The Future of the Cardiff process
7 Bringing the pieces together
The discussion so far suggests that there are five essential ingredients to ensure that the Cardiff process is fully effective:
 | The compilation of an overarching EU environmental road-map, on the basis of agreed EU and international environmental programmes. This should serve as a reference framework to set priorities for the integration strategies of individual Councils; |
| A proactive approach by the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) to the co-ordination of cross-cutting aspects of the work of sectoral Councils, including taking forward the environmental integration requirement set out in Article 6; |
| A strengthened environmental input into the annual review of the EU SDS by the Spring European Council; |
| A bringing together of two strategic planning processes within the EU which are currently insufficiently co-ordinated: the regular strategic planning and programming cycles within the Commission and the Council; and the annual review of the EU SDS by the Spring European Council; |
| A closer alignment of Commission and Council policy priorities as expressed in their respective planning cycles. |
Each of these ingredients is necessary, but on their own, insufficient, to ensure that the Cardiff process is fully effective. Together, they constitute an ambitious agenda for reform, but each of the elements discussed in the previous chapters can be tackled step by step. How all the pieces fit together is illustrated diagrammatically in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1:
Possible Interlinkages of Policy Activities
Many of the elements suggested in Figure 1 are already on the agenda of the EU institutions. In relation to the Spring Summits, the European Commission has acknowledged that the Lisbon process has developed in an ad hoc way, and that there is a need to streamline and synchronise policy co-ordination processes21. Commission President Prodi has also described the Commission’s annual work programme for 2003 as ‘a big step towards a more highly integrated and coherent planning process for the EU as a whole22, and a new Inter-institutional Agreement is being developed to give this more substance.
Meanwhile, the GAERC has already begun its work of co-ordination by identifying priorities from the Johannesburg Programme of Implementation that sectoral Councils need to take forward23. The task ahead is to ensure that the needs of environmental policy integration are properly reflected in these various developments.
| 21 | European Commission, Communication
on Streamlining the Annual Economic and Employment Policy Co-ordination Cycles, COM
(2002) 487, 3.9.2002. |
| 22 | Speech 02/578 by President Prodi to the
European Parliament, 20 November 2002. |
| 23 | General Affairs and External Relations Council Conclusions, 18 November 2002. |