Member of the European Parliament, member of the Green group, member of the Radical Party, Virginio Bettini was invited to take part in a seminar on the topic "The transnational Radical Party and the new Europe", organized in Prague last June by the Radical Party. The text quoted here below is the essential part of the report pronounced by Bettini at the seminar.

My report, which specifically concerns the environmental scenarios both of the East and of the West, is divided into two parts. The first part is an international comparison. The second part deals with the Greens' proposal for a common strategy for Western Europe and for Central and Eastern Europe on the subject of environmental prophylaxis. In this second part I will specify some paths, some guide-lines which we can follow in our political activity. (...)

I will then tackle three problems: energy, agriculture and polluting emissions. And explain how common projects and programmes for research and work can be elaborated in political terms between East and West.

Let us first examine the figures relative to the intensity of the use of energy. The energy requirements per unit of product is commonly expressed in megajoules per dollars of gross domestic product. The megajoule is the scientific parameter for output, and we must refer it to the gross domestic product expressed in dollars, for the different countries.

By doing this, we can see that the values for countries with a market economy, that is, Western countries, vary between 8,6 to 19,3 megajoules/dollars. These are by far lower than the ones of countries with a centralized economy, whose values are included between 21,5 and 49,5.

Among Western countries, where the highest output of energetic intensity of the gross domestic product is that of France, followed by Sweden, Japan, Spain, West Germany, Italy and Great Britain, Italy occupies an intermediate position. At the bottom of the list we find the U.S., a country characterized by major energetic disasters in Western terms.

The socialist countries, the countries with a centralized economy and who are on the way, or will be on the way in the near future - who can tell? - toward a market economy, must solve huge problems of output. This is a binding fact, because it involves every-day problems for the population. The energetic waste in the combustion of the collective and private transport systems means a deterioration in the quality of the air in the cities and in proximity of the industrial areas. This also means a lower cost of the products on the market. A product that has a lower energetic cost is a better product, from an environmental point of view, and is less expensive on the market. A lower energetic cost is therefore also a way to cut inflation and to foster a certain quality in economic and environmental terms.

These are topics, for example, never raised by the large conservative, central or social-democrat parties, which are the pre-eminent ones at the moment in the countries of the East.

We, as environmentalists, as greens and radicals, must impose these problems, because our role is that of preventively stimulating the political debate with respect to the rhythm of the political reactivity of the structures.

This has always been the role that the radicals and some green "fringes" have had, at least in Italy, and which I would like the radicals and the Greens in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, in Poland, in the Soviet Union, in Rumania, in all the countries we are the interlocutors of (...) to have as well.

In my opinion the problem of agriculture cements the problem of the countries of the East, and to a minor extent also cements the problem of the countries of the West.

What does total agricultural productivity mean? It is the parameter that refers to a series of "inputs". These are: work, fertilizers, machinery.

Total agricultural productivity has been constantly dropping since 1960 in the Soviet Union, in China and in Eastern Europe. In all the countries of the current socialist block, Soviet Union and China, and of the formerly socialist block, there is a drop in agricultural productivity, if we consider the "input" of work that is invested, the use of fertilizers and the use of agricultural machinery.

In the West instead, we are witnessing a constant growth, even if starting from higher levels. Caution! In the West we started off from higher levels and we are still growing. This is a fact that must be taken into account.

A parameter to consider, however, is that in the socialist countries the productivity of the theory of work has also grown.

For example, in the countries of Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, there has been a widespread use of maps and of the classification of the "land suitability" of the soils on the basis of the production. A thing that has been completely neglected in the West, if not in rare cases. Why? Because in the West the logic of the cadastral income, of the value of the area with respect to infrastructure, has always prevailed. The infrastructure destroyed the value of the area, because with it the area lost all agricultural attractiveness, even if the level of the quality in the agricultural production was at its highest rank.

But there is a contradiction, al least an apparent one. The socialist countries produce more fertilizers, more machinery for agriculture, because the mechanization per surface unit is higher. But the energetic efficiency of the production of fertilizers and machinery is extremely low, because the aim of the governmental incentives is, or has been, the respect of the production shares, and not the maximization of the output and the optimization of the costs, also in energetic terms.

How much do insecticides, fertilizers and pesticides cost in terms of energetic "input"? How much do fertilizers and insecticides cost in terms of "output" of environmental impact?

From the figures given by the university of Carcon on the analysis of the underground waters of the area with respect to the use of pesticides, it seems that they are double the recommended values established by the World Health Organization for water used for supply, for industrial purposes and as drinking water for bovines.

Every morning, in Venceslaw Square, Prague, a lorry drives in and unloads baskets of strawberries. People queue up to buy them. Yesterday I was tempted to buy them, then I stopped and wondered how much residue of pesticides and insecticides there was on the surface of those strawberries. And so finally I didn't buy them. I would like to know. This is another task that a radical, a green, must have in society, saying: "what am I eating? How much residue is left"? (...)

Let us examine polluting emissions. Let us see, for example, how many kilos of sulphur dioxide are expelled for each thousand dollars of gross domestic product.

We can see that this indicator becomes a line clearly dividing the East from the West. The values of the countries with a market economy range from 1 to 18, and are lower than those of the countries with a planned economy, whose values vary between 19 and 40.

Let us take Japan as a basic parameter, a country with a market economy. Let us see how many kilos of sulphur dioxide it produces per thousand dollars of gross domestic product. Being a country with a strong concentration of technology and a series of contradictions, Japan has been forced to develop new technologies before other countries. Already at the end of the seventies, Japan cut sulphur dioxide emissions by 75%, with FGDs. Then the U.S. adopted various technologies, and reduced nitrogen oxide emissions by 60%. A result, this one, considered impossible in the U.S., from an energetic and financial point of view.

In the countries to the East of the former Iron Curtain there is no trace of FGD, if not in a couple of experimental plants. And this represents a large market, which should not be entrusted to Western countries or Japan.

At the moment Japan is studying a system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions: an advanced system for the control of Co2 emissions in the chimneys or in the precombustion, for the subsequent control of the greenhouse effect.

This technology will be released within '95 and will represent a progress as compared to all the current ones. The cost of one kilowatt hour is at present 6 cents. If we were to reduce carbon dioxide, we would pay 1 dollar and 8 cents for one kilowatt hour.

Japan, instead, is developing a system consisting in a chemical and biological intervention at the sources, which will lead to a mere 15% increase of the kilowatt hour.

The emission rates of sulphur dioxide of Eastern Europe and of the Soviet Union are extremely high, owing to the strong dependence on coal and to the scarcity or lack, at the same time, of norms for the efficiency and control of gases. While the U.S., Japan and West Germany are significantly reducing pro-capite emissions, the trend in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia is completely opposite: between 1986 and 1988 these countries have increased the pro-capite emissions of sulphur dioxide.

In view of the 3rd "Environmental" session of the "Green Parliament", we have formulated a document on the proposals of the Greens for a common strategy on the problems of pollution in Eastern Europe.

In the foreword we state that the situation in Central and Eastern Europe is extremely serious, and that in some places it is plain catastrophic.

We estimate that 20% of the Soviet territory is polluted and contaminated. Some areas present an almost lunar landscape. The obsolete machineries and productive processes, the lack - on the one hand - of an environmental strategy, and the need - on the other hand - to procure strong currencies, have created a situation of environmental degradation such as to imperatively call for a reorganization of the economy and the industry in Central and Eastern Europe.

Considered under this aspect, planned economy has caused tragical environmental situations, the same way as the free market economy has done, even if with more acute effects. For example, it has created ecologically catastrophic areas in Lake Aral, a pollution caused by heavy metals in Estonia, Karelia and the Kola peninsula, in the Soviet territory. The massive pollution of East Germany, due to the use of "brown coal", and to the inflow of drainage waters, especially in the Southern regions. Poland, Czechoslovakia and Rumania detain a record for atmospheric pollution. The list would be too long, and it must also be said that the Berlin Wall, that is being demolished these days, is a large deposit of asbestos.

We must also consider that many countries of the Eastern block were involved in the criminal traffic represented by the smuggling of radioactive material destined to be used by the military and nuclear industries of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and to be exported, a thing which caused great environmental damages. This is the help given by the countries of Eastern Europe to some countries which are in now critical conditions for the possession of nuclear weapons. What role have East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union had in giving small nuclear bombs to countries that could use them tomorrow?

We, as Westerners, are responsible for the role which West Germany has had in selling weapons contemporarily to Pakistan and India. We as Italians are responsible for having attempted to arm the Arab countries with the atomic bomb. We do not have an atomic bomb in Italy, but we know how to construct one. Italian scientists, some even belonging to the National Corporation for Alternative Energies, produced bombs for Argentina and for Brazil, and were producing them for Iraq. We succeeded in finding this out on time and calling the mission home, even if thanks to information provided by the Israeli Intelligence Service , who, obviously, had no interest in letting the Arab countries have the atomic bomb.

We have also contributed to the construction of the atomic bomb in South Africa and in Israel.

The radicals and the greens must make these responsibilities known, because one of our goals is a world that will progressively give up weapons, armies and military service.

Many of us have been conscientious objectors in Italy, and some have even been in the damp cells of Peschiera del Garda and the more sunny ones of Gaeta, with a view on the sea. We are happy to be able to pass on all the teachings we received in the sixties and seventies, when the radicals marched on foot through the Po Valley, from one military base to the other, crossed the whole of Friuli, guided by Aloisio Rendi, responsible for my partial growth as a radical, to our friends and companions of the East.

Many experiences you are going through now are experiences we have already been through, and that are absolutely common, and however involve the decision to conduct a political battle blending the two souls, and especially the green one and the radical one. This goal is especially dear to me, because I think the two components are extremely close and produce a constant circular model (...).

It is inconceivable for Western Europe to simply accuse Central and Eastern Europe. The West has also significantly contributed to pollution, not only in its own regions, but in the whole of the world, directly and indirectly, with the colonization of the Third World, with the exportation, on a world scale, of its polluting industrial machinery, and installing, at its own expense, even more polluting Western industries in the Third World.

The responsibilities of Western Europe, as far as the ecological problems of central and Eastern Europe are concerned, is all but marginal. The evidence of this is the transport of seven million tons of chemical and toxic waste material from West Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Italy and France, to Schonberg, East Germany. The "joint ventures" that are being planned or have already been created with the participation of Western capital could devastate the environment in order to exploit the methane sources in Western Siberia. The evidence of this is the fact that methane crosses the countries of Eastern Europe to be taken to the Western markets, leaving Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary without the possibility of drawing from Soviet methane. In this respect the countries of Eastern Europe have been colonized even more brutally than by the "Soviet bear".

The elimination of various "ecological cemeteries" must be achieved with the financial support of the firms of Western Europe, and in this sense we believe we are responsible and will have to pay.

This is another of the goals of our green and radical policy: to find the hypotheses for the preparation of new disposal systems for East European countries.

In order to reclaim and safeguard the European environment, we will need to resort to the European common potential of "know-how", of technologies, funds and scientific knowledge. Many research centres will need to be converted, and the relations of cooperation enhanced, in order to achieve a Pan-European cooperation structure, dealing, among other things, with the conduction of researches on feasibility in the following fields: agriculture according to ecological criteria; a policy for energy and raw materials according to ecological criteria; mobility while in the respect of the environment and of the territorial planning; ecological reclamation of the contaminated soils, including former dumps and river-beds.

The global goal must be the accomplishment of a binding EEC regulation guaranteeing an adequate control, with adequate measures and sanctions. We want to foster the EEC environmental policy by slashing the military expenditure and the funds allotted for military research and for weapons, adopting the solution of a reconversion of the military industry (...). We want to turn the defence of the country into a defence of the balance of the ecosystems, of the balance of the different cultures that blend into one another and enrich one another. This is our goal. The question is that of choosing between an economy based on conflict, with devastating environmental effects, and an economy based on world peace, with the possibility of reclaiming the environment. This is the only choice.

What are the proposals of the Greens at the European Parliament?

1. To establish a code of behaviour for West European firms, inspired by an ecologically responsible productive behaviour, regardless of the place of production, and in consideration especially of central and Eastern Europe and of the Third World.

2. Immediate cessation of any transport of waste material toward central and Eastern Europe and toward the Third World. The waste must be programmed in the cycle of industrial and energetic production. And if we are not able to dispose of them, the technological cycle must be re-examined, discomposed, recomposed, critically analyzed, abandoned, replaced.

3. Transfer of the technical knowledge in the ecological field, of the techniques and of the technologies to central and Eastern Europe and toward the Third World, with the consequent abolition of the "Cocom" list, which is still extremely binding for our relations with the East, and the possibility of transferring nuclear technology under the condition that it be used for the elimination and the processing of radioactive waste.

4. Establishment of a structure for European coordination in the field of scientific and technical research.

5. Establishment of a European fund for the environment, with the collection of taxes from the firms for the maintenance of the same fund, supporting technical research and granting subsidies to the same firms to foster the safeguard of the environment, of the territory, of the raw materials, and of energy.

6. To harmonize the norms concerning the issue and the introduction of the directives, of the laws, of the decrees, of the regulations, on the basis of the most severe legislation, in order to achieve an EEC legislation on environment, envisaging, among other things, effective controls and sufficiently dissuasive punitive measures, making polluting activities far more costly as compared to a non-polluting activities.

7. Complete refusal of nuclear energy.

8. A statement by all the European governments, acknowledging, among human rights, the right to benefit of a wholesome and agreeable environment, to be included in the European Convention on the Safeguard of human rights, and, "a fortiori", in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

9. The achievement of a homogeneous environmental policy at a world level, the only level for which it is worth considering an environmental policy. For such purpose, the EEC policy must be based on the strategies of the United Nations, of the programmes of the United Nations Environmental Program. It is furthermore necessary to struggle with all possible means in order for the organizations and the world agreements to give priority to the safeguard of the environment in their decisions.

(Transcription edited by Danilo Quinto and not revised by the author).