1. Introduction, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

Environmental Assistance to Eastern Europe - Annual Report 2000

1. Introduction

By Svend Auken, the Danish Minister for Environment and Energy

Visible environmental assistance to Eastern Europe

Environmental improvements in Eastern Europe are making great strides. Today, the environmental strain in the whole region has been substantially reduced. In countries applying for EU membership, this result has been produced by the closing down of polluting heavy industries together with extensive environmental measures.

In ten countries in Eastern Europe, negotiations for EU membership are progressing favourably. Their membership of the EU will be the best guarantee of economic progress, peace and stability in Europe. Surveys show that efforts to comply with EU environmental rules constitute one of the most expensive elements in the process - estimated by the EU Commission at approx. DKK 700 billion. Denmark demands the highest possible degree of compliance with environmental requirements before accession; otherwise, we run the risk that, for many years to come, a new enlarged EU will not be able to ensure continued environmental progress. The provision of substantial assistance towards enabling the applicant countries to live up to EU environmental standards will thus pave the way for early accession and is therefore given the highest priority in the new policy for environmental assistance to Eastern Europe pursued by the Danish Ministry for Environment and Energy.

The environment ministers in the applicant countries take the accession requirements very seriously - both with regard to legislation and to environmental investments. All of the applicant countries have come to realize that they will not be admitted unless they comply with EU environmental legislation, and many have come to appreciate that the introduction of a new set of environmental rules represents a unique opportunity to reform not only the laws, but also the institutions and agencies that will have to implement and enforce the laws. The Danish assistance comprises preparation for and implementation of environmental investments as well as technical assistance in , for example, the legislation area. Since the countries in question filed their applications for EU membership, there has been a growing demand for technical assistance in the environmental area. This is a positive sign, indicating both that reforms in the environmental area are underway in these countries and that they are now taking a more long-term view and focusing more on finding the most economically and technically feasible ways to solve the problems.

The applicant countries are still interested in receiving assistance with environmental investments. But as opposed to the situation just a few years ago, when major environmental investments were financed primarily via loans from development banks, it is now the EU pre-accession assistance that provides the bulk of the funding. The Danish Ministry for Environment and Energy has assisted the EU Commission in launching investment projects, and today we have close co-operation in this field in several of the applicant countries. As a result of this co-operation, many more environmental projects are being prepared and implemented today than earlier, benefiting the countries themselves and the firms participating in the projects.

The EU accession of the Eastern European countries entails the risk of establishing a new iron curtain and new barriers to co-operation with the Balkan states. An economic and environmental collapse in these regions will automatically spread to the EU. Political unrest, transboundary pollution and lots of poverty and environment refugees will be knocking on the doors of the EU. In the long term, our vision should therefore be to move a greater share of the environmental assistance towards east and south, as more and more countries accede to the EU. Danish environmental assistance has already moved in this direction, with the decision to phase out assistance to the Czech Republic and start co-operating with the Republic of Moldova.

These years, the SNG-countries are experiencing rising health problems on account of the poor environmental situation and the insufficient maintenance of environmental plant. With Danish backing, the OECD has analysed the economic conditions connected with, among other things, the drinking water supply in several of the countries and has developed strategies for financing improvements in this area. The analyses indicate a massive demand for investments, greatly exceeding the ability of the consumers to pay for them. On account of the economic situation in these countries, the possibilities of taking up international loans are limited, and private investors are interested in investing in the largest cities only, with prospects of a reasonable return on investments. These and other serious problems were discussed in Almaty in Kasakhstan at a midway-conference held between the Aarhus Conference in 1998 and the next pan-European Conference of environment ministers to be held in Kiev in 2003. It is to be hoped that the Kiev Conference will both induce the SNG-countries' own governments to give higher priority to the environmental area than today and induce donor countries to provide more assistance.

By drawing up an environmental restoration programme, the Balkan states themselves have taken the initiative to include the environment in the Peace and Stability Pact, which especially the EU has backed, in order to create durable peace in the area. Environmental co-operation - which is less controversial than many other policy areas - is expected to contribute to restoring confidence among the different population groups and between the populations and their public authorities.

In this connection, the countries are using the Aarhus Conference for access to environmental information, to participation in environmental decisions and to having issues tried in court with a view to restoring the confidence of their populations in public authorities.

By the end of 2000, environmental assistance has been instrumental in initiating projects to promote the ratification and implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Moldova, and a number of feasibility studies have been prepared for projects in Croatia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

The provision of target-oriented project assistance in this area is one of the factors contributing to the fact that the Convention is expected to come into force earlier than foreseen, hopefully by the end of 2001. The coming into force of the Aarhus Convention will be a major step in the right direction, not only with regard to the introduction of more democratic decision procedures in the environmental area in these countries, but also with regard to environmentally based decisions, for instance in relation to planning, VVM-procedures, environmental approvals, etc.