President’s Juncker European Commission is accused of downgrading Europe’s environmental agenda.
Green 10, a broad coalition of environmental NGOs, criticise him (see their letter of 12 September 2014 here), for:
- For the first time in 25 years there will be no fully empowered Commissioner for the Environment
- Sustainability seems to have disappeared from EU priorities
- The mandate to the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner is entirely centered on deregulation.
- Shifting dossiers away from DG Environment to DG SANCO and DG GROW
Are the NGOs being unfair to President Juncker and his team?
A new Commissioner for environment, maritime and fisheries
Commissioner Vella now shares his time between DG Environment and DG MARE. Previous Environment Commissioners managed to juggle more than 2 portfolios, and whilst that has not happened for a long time, there is no reason why it can’t work.
If you look at Commissioner’s Mission letter, along with the list of current proposals and pipeline proposals, the environment work load would not be enough to keep one Commissioner busy. Commissioner Vella would easily get bored with such slim pickings. Keeping him busy with an area that is closer to Malta’s interests – fisheries and maritime – is only decent.
After all a bored Commissioner is perhaps more dangerous than a very busy Commissioner. There is a lot less time to come up with new initiatives.
Now, whilst there is little link between the work of DG MARE and DG ENV, they don’t exist in total isolation. In the recent past, Greek Environment Commissioner Dimas treaded on the toes of Malta’s Fisheries Commissioner Borg over DG Environment’s proposals to list Mediterranean Blue Fin Tuna as an endangered species. DG MARE surprisingly did not support the proposal. DG Environment has also stepped onto DG MARE’s territory with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and some nature protection laws.
Having the same Commissioner may now force both departments to take the same position. But, pretending this union was brought about because of policy coherence is spurious.
Dropping the Environment from the EU’s Priorities
If you want to know what Juncker’s Commission is going to focus on you just need to read his Political Guidelines. They are not a secret. He ran his election campaign on them. He was confirmed by the European Parliament based on them.
Environmental Amnesia
These 10 priorities are all about jobs and growth mantra. You can’t find any reference to Europe’s environmental policy.
There is a collective amnesia in the new Commission that Europe’s advanced European policy exists. For all intents and purposes, it is like Title XX on the Environment of the EU Treaty has been forgotten. This case of partial amnesia amongst senior officials closest to President Juncker is reflected in President Juncker’s reply to members of the Environment Committee on 25 September, 2015. He got down to Article 3(3) of the Treaty, and overlooked Articles 11, 191-193, let alone the European Court’s case law.
A New Mission for the the Environment Commissioner
The future limited environment agenda is succinctly outlined in Commissioner Vella’s Mission letter. The focus is on implementing this mature body of law. If this is the case, this would be welcome. European environmental law is poorly implemented across the EU, and the levels of enforcement action by the Commission underwhelming in light of the scale of the non-compliance.
Environment, Maritime and Fisheries Commissioner Vella room for manoeuvre is provided by his Mission Letter. This could be seen as a contract of employment between President and Commissioner.
The days of environment proposals being pushed onto the College agenda by stealth or having new initiatives spontaneously launched at European Parliament events are gone. New Mckinsey-like structures and procedures should put a break on this. Commissioner Vella now has to follow tighter requirements that need to follow this stricture:
” Assessing how and whether proposed new initiatives fit with the focus of the Political Guidelines. As a general rule, I will not include a new initiative in the Commission Work Programme or place it on the agenda of the College unless this is recommended to me by one of the Vice-Presidents on the basis of sound arguments and a clear narrative that is coherent with the priority projects of the Political Guidelines. (Page 2)”
Commissioner Vella’s job description is clear. His Mission Letter lays down his first few years of work. It states:
“Continuing to overhaul the existing environmental legislative framework to make it fit for purpose. In the first part of the mandate, I would ask you to carry out an in-depth evaluation of the Birds and Habitats directives and assess the potential for merging them into a more modern piece of legislation.
Taking stock of where we stand in the negotiations on the air strategy. We need to know whether our approach addresses the right sources of air pollution with the right instruments. In the light of your assessment, we can then see how best to conduct the negotiations.
Assessing the state of play of the Circular Economy package in the light of the first reactions of the European Parliament and Council to see whether and how it is consistent with our jobs and growth agenda and our broader environmental objectives.” – emphasis added.
An uncharitable interpretation of the intention behind the words “overhaul, taking stock, and assessing” is confine the initiatives to the legislative bin.
What will they now do?
DG Environment will have a lot less work to do. The packed 2014 Management Plan will need to be updated to reflect new priorities.
This may not be a bad thing. Spending a few years implementing and enforcing a well-developed body of European environmental law would be a welcome change. But, this will require the 200 odd staff in DG Environment to re-train to become a lot more litigious.
Shifting Files
Some of DG Environment’s files were re-allocated to DG GROW and SANCO. Files being moved to different departments often happens at the start of a new Commission. What marked these changes out was how poorly managed the exercise was conducted.
DG Environment heard about files being moved from press enquiries. There seemed to be no-logic to which proposals got withdrawn. MEPs and Environment Ministers were confused at what was happening on the withdrawal of air and waste proposals. As DG Environment were so obviously not in the loop on these decisions, the confusion can only have be sown by the President’s Cabinet.
Unintended Consequences
The reasons for closing the door on Europe’s environmental agenda make sense. It is not the flavour of the new political leadership of the Commission. But, by doing so, they leave the leadership in the hands of more ambitious Member States, like France, Denmark and Sweden, who will use the Treaty and the discretion they have under that Treaty, to force through measures that can land up being EU wide standards. The Commission’s silence may land up to the worst of all rules being adopted in Europe’s marketplace. Second, the Environment Committee now has a lot more time to focus on scrutinising Commission delegated legislation. The Commission will find it harder to secure the adoption of these technical, but often politically loaded, proposals. Third, if environmental laws are genuinely implemented and enforced at the Member State level, the laws will bite harder. Member States will be forced to check that the rules are really being enforced on the factory floor, smoke stack, and the monitoring systems are working. Governments will no longer be able to look the other way for protected industries.
No Surprise
None of these changes should be a surprise. Juncker’s Priorities are not new. They appear identical to the Priorities he ran his election campaign on. What is different is that the Commission have now developed the mechanisms to ensure that only these priorities are worked on.
There is a clear realization at senior levels that the best way of stopping the flow of new environmental measures is to close down the opportunities for DG Environment to table proposal for the College to adopt, and for the European Parliament’s Environment Committee and Council to beef up.
Previous Envionment Commissioners have been able to outmanoeuvre other Commissioners and cajole the President to adopt new proposals. Now, DG Environment or Commissioner Vella are forced to follow the Mission Letter. The mechanics are in place to block any own initiatives by the Department or Commissioner. The President’s key advisors will have the power to block any new initiative.
President Juncker has neutered Europe’s environmental policy. There is nothing much that can be done about it.
Update
Today, 27 October 2015, the Commission published their Annual Work Plan.
It is bare reading on the environment front. There is only one substantive legislative proposal, the re-tabling of the withdrawn circular economy package.
The Commission states ” The aim is to address economic and environmental concerns by maximizing efficiency in the use of resources, covering the whole value chain (including sustainable consumption, production, waste management) and through innovation, thereby enabling the development of new markets and business models. The package will consist of a broad action plan, including actions on monitoring effective progress, and a waste proposal with long-term targets.”
I have highlighted the environmental initiatives.
[spiderpowa-pdf src=”https://www.aaronmcloughlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/cwp_2016_annex_i_en.pdf”]cwp_2016_annex_i_en
The concrete legislative package will be updating the current Waste Framework Directive and the daughter directives (WEEE, Packaging and Packaging Waste, ELV, etc).
it is unclear whether the package will tackle knotty issues of the reform of Chemical Regulation that would allow a genuine Circular Economy. Whether the package will reflect the thinking of “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things” remains to be seen.
Other Initiatives
Other ongoing evaluations on REACH, Nature protection, Occupational Health and Safety legislation, continue their way through the byzantine new Commission system.