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The Future of the Cardiff process

1 Introduction

1.1 The Cardiff integration process
1.2 Background to this report

1.1 The Cardiff integration process

The ‘Cardiff’ integration process was initiated at the Cardiff Summit of 1998. It requires formations of the European Union Council of Ministers to develop comprehensive strategies to integrate environmental considerations within their respective areas of activity. The process has thus far called upon nine formations of the Council – Transport, Agriculture and Energy, Development, Internal Market and Industry, and General Affairs (GAC), Economic and Finance (Ecofin) and Fisheries, to develop strategies. In October 2002, the Environment Council called on the European Council to invite other Council formations to follow suit.

1.2 Background to this report

In preparation for its review of the Cardiff process, the Danish Ministry of the Environmental has commissioned this study by IEEP to examine progress on the Cardiff Process and to set out and evaluate a range of options for carrying environment and sustainable development policy forward.

This builds on two previous IEEP reports, published in March and June 20012 3, which assessed progress and achievements prior to the Göteborg Summit. The focus of these reports was on the content of the strategies and the process for developing them. They were based on nine separate expert evaluations of work relating to the nine Council strategies. For each Council strategy, IEEP also contacted one or more key players as appropriate to support the evaluations, and to ensure full coverage of relevant papers and other ‘informal’ developments not apparent from official sources. This was particularly important in terms of assessing innovations in the strategy development process.

The Terms of Reference for this new report also include an element of updating earlier analysis in terms of recent progress, but also include a stronger focus on strategic considerations. This has been necessitated by a range of other developments which are relevant to the Cardiff process. Detailed Terms of Reference were as follows:

IEEP’s Terms of Reference

1. An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the Cardiff process so far.

This will summarise the findings of IEEP’s reports covering developments up until March 2001, and extend the analysis to consider more recent ‘strategies’ including those from the GAC and Ecofin, and work on the Fisheries strategy. Further developments in relation to the transport strategy are also to be included.

2. Definition of the contents of ‘model’ strategies

This will be in two parts:

Identification of the requirements common to all strategies eg relating to problem definition, target setting, timetables, indicators, monitoring and reporting etc;

For each individual Council, identification of the specific contributions needed to address the priorities set by the various other relevant initiatives (see 3.1 below). This analysis will include Council formations so far excluded from the Cardiff process.

3. Mechanisms and procedures for strategy development, monitoring and review

3.1 A consideration of procedures to ensure a more coherent contribution from each Council to recent environmental/SD strategies, including

EU SDS

6EAP (targets and measures, e.g. reducing subsidies, use of fiscal instruments)

6EAP Thematic Strategies. (Consideration will be given to whether there might be additional thematic strategies relating to eg chemicals; transport and planning; sustainable regional development.)

European Climate Change Programme

EU Biodiversity Action Plans

Johannesburg follow-up, especially the proposed 10-year framework of programmes for sustainable production and consumption

These contributions could be set out in the new Annual Programmes for each Council.

3.2 Procedures for strengthening the input of the Environment Council to (non-Cardiff) strategies being developed by other Councils eg reforms/mid-term reviews of CAP; CFP; common transport policy; structural funds;

3.3 The future contribution of Councils to the European Commission’ s new impact assessment procedures;

3.4 Strengthened monitoring and review mechanisms, and the role in this regard of

the new GAERC

the Environment Council’s annual conclusions for the Spring European Council

the annual environmental policy review from the European Commission (DG Environment)

 

2 IEEP, The Effectiveness of EU Council Integration Strategies and Options for carrying forward the Cardiff Process. IEEP and Ecologic, London, 2001.
 
3 IEEP, Review of progress made under the 2001 Swedish Presidency of the EU on Council Integration Strategies for carrying forward the Cardiff Process. IEEP, London, 2001.

 

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