Environment policy in Europe (1984-87)

Recommendation 1078 (1988)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 6 May 1988 (8th Sitting) (see Doc. 5880, report of the Committee on the Environment, Regional Planning and Local Authorities, Rapporteur : Mr Fajardo). Text adopted by the Assembly on 6 May 1988 (8th Sitting).

Thesaurus

The Assembly,

1. Reaffirming its interest in the protection of the environment ;

2. Convinced that the fight against pollution is the responsibility of everyone, including public authorities, industrialists and other citizens ;

3. Emphasising that the environment, a vital element of the world in which our society exists, is also a part of our heritage, and that it must therefore be protected ;

4. Noting with satisfaction that public awareness has increased, but nevertheless considering that people are not sufficiently well informed ;

5. Convinced of the need to concentrate on teaching people to respect and protect the environment ;

6. Welcoming the fact that the European Council, in adopting Article 130 R of the Single European Act, has laid the foundations of a real Community policy on the environment ;

7. Noting that, following the example of OECD, the European Community has stressed the need to integrate environment policy into other policies, such as economic, agricultural, social, research and education ;

8. Paying tribute to the work done at the Council of Europe by the Standing Committee of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Berne Convention), and regretting that this activity is restrained by the limited funds granted to it ;

9. Welcoming the agreements reached at world and European levels, but regretting that ratified legal instruments are not always enforced at national level ;

10. Welcoming, further, the efforts made to co-ordinate environment policies in Eastern and Western Europe in the context of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE),

11. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers :

a invite member governments :

i to organise awareness and information campaigns aimed at the public, particularly young people, on environmental issues ;

ii to review the international conventions in the environmental sphere and ratify these where necessary ;

iii to adapt national legislation to make it possible for conventions and decisions taken at international level to be enforced ;

iv to devote increased funds to the protection of the environment and to combating pollution ;

v systematically to integrate environment policy into other sectoral policies ;

vi to acknowledge and encourage the efforts of private organisations which are active in this sphere ;

vii to associate regional and local authorities with every action taken for the sake of the environment ;

viii to conclude agreements on good behaviour with the industries, foresters and farmers who cause or may cause pollution, in order to associate them with the fight against its harmful effects ;

b increase the funds allocated to the Standing Committee of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats ;

c follow up the Assembly's longstanding request that the draft European convention for the protection of international watercourses against pollution be concluded ;

d start work forthwith on a European politico-legal instrument (outline convention) for the purpose of protecting the soil from pollution, and associate the ‘‘regional planning'' and ‘‘nature'' sectors of the Council of Europe's intergovernmental activities with this task ;

e work closely together with the EEC in the environmental field, so as to avoid duplication of activities ;

f continue, in the context of CSCE, the policy of East-West co-operation in the environment sector by means of a new high-level meeting whose aim would be to examine the possibility of implementing a common policy.