New European Urban Strategy Too Weak, Citizens Federation Says

BRUSSELS, Belgium, January 16, 2006 (ENS) - The European Commission has proposed a new strategy on the urban environment that offers guidance, training and support but no new legislation for dealing with the problems of Europe's cities. The largest federation of European citizens groups argues that the new strategy is too weak, and that legislation is needed to clean up and manage Europe's urban areas.

Four out of five European citizens now live in towns and cities and their quality of life is directly influenced by the state of the urban environment.

Europe’s cities are struggling under the burdens of poor air quality, high levels of traffic and congestion, urban sprawl, greenhouse gas emissions and generation of waste and waste water. These can cause environmental damage and affect human health, the Commission said, introducing the formal Thematic Strategy on Friday. The strategy is one of seven planned under the 6th Environmental Action Programme.

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said, “Europe’s cities should be sustainable and offer a high quality of life so that people want to live and work in them and businesses want to invest there."

Traffic was reduced to a standstill in Central London when a rush hour traffic accident closed Waterloo Bridge, causing one of the worst jams in 2001. (Photo courtesy FreeFoto)

A number of European Community programs will provide opportunities for training and capacity-building for local authorities to develop the skills needed for managing the urban environment. Support will be offered for local authorities to work together and learn from each other.

Consideration will be given for the establishment of a new European program to exchange knowledge and experience on urban issues under the new Cohesion Policy. The Commission will cooperate with member states and local authorities based on a pilot network of focal points on urban issues, known as the European Knowledge Platform, which offers advice to local authorities across Europe.

Also, the feasibility of creating a new internet portal for local authorities on the Europa website will be explored to provide better access to the latest information.

"The Thematic Strategy on the Urban Environment works with member states to help regional and local authorities learn from one another about measures that are particularly effective in improving the environmental performance of our cities," said Dimas.

Europe's largest federation of environmental citizens' organizations, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), was critical of the new urban strategy's voluntary approach to solving environmental problems. The EEB says laws, known as directives, are needed in addition to cooperation and information sharing.

"The Commission has shied away from more far-reaching plans for EU directives," says Kerstin Meyer, policy officer with the EEB, which represents 143 member organizations in 31 countries and has consultative status with the European Commission and Parliament.

Traffic in Paris (Photo courtesy )

At earlier stages in the formulation of this strategy, the Commission had considered requiring Europe's big cities to adopt plans which would integrate environmental concerns into their day-to-day policy decisions and help to better manage urban transport.

But the new Thematic Strategy only promises further technical guidance on such plans, to be published later this year.

The EEB believes that the European Union should better steer the spending of EU money and that money should be rejected for city projects that are in conflict with EU environmental objectives.

Funding should be conditional on making environmental management and transport plans and demonstrating that projects are not in conflict with the objectives in these plans, the EEB contends.

"Council and Parliament must make sure that taxpayers' money is spent to serve the general interest for a clean environment," says Stefan Scheuer, EU policy director at the EEB. "Member states and cities should be required to demonstrate that EU-funded projects will not be in conflict with the environment."

"The choice should be clear," Scheuer said, "we need more clean city busses instead of new four lane roads in cities."

Dimas says the Commission has coordinated the objectives of the strategy with other European Community programs and proposes support for investments, research and demonstration projects on key urban environment issues such as investment in urban transport and reuse of derelict land, or training in urban management.