The Future of the Cardiff process
6 Integrating cardiff into new EU systems for strategic planning
6.1 Introduction
The advent of the Prodi Commission in January 2000 ushered in a period of major reforms to EU governance. In addition to the extension of the Lisbon process in 2001 to include the EU's Sustainable Development Strategy, the principal changes include:
 | The reform of the Commission following the March 2000 White Paper14, and the introduction a new strategic planning and programming cycle for Commission activities15. The first Commission legislative and work programme (for 2003) to be developed under these new procedures was published in October 200216. |
| The Action Plan on better regulation17, and the introduction from autumn 2002 of a new, integrated impact assessment system for major Commission proposals18; |
| At Council level, reforms introduced by the June 2002 Seville European Council to the operation of the Council and European Council. |
Together, these amount to important changes to the EU's institutional landscape, which need to be taken into account in thinking about the future of Cardiff.
6.2 Strategic role of the General Affairs and External Relations Council
The new GAERC could make an important contribution in advancing the Cardiff process, from at least three perspectives:
| Its role in co-ordinating the activities of other sectoral Councils has been strengthened. At each of its meetings since Seville, the co-ordination of the work of other Councils has featured on its agenda; |
| It is responsible for developing each December an annual operating programme for the Council (and by implication for each of its formations) for the following year, together with a three-yearly strategic programme; |
| It has responsibility for setting the agenda and preparing for each meeting of the European Council. |
As discussed in Chapter 2, two of the weaknesses of the Cardiff process to date have been lack of adequate steering and guidance to sectoral Councils on the content of their integration strategies, and, since Göteborg, the lack of involvement of the European Council in providing strategic direction. Therefore there is a great potential for the new GAERC to strengthen the process of co-ordination and guidance in relation to the Cardiff process, provided it is encourages to do so. As regards substantive policy issues, the GAERC will need to be supported by the Environment Council, in particular through its proposed guidelines and conclusions on sectoral integration agreed at its June and October meetings respectively.
At its meeting on 28 September 2002, the GAERC requested all formations of the Council to report by mid-November on how they proposed to respond to the commitments set out in the Johannesburg (WSSD) Programme of Implementation. Three Council formations have not yet responded. The Justice and Home Affairs, and the Education, Youth and Culture Councils did not discuss the subject during their October/November meetings, while the Employment and Social Affairs Council, and the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Councils have promised responses in December. The response of Ecofin was short and expressed interest in the issue of changing unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, but made no proposals on how it might contribute to future EU work in this area. Similarly, the Agriculture and Fisheries Council noted that it would take into account the commitments of the Doha and Johannesburg conferences in the reform of the common agricultural and common fisheries policies, without specifying further details.
The GAERC’s conclusions indicate that it proposes to be proactive in its strengthened co-ordination role. At its meeting in February 2003, the GAERC will itself set out the actions that all relevant formations of the Council should take in the light of Johannesburg and the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development. An updated ‘road map’ on the follow-up to the Göteborg European Council will then be proposed for endorsement by the Spring European Council. This should then inform the development by the GAERC of the first three-year strategy for the Council.
6.3 Bringing together the work programmes of the Commission and Council
The mutual dependence of the Council and the Commission in advancing the integration strategies has been highlighted by experience so far - as has the danger that the respective priorities of the two institutions may nevertheless diverge (a possibility discussed in Chapter 1 in relation to the Transport Council's strategy). The Commission’s work programme for 2003 - the first to be developed under the new system of strategic programming - makes no specific reference to taking forward the sectoral environmental integration strategies, referring instead to developing ‘measures to ensure sustainability and coherence in and between a number of key internal and external policies…as well as effective follow-up to the Göteborg Conclusions’.
It is important that the Commission’s annual work programme and the Council's annual operating programme are brought closer together. As the Commission itself remarks in its 2003 Work Programme: ‘The Commission is determined to play its full part … [in meeting the EU's major policy challenges] … but they will more than ever before require coherent and integrated implementation of agreed priorities by all EU institutions.19
The preparation of the Commission's 2003 Work Programme included for the first time a ‘structured dialogue’ with the Council and the European Parliament over policy priorities. This is an important development which needs to be strengthened, and a High-Level Technical Working Group on Inter-institutional Co-operation is currently discussing the shape of a new Inter-institutional Agreement between the three institutions covering strategic planning and programming. The ultimate objective should be the production of one agreed work programme for all the institutions. Little will be gained if the GAERC succeeds in including environmental integration priorities in the annual operating programme of the Council, if these are subsequently ignored in the Commission's annual work programme.
6.4 Impact assessments of Commission proposals
Another area where there is a need for greater collaboration between the Commission and Council is in the selection of those proposals in the Commission's work programme that are to be subject to the new, integrated impact assessment (IA) procedures. The Commission's June 2002 White Paper on impact assessment20 made clear that the new system would seek to identify all the likely economic, social and environmental impacts of major proposals, in order to identify synergies and clarify the nature and extent of any unavoidable trade-offs. IA is an important tool for advancing environmental policy integration at a key, early stage in EU policy development.
Although the IA system will not come fully into effect until 2004, the Commission's 2003 work programme contains an unexpectedly large number of items (42) that are to be subject to an extended assessment during 2003. They include a number of proposals with important environmental implications such as the new Trans-European Network (TENs) guidelines; management plans for fish stocks; and the review of the CAP tobacco regime. The Commission’s White Paper includes criteria for selecting proposals to be subject to an extended assessment. According to these criteria, some additional proposals should have been identified for assessment eg the post-2006 Structural Funds Regulations.
As part of the new Inter-institutional Agreement, the Council and Parliament should be given an equal role with the Commission in identifying where an extended IA is needed. Arrangements are also needed to ensure that the future impact of major amendments by the Council and Parliament are taken into account during the assessment process.
6.5 Conclusions
The further development and effective implementation of sectoral environmental integration strategies needs to be considered not only within the framework of a strengthened EU Sustainable Development Strategy (as discussed in Chapter 5), but also in the context of new EU procedures for strategic policy planning and programming within the Commission and the Council.
Priority needs to be given to the following steps:
| The reinforced role of the General Affairs and External Relations Council agreed at the Seville European Council in relation to the co-ordination of other Council formations should be made effective in practice. The GAERC should be encouraged to use its new role to strengthen the integration of environmental concerns in EU sectoral policies; |
| In the development of the annual and triennial strategies for the Council, the GAERC should require separate contributions from all Council formations identifying in detail how they propose to take forward commitments following from the 6EAP, the Göteborg Conclusions, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, etc. The Environment Council should support the GAERC in assessing whether additional measures might be required from particular Council formations; |
| Mechanisms and procedures for bringing more closely together the development and content of the Commission's Annual Work programme and the Council's annual operating programme should be developed in the framework of a new Inter-institutional Agreement between the Commission, Council and European Parliament; |
| Both Commission and Council programmes and strategies should spell out the responsibilities of each directorate-general and Council formation for taking forward relevant environmental commitments; |
| Also within this framework, the Council and European Parliament should be given an equal say with the Commission in identifying those Commission proposals to be subject to an extended Impact Assessment. |
| 14 | European Commission, Reforming the
Commission: a White Paper Parts I and II, COM (2000) 200, 1.3.2000. |
| 15 | European Commission, Implementing
Activity-Based Management in the Commission, SEC (2001) 1197, 25.7.2001. |
| 16 | European Commission, The
Commission’s Legislative and Work Programme for 2003,, COM (2002) 590,
30.10.2002. |
| 17 | European Commission, Action Plan for
Simplifying and Improving the Regulatory Environment, COM (2002) 278, 5.6.2002. |
| 18 | European Commission, Impact
Assessment, COM (2002) 276, 5.6.2002. |
| 19 | European Commission, The
Commission’s Legislative and Work Programme for 2003,, COM (2002) 590,
30.10.2002, p18. |
| 20 | European Commission, Impact Assessment, COM (2002) 276, 5.6.2002. |