Among the main results of the Environment Council held in Luxembourg on 10 October, EU Ministers the conclusions on Commission's assessment of the EU's 6th Environment Action Programme (EAP) 2002-2012. EU Ministers in charge for the Environment discussed how to improve EU action in this field as well as to ensure synergies between the 7th EAP and the Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe.

Further to the discussion over Commission's assessment on the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme, the Council invited to present its successor Programme by the beginning of year 2012. In this sense, the Commission has expressed that it would prefer to present the Programme by the second half of the year, given that the procedure for consultations and Parliament's opinion assessment would take longer. Some ministers within the Council expressed a certain concern given that the current Programme expires on 22 July 2012, and called to avoid any legal gap situation.

As highlighted by Ministers, the Commission's assessment of the 6th EAP adopted by the end of August 2011, is both comprehensive and forward-looking, and looks at relevant existing initiatives such as the Europe 2020 Strategy, the preparations for Rio+20, the roadmap towards a resource-efficient Europe or the post 2010 Biodiversity Strategy.

Although the co-decision procedure followed for its adoption provided the programme with higher legitimacy, Commission's assessment put forward that some shortcomings and limitations, mainly as regards coherence between the different strands of EU environmental policy and the level of implementation by member states still remain. However, ministers agreed that the adoption of the 6th EAP allowed for the consolidation and completion of legislation in almost all areas of environment policy.

Regarding the draft of a new Programme that would succeed the 1st Environment and Health Action Plan (EHAP) which, in view of the Council would also help to further promote health through environment policy, the Commission considers that it is still too early for such reference as certain elements need to be cleared with the 7th EAP in order to follow up with both Programmes' integration.