by the Environment Commissioner to take steps to press for better compliance on the part of current Member States need to be sustained, so that the applicant countries get the message that compliance matters and will be enforced.
It is a fact of public policy that some issues rise to the top of the agenda for a period and then are replaced by others. During the time of priority, very big advances can be made and this may be the case in the environment. There is some evidence that political support for environmental measures is on the slide. The good news is that there are now substantial legal and market mechanisms in place at EU level which protect the environment, including EIA, environmental management and auditing systems, public information disclosure requirements etc., and these can be used effectively to improve environmental protection.
The process of enlargement extends the EU legal and market mechanisms in place for environmental protection to the applicant countries and, through the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements and the Stabilisation and Association Agreements, to the aspiring applicant countries of South East Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It is a process that on the whole will benefit the environment.
