RESOLUTION A3-0023/92

on the Community's environmental policy in relation to the developing countries

The European Parliament,

-having regard to the motion for a resolution by Mr Saby on the Community's environmental policy in relation to the developing countries (B3-1296/90),

-having regard to its resolutions of 19 February 1987 on desertificationOJ No. C 76, 23.3.1987, p. 120 and of 25 October 1990 on the environmental problems in the Amazon regionOJ No. C 295, 26.11.1990, p. 189, on measures to protect the ecology of the tropical forestsOJ No. C 295, 26.11.1990, p. 193, and on the conservation of tropical forestsOJ No. C 295, 26.11.1990, p. 196,

-having regard to the resolutions of the ACP-EEC Joint Assembly on this subjectOJ No. C 45, 26.2.1990, p. 50, OJ No. C 218, 3.9.1990, p. 46, and AP/207, Annex 20, 20.3.1991 ,

-having regard to the report of the Committee on Development and Cooperation (A3-0023/92),

1.Stresses that environmental problems are world problems, respect no frontiers and hence affect the developing countries as well as the West;

2.Stresses that the South's development prospects are limited if the industrialized countries of the North cling to current production and consumption patterns; the Third World's future economic development depends on measures being taken particularly in the industrialized countries of the North, as well as in the South, to reduce the destructive impact of economic development on the environment, and depends on economic production methods being radically changed to provide for ecologically sustainable development at local and global level;

3.Acknowledges that the Community and the developing countries clearly have a common interest in protecting the environment;

4.Stresses that it is necessary to develop, in conjunction with an effective campaign against pollution in the industrialized countries of the North, an integrated concept of environmental protection and development cooperation as a basis for systematically integrating ecological considerations, as well as social considerations, into the decision-making process;

5.Stresses that the developing countries' immense environmental problems are closely linked to the major development problems already facing them, such as:

-poverty

-indebtedness

-population growth,

and that, similarly, the deterioration of their environment is resulting and will result in serious restrictions affecting their future development potential because of the disappearance of agricultural land and natural flora and fauna, etc.;

6.Points out that the developing countries are, furthermore, faced with specific environmental problems, such as:

-deforestation

-desertification

-the damaging environmental effects of farming

-climatic change and erosion of the ozone layer

-the export of hazardous waste to developing countries

-environmental problems stemming from growing urbanization;

7.Believes that a sustained fight against poverty, helping countries to escape from the poverty spiral in an environmentally acceptable manner, should constitute one of the main objectives of Community development policy;

8.Considers that the Community should show more willingness than hitherto to address the question of debt clearance, now that it is becoming increasingly apparent that the developing countries' economic progress is being hampered by the burden of debt, forcing them to deplete their natural resources to finance interest and repayments, and therefore reiterates its call for the debts of the ACP states to be cancelled;

9.Emphasizes that the Commission must develop a common debt strategy on the basis of the 'Trinidad terms' which makes use of debt-for-nature swaps; takes the view that the Member States, using this Community debt strategy, must harmonize and coordinate their positions towards the Paris Club and the World Bank;

10.Stresses that the debt and structural adjustment programmes add to pressure on the environment and therefore repeats its call for the debt of the ACP countries to be cancelled and financial mechanisms to be set up which link the lightening of the burden of debt with protection of the environment, while respecting both the wishes and the cultures of the populations concerned;

11.Calls on the Commission to use its influence to ensure that GATT provisions which may constitute an obstacle to the implementation of laws on environmental protection are amended;

12.Takes the view, moreover, that the Commission must anticipate this by granting tariff preferences in order to facilitate access to the market for sustainably produced goods and that a private investment guarantee fund should be set up;

13.Trusts that the Commission will contribute more systematically to the launch of family planning programmes as a part of education, the training of women and health programmes, including the supply of contraceptives and a system of provision for old age, enabling those concerned to make as informed a choice as possible;

14.Calls on the Commission to give an undertaking by 1995 that the import of tropical hardwoods that are not produced using sustainable methods will be prohibited, and to prohibit it for itself and press in the appropriate fora for a worldwide strategy on this matter; considers that the import of non-sustainable tropical hardwood from Sarawak must be prohibited immediately, until sustainable production methods are used;

15.Believes in addition that, in pursuing its development policy, the Commission should devote special attention to the necessary switch to sustainable exploitation of tropical hardwood and to the link between deforestation and the increase in the area of land used for agricultural purposes;

16.In this connection, welcomes the drawing up of the pilot programme for the conservation of the Brazilian rainforest by the World Bank, the Commission and the Government of Brazil;

17.Notes the adverse effects of open-cast mining - soil erosion, disruption of water management and destruction of the landscape - and calls on the Commission to provide technical assistance, notably to those ACP States where Sysmin applies, by making available better mining development methods and drafting codes of conduct for the operators of such open-cast mines;

18.Emphasizes the need to give constant attention to the problem of desertification and, in this connection, notes the importance of developing appropriate systems of cultivation, the realization of landscape development and the establishment of a decentralized decision-making structure which enables the village population to assume a responsibility of its own with regard to land use;

19.Draws attention to farming's destructive impact on the environment when the sole aim is to produce as much as possible irrespective of the consequences and, in this connection, calls for a ban on the export to third countries of pesticides, insecticides and all other substances prohibited in the Community;

20.Calls further for the possible ways of limiting the use of pesticides and insecticides to be investigated and calls upon the Community to provide better information and transfer of know-how about alternative, environmentally sound methods of combating pests and about the adverse effects of using pesticides and insecticides which are damaging to the environment;

21.Calls for a Community ban, by analogy with Article 39 of the Fourth Lomé Convention, on the export of hazardous and radioactive waste to all developing countries;

22.Draws attention to the need to establish a reliable monitoring system for exports of hazardous waste from the Community and calls upon the Commission to set up a pool of experts who can undertake such monitoring;

23.Stresses that the West is the major contributor to the greenhouse effect and is thus honour-bound to make a substantial contribution towards preventing and solving this problem; points out that, within the context of the Community's development work, attention should be given to the consequences of the Montreal Protocol and further action taken; in addition, considers that a treaty must be agreed at the Earth Summit in Brazil (UNCED), containing agreements on combating any climatic change caused by the greenhouse effect;

24.Stresses the need to go to the Earth Summit with strategies for curbing urbanization and minimizing its destructive effect; with regard to the problem of urban waste, the possibility of setting up waste recycling plants in the major cities must be explored, involving the 'waste scavengers'; stresses that urbanization in developing countries is caused principally by economic factors, especially agricultural policies that do not encourage small farmers (no law reform, priority for export products, no price support for farmers);

25.Points to the need - as regards efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth - to develop reliable indicators for calculating depreciation resulting from damage to the environment, and calls for all possible methods of including environmental costs in the prices of raw materials and manufactured products to be explored at the Earth Summit;

26.Takes the view that the Rio Conference must tackle the issue of the various possible methods for reflecting the costs connected with the environment and the increasing rarity of natural resources in the prices for commodities and raw materials as well as their transport; believes that the resulting increases in energy and commodities prices would encourage cutbacks in consumption and less wastage in the wealthy countries;

27.Calls on the Community to establish an appropriate financing mechanism making the necessary resources available to the countries receiving development aid to enable them to resolve environmental problems that extend beyond national confines and to meet their environmental commitments to the Community and to the whole world and, furthermore, calls attention to the development of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), which must take account of the need for transparency and sufficient influence for the UNEP in decision-making relating to the GEF;

28.Stresses that, at the Earth Summit, special attention must be paid to the various links between the environment and international trade, with sustainable development increasingly becoming a key feature of the latter, bearing in mind the fact that growth in international (free) trade as negotiated within the GATT might result in some countries being prevented from protecting their fragile economies and ecosystems and that, furthermore, growth in international transport has a serious impact on the planet's natural equilibria;

29.Stresses the need to study to what extent the United Nations might be given wider powers to resolve world environmental problems, in the context of bodies subject to democratic control;

30.Calls on the Community not to misuse environmental provisions to protect the market from products from developing countries, nor, on the other hand, to introduce any special provisions for developing countries, relieving them of the need to comply with environmental requirements;

31.Points out that in order to take full account of environmental and social considerations in the decision-making process, the Community must draw up precise criteria that projects must satisfy and, in this connection, calls on the Commission to adopt the criteria drawn up by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and existing Community legislation;

32.Considers that, for each country or region with which the Community has development relations, the Commission should draw up a basic document that is authoritative in the area of the environment and comprises an integral part of the broad lines of cooperation policy; considers that, in drawing up this basic document, the Commission should, in particular, make full use of the information and know-how that the UNEP is able to provide in this field;

33.Emphasizes the need to draw up an environmental and social impact assessment prior to any specific development projects going ahead, and that the cost-benefit analysis must take environmental and social considerations into account;

34.Reiterates the need - in accordance with its call for regular environmental inspections during the life of a project - to set up a development cooperation inspectorate in the field;

35.Calls again for a directorate to be established within the Commission's DG VIII to be responsible exclusively for the environment, and for well-defined powers and sufficient staff to be made available to investigate the environmental aspects particularly associated with development in order to integrate environmental policy as effectively as possible into development cooperation; observes further that all officials working in development cooperation in Brussels or elsewhere should be made aware of the main principles of ecology, for example by means of in-service training, and moreover emphasizes the need for institutionalized consultation between the Directorates-General for Development and Environment to promote effective internal coordination and optimal use of the Commission's limited manpower in this sector, notably in order to avoid duplication of effort;

36.Calls on the Commission to ensure, by means of information and education, that there is an increase in transfers of technological know-how, with the emphasis on clean, small-scale, easily adapted and cheap technologies;

37.Takes the view that such massive transfers of technology could also be made by reallocating military appropriations in the North as well as in the South and levying a tax on energy, a substantial part of which should be channelled to the developing countries;

38.Calls on the Community, in collaboration with the UNEP, IUCN and WWF, to give maximum support to the developing countries in framing good environmental legislation;

39.Takes the view that, as part of its development policy - bearing in mind that many of the countries do not have a substantial body of officials with experience of environmental legislation and monitoring its enforcement - the Commission should devote specific attention to establishing and supporting a body of officials with the necessary qualifications to do so;

40.Considers that the Community, in implementing development projects, must step up its efforts to raise awareness of environmental problems; considers in that connection that increased importance must be attached to information, transfers of know-how, training, the establishment of appropriate administrative structures, participation by local people, and, in particular, the role of women;

41.Stresses that the Community must seek to ensure that Community producers in countries receiving development aid are in principle subject to the same environmental requirements as Community producers, to the extent that at least the adverse effects on the environment of the two regions are comparable; stresses that this will only be possible if the Community and the other industrialized nations provide the requisite financial and technological resources for the developing countries; also insists that the same requirements must apply, in particular, to Community firms investing in countries receiving development aid;

42.Points out that NGOs and people's organizations are eminently suited to increasing environmental awareness and securing local people's participation in a sustainable process of development and that, consequently, they should be more closely involved in laying down, popularizing and implementing environmental policy in developing countries, but stresses that NGO projects must also satisfy environmental requirements and that, to this end, it is necessary to make demands on NGOs;

43.Points out that the Community's development policy can only make an appropriate contribution to environmental protection in developing countries if there is more effective coordination between its own development policy and that of the Member States;

44.Deems it necessary for the Community to continue its efforts to give greater coherence to its development policy as a whole and to the implementation of the various instruments involved;

45.Considers that the Community's development cooperation policy with the Lomé countries, Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean countries should, generally speaking, be assessed in accordance with the conclusions and recommendations set out in this resolution;

46.Considers that its Committee on Development and Cooperation must be represented on the Community delegation to the UNCED;

47.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission and Council.