- Startseite >>
- English >>
- European union
Effects of the EU Enlargement to the East on Environmental Protection
The environmental situation in the new EU member states and in the candidate countries
With their accession to the European Union the new member states of Central and Eastern Europe took on the obligation to create the legal and factual preconditions already in effect in the old member states. As far as the environmental sector is concerned, this task has been successfully accomplished so far. The percentage of households connected to waste water systems had, for example, doubled at the time of the accession and the emission of main air pollutants had already been reduced by 60 – 80 %. According to statements of the Directorate General Environment of the European Commission, almost 100% of the environment-related legal provisions enacted by the EU have meanwhile been implemented in the national legal systems of the new member states and their administrative structures have also been considerably strengthened.
However, there are still some fields where the new member states have a lot of catching-up to do. Among others, the following points can be mentioned:
- Climate change – owing to energy efficiency that is still below the average and simultaneously increasing economic growth,
- Water – owing to an imbalance between drinking-water consumption and the available drinking water resources and a still high level of contamination of ground-water and surface waterbodies,
- Waste – owing to an increase in municipal waste in combination with an unbalanced waste disposal system.
Considerable efforts will still have to be made when it comes to the development of administrative structures, control and implementation capacities. The Commission estimates the average required financial expenditure in the coming years at 2 – 3% of the respective gross domestic product. In order to cushion this burden the Commission granted longer transition periods in certain fields, for example, with regard to water supply and waste water disposal. In other fields, however, such as, for example, the framework legislation in the fields of air, waste, water, impact assessment, access to environmental information or the implementation of the FFH and Birds Directive, the EU made it clear right from the beginning that no transitional provisions would be granted. The accession candidates Bulgaria and Romania also have considerable costs to face. The costs expected for the adaptation to the EU environmental acquis are between € 14.6 and 17.9 billion for Bulgaria and between € 30.0 and 31.7 billion for Romania.
Climate change
The massive restructuring of the economy, a clearly more efficient use of energy in conjunction with a (so far) restrained growth of consumption as well as the shift from coal as the energy source to oil and natural gas has led to a clear reduction in CO2 emissions in many of the new member countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia and Poland). The examples of Poland and Slovakia reveal clear successes. They succeeded in reducing the annual per capita production of CO2 between 1996 and 1999 from 9.7 t to 8.3 tons (Poland) and from 8.7 to 7.6 tons (Slovakia). By way of comparison, the EU average in that time was 8.4 tons CO2 per capita and year. So it hardly comes as a surprise that, according to statements of the latest environment report of the European Environment Agency of November 2005, almost all the new EU member states are well on their way to achieving the Kyoto objectives – a fact, however, that the Environment Agency assesses not only as positive, because these results are after all attributable to dramatic losses in growth and an industrial restructuring. This is already shown by the fact that energy efficiency in the new member states continues to be below the average of the old states, and that the energy intensity of each production unit generated is clearly above the level of the former EU-15. One example is Latvia, which according to statements of the Environment Agency, currently holds top position when it comes to CO2 reductions in Europe but which at the same time is characterised by a low-energy intensity and a below-average use of renewable sources of energy. This means that unless measures are taken in future to improve energy efficiency in combination with an increased use of renewable sources of energy, it can be assumed that there will be a rise in CO2 emission levels in the new member states as rates of growth increase. Another contributory factor is the increase in traffic volume.
The candidate countries Romania and Bulgaria have signed the Kyoto Protocol and each country has undertaken to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 8 % respectively during the first reduction period (2008 – 2012). The CO2 emissions of the two countries in the year 2000 were, however, clearly below the reduction target. Should the situation remain the same in the period 2008 –2012, despite the expected increases owing to increases in production and traffic volumes, a sale of released emissions allowances to other countries might be conceivable.
Air quality control
Economic restructuring combined with the use of modern technologies and the conversion to mainly natural gas also led to considerable reductions in the emissions of the “classic” air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitric oxides (NOx) and dust soot in the new member states. In the Czech Republic, for example, in the period between 1990 and 2003 it was possible to achieve a reduction in SO2 emissions of 87 %, in fine dust emissions of 90 % and in NOx emissions of 40 %. These results can be attributed especially to a changed legal background. A number of framework acts on air pollution control have already been passed in order to avoid and reduce the emission of pollutants from stationary sources (e.g. enactment of a law for improving the air quality in the Czech Republic in February 2002, Second National Environmental Policy of the Polish Ministry of the Environment in 2000 that stipulates a reduction of all pollutant emissions at varying levels). Slovakia has also been able to achieve clear improvements as regards the emissions of SO2, NOx, NH3 and non-methane volatile organic compounds (HMVOC) compared with 1990 and is thus well on the way to achieving the goals of the EU Directive set for 2010 relating to national maximum emissions of certain air pollutants. An increased production of air pollutants, especially of volatile hydrocarbons and NOx is expected for the accession candidates Bulgaria and Romania owing to a considerable increase in motorised private transport mainly in the cities of these countries.
Water management
In almost the whole of Europe there is far more water available than is used – according to a study by the European Environment Agency from the year 2000. The largest part of the water extracted (on average 16 %) is returned to the water cycle. Only 5 % of the available water is consumed and cannot be returned to the water cycle. The extracted water is, however, not necessarily returned to the cycle at the point of extraction, with the effect that at the typical points of extraction (lakes, rivers) there are in part heavy impacts, e.g. the drying-up of rivers. In particular the Czech Republic and Poland have the lowest drinking water reserves per capita owing to only moderate rainfall and a small number of larger tributaries, i.e. the ratio between the production of drinking water and available drinking water resources is extremely unfavourable. In addition, there is high water consumption in the energy sector. More than 50% of the total water consumption in 2004 in the Czech Republic and Estonia, for example, went into producing energy. Guaranteeing a functioning water supply in the candidate countries of Bulgaria and Romania requires, among other things, the rehabilitation of obsolete water mains and the construction of new ones.
Another problem is the water quality and here especially the concentration of phosphorus, nitrogen and nitrates that in extreme cases can render the water undrinkable. A considerable percentage of the groundwater deposits in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland and Slovakia, for example, have nitrate concentrations of more than 50 mg/litre. These concentrations, however, differ very much from region to region owing to the nature-spatial conditions and agricultural land use. The situation is different for phosphorus concentrations. Here, it was possible to make a substantial improvement through the reduced use of phosphorus in detergents not only in all western countries but also in some Eastern European countries. The avoidance of the contamination of drinking water and the provision of functioning water-treatment plants are main topics of environmental policy in Bulgaria and Romania as well. This applies, among others, to the agricultural areas in the East of Romania and to the North-Eastern regions of Bulgaria where the supply of drinking water is to a large extent based on the use of groundwater.
Especially the Central and Eastern European countries still have to cope with waste-water disposal systems that are often inadequately developed. As still not all parts of the population are connected to a public sewage system, the pollution of surface waterbodies, of many rivers and lakes, remains very high despite the improvements made during the last 10 years. One of the numerous reasons for this is the considerable time and expenditure required to set up an area-wide waste water disposal system. Also, especially in Slovenia, there are further aggravating framework conditions owing to its mountainous topography, and in Poland the construction of an area-wide sewerage network is turning out to be very difficult owing to the high percentage of decentralised settlement structures. The development of the water / waste water segment in Southeastern Europe, and therefore also in the accession countries of Bulgaria and Romania, is expected to be the environmental sector with the highest investment requirements.
Waste
Two opposite tendencies can be observed in the field of solid waste. On the one hand, there is a growth in municipal waste owing to the adoption of Western consumption patterns, and, on the other hand, there is a reduction of industrial waste per GDP unit owing to the application of Western production techniques. An OECD study has related the specific waste fractions (in tons) to the gross domestic product (in millions of US-dollars). According to this study the generation of one Czech GDP unit amounting to one million USD in 1999 was bought at the price of 345 tons of industrial waste and 310 tons of municipal waste. The ratio in Poland (similar to the situation in Hungary, Austria and the other EU member states) is different. Here, one million US Dollars of GDP still generates 320 tons of municipal waste – a substantial amount – but “only” 94 tons of industrial waste – a figure that, according to OECD statements, still makes Poland one of the main perpetrators of industrial waste in Europe.
Most countries have meanwhile succeeded in clearly reducing waste production per capita and year – according to statements by the European Environment Agency, Poland meanwhile occupies a top position among the European countries with a per capita production of only 300 kg of municipal waste per year – problems are, however, not only created by the production of waste but also by its use, i.e. recycling or disposal. In this country the disposal of waste in landfills still dominates whereas the incineration of waste is simultaneously of minor importance; the setting-up of waste material collection and recycling systems is still in its starting phase and the recycling quota only comes to a few percent at the most in the majority of the new member states. Most countries, however, are attempting increasingly to comply with the EU Landfill Directive that stipulates the gradual reduction of organic substances in landfills through an increase of waste incineration. One of the main measures to be adopted here is the use of waste heat for generating heat and electrical power. However, high investment costs and massive protests from people worried about the quality of life in their regions are an obstacle to rapid implementation. The lack or the inadequacy of systems for avoiding waste, a system for separated-waste collection and recycling materials that is still in its initial stages plus a lack of waste treatment and disposal systems that still have to be set up show that there is an enormous need for action and investment in the accession candidates Bulgaria and Romania. The EU has granted appropriate transition periods.
One of the advances that have been made in the field of waste is certainly the Second National Environmental Policy of the Polish Ministry for the Environment that is meant to mark the beginning of a clear reform in Polish waste management. Its objectives include the nation-wide introduction of a system for separated waste collection, including hazardous waste, the implementation of recycling quotas of at least 50 % for paper and glass, or the use of voluntary agreements for the industry with a view to reducing the amount of material used and the production of waste in the manufacturing process.
The StMUG is also cooperating with the new member states in the field of waste management. In this context mention should be made of the development and implementation of EU-oriented solution concepts along with technical support and accompaniment for feasibility studies..
Nature conservation
VAgainst the background of the enlargement to the East and an extension of the areas of conservation for animals and plants the European Commission considers it necessary to extend the lists of the Annexes of the FFH Directive to include further types of habitats and animal and plant species. In view of the implementation of environmental law in the field of nature conservation, Bavaria, with its proximity to the borders, can make a considerable contribution. Consideration needs to be given to
- the improvement of cross-border political, administrative, technical and economic cooperation, also from EU-strategic viewpoints,
- the support of sustainable development processes,
- the joint preparation of cross-border protection concepts with the Czech Republic, e.g. for lynxes, bats, grouse,
- close cooperation between the Bayerischer Wald and Sumava national parks and
- the holding of a cross-border Garden Show 2006 in Marktredwitz and Cheb (in preparation).
