Today, on 16 July an informal EU Environment Council meeting will begin in Maastricht focusing on two issues – environment as opportunity: environmentally sound solutions and flood risk management. Both environmentally sound solutions and flood risk management are priorities during the Dutch EU presidency that started in June. The aim of the current meeting is to agree on the short-term policies on these issues and hear the positions of other Member States. The meeting will be held in the form of discussions in an atmosphere less formal than in formal gatherings. The Netherlands finds that the European Union and its Member States should make much greater efforts than so far in order to increase synergy between the environment, science and competitiveness. In the opinion of the Presidency, successful environmentally sound solutions can gain a competitive advantage to the EU over Japan, China, India and the USA. Five highly interrelated priority areas have been proposed to promote environmentally sound or effective solutions: * Encouraging companies to use ecologically effective solutions and opportunities * Improving the innovation system by way of purpose-orientated policies in order to develop environmentally sound solutions * Promoting the development of market-based measures * Integrating policies and the style of policies – governments should promote policies that support innovation, and the policies should be sustainable, consistent, active and ambitious * Involving consumers to help them make informed decisions Thus, the general objective is to encourage companies to introduce more and more economically sound solutions and innovations by using clean technologies, raw materials, etc. As for the other topic of discussion – flood risk management – the long-term aim of the meeting is to develop and implement an action plan for flood prevention, protection and alleviation. Since floods have been rare in Estonia, the topic of environment as opportunity and the use of environmentally sound solutions is of greater importance to us. Most of the great floods in Europe occur on so-called transboundary water bodies in Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, etc. Nevertheless, Estonia is ready to cooperate with other Member States in the field of flood protection.
The discussion on the issues that are dealt with today and tomorrow will continue in EU working groups. These issues have also been included in the agenda of the Environment Council meetings in October and December. Dear journalists, it is possible to get a telephone interview with the Minister from Maastricht on Saturday. For this, please contact Annika Velthut, Adviser to the Minister (phone +372 508 8124). The programme of the meeting has been attached. Further information: Phone (+372) 508 8124 Programme Friday 16 July Saturday 17 July Sunday 18 July |
