Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-13-Speech-2-229"
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"en.20010313.15.2-229"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the best results within the environmental field are achieved when everyone involved is given the opportunity to participate in the process. Improving the general public’s access to information on the environment leads to increased environmental awareness. The citizen must therefore be made central to environmental policy if we are successfully to be able to make the adjustments required in order to guarantee sustainable development. The importance of public participation in shaping and implementing environmental policy was emphasised as early as at the time of the Rio Declaration. Without access to information on the environment, it is difficult for people to participate and bring pressure to bear. That is why this proposal for a greater right to information on the environment is so important.
To summarise, the Commission is able to approve the whole of Amendment 3 and partly approve Amendments 1, 11, 15, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26 and 28. The Commission is able in principle to approve Amendments 13, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23 and 24. The Commission is unable, however, to approve Amendments 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 22, 27, 29 and 30.
In 1998, the Member States signed the UN/ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters – the Aarhus Convention. This Convention is a major step forward in implementing Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration and in continuing the process of transparency that began with Directive 90/313/EEC on the freedom of access to information on the environment. Before the Community can ratify the Convention, the Community’s current legislation must be adjusted. That is also one of the main aims of this proposal. Another main aim is to remedy the shortcomings identified in the practical application of Directive 90/313/EEC, adopted in 1990.
One of the most important features of the Commission’s proposal for a new directive is that it would provide the
to information on the environment instead of
to information on the environment. A more detailed definition of information on the environment is also provided and a closer deadline set before which authorities have to supply information. The exceptions are also clearly defined, and it is proposed that authorities should actively supply the public with information on the environment and that they should only be able to refuse to supply such information if disclosure might adversely affect private or public interests protected by the exceptions.
Since the issue of public authorities was raised, I am able to say that the Commission has approved Mrs Korhola’s amendment defining ‘authorities’. This is entirely in line with the Aarhus Convention. When public services too are privatised, as is now happening in the United Kingdom, it is up to the responsible national authorities to ensure that information on the environment is still supplied to people.
The Commission’s proposal covers the most important obligations under the Aarhus Convention and, in certain respects, goes further. The proposal nonetheless allows the Member States to decide how these obligations are to be put into practice. The Commission’s proposal has definitely been improved in the course of the last few months, and I should like to thank Mrs Korhola and the European Parliament for the good work that has been done. Thanks to this, I am convinced that it will be possible to adopt a common position at the Council’s meeting in June.
A number of Parliament’s amendments are aimed at adapting the Commission’s proposal to precise wordings in the Aarhus Convention. In general, the Commission is able to approve these changes. However, we cannot approve those changes which deviate significantly from the Aarhus Convention. We think that certain amendments would lead to unduly detailed regulation of the issues included in the proposal. I want to emphasise that this is a framework directive. The main objective is to establish basic conditions for ensuring public access to information on the environment. I therefore believe that the Member States ought also to be granted a certain flexibility in transposing the directive into national legislation.
One issue which came up during the debate was that of how we are to deal with registers. The proposal provides for the possibility of setting up registers in the Member States, but this is not an obligation. No rules are laid down for compelling the Member States to set up registers.
Finally, I just want to say a few words about public access to information on the environment held by the EU’s institutions, since this issue has also been touched upon in the debate. I am currently investigating various alternative ways of ensuring that the Community’s institutions also fulfil the obligations under the Aarhus Convention and I intend to come back to you on this matter as quickly as possible. Naturally, we must first wait until the proposal being discussed right now has been dealt with. We in the Commission cannot now approve the amendments affecting this particular issue because they fall outside the scope of this directive aimed at the Member States.
I also want to say a few words to Mr Bernié concerning the Life programme and different Life projects. I personally believe it is incredibly important that we should supply information and be completely open when it comes to the Life project. We nonetheless come up against the problem of the Member States’ saying that this is information which they themselves have produced and which they do not therefore agree to the Commission’s handing out. It is precisely this problem that is dealt with in the discussion of Article 255. These are issues to which we must return by proposing how we are to adapt the EU’s institutions to the Aarhus Convention, and I promise you that we shall return to this matter as quickly as possible."@en1
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"freedom of access"1
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