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Over these past two decades four Community action
programmes on the environment have given rise to about
200 pieces of legislation covering pollution of the
atmosphere, water and soil, waste management, safeguards
in relation to chemicals and biotechnology, product
standards, environmental, impact assessments and
protection of flora and fauna.
However, the present approach. and existing instruments
are insufficient for dealing with the current levels of
environmental degradation in the Community and they are
not designed to cope with further challenges nor to
exploit the opportunities posed by the completion of the
Internal Market, the review of the Community's Structural
Funds, and of agricultural, energy and transport
policies, global concerns about the climate
change/deforestation/energy crisis and the progress of
political and economic change in Central and Eastern.
Europe.
In the past, there. has been a tendency to. treat the
environment and development interests as being mutually
hostile; today, it is realised that they are mutually
dependent. A soundly-based comprehensive environment
policy can provide the preconditions for the optimisation
of resource management and the - sustainability ' of almost
all forms of economic and social development and of the
employment and welfare which they generate. The EEC Fifth
Environment Action Programme, ("Towards Sustainability"
1993—2000) should be seen as a step in the formulation
and implementation of. a longer-term strategy which will
be both comprehensive and coherent.
