If Commission’s Communications made the environment a better place, we would have already reached the promised land. Reading the Commission’s 2030 and 2020 Biodiversity Strategy Communications I am struck by the similarities. Apart from the rhetorical flourish at the start, it seems familiar.
From the glowing praise to the 2030 Communication, you would think the words marked a game change. It’s useful to remind yourself that writing and publishing pieces of paper do not change things in the environment. The Commission put forward a ban on discards in fisheries, which the Member States and the EP agreed to. When it became law, the Commission and the Member States promptly ignored the requirement.
A Gap Analysis
What is missing is what counts. If the Commission had followed their own Better Regulation Guidelines, they would have spent a lot more deep thinking time and come up with the answers to these basic but core questions:
1. Why so little analysis in the 2030 Communication about why were the 2020 targets not met.
2. What will this Commission do differently than their predecessors to deliver on the commitments that they have not delivered on?
3. Will the Commission departments, like DG AGRI and MARE, be bound to re-align their policies into line with the Communication. If they are meant to, they seem unaware.
4. Why is there a systematic non-application of important pieces of European environmental legislation? The Commission know about the decades-long problem, but still, they turn a blind eye to it.
5. What checkpoints have the Commission put up inside their internal governance to see if targets and obligations are going in the right direction and being met?
Words alone don’t matter
The great rainforests, small parks and gardens, blue whales and microscopic fungi don’t read Commission Communications. They’ll be interested in real action to improve their lot. After reading the new revised Communication, I am at a loss to see what difference it will make.