European Union News - Environmnet

This Strategy adopted at the Environment Council held in Luxembourg on June 21st 2011 is considered by EU ministers as a key instrument to enable the EU to reach its overall 2020 headline target. Ministers also underlined that further discussion over the actions to ensure the effective and coherent implementation of the Strategy should still be put in place.

A team of EU-funded researchers is leading the development of a unique type of sustainable zinc-based rechargeable battery for electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid EVs (HEVs). This resulting battery device will have the energy and power density necessary to compete with alternative battery technologies in the HEV and EV markets. Furthermore, the project will also construct prototype battery units for industry standard testing.

A large majority of Europeans agree that using natural resources more efficiently and protecting the environment can boost economic growth in the EU. 90% of respondents in every single Member State to the latest survey by the European Commission shows that the environment is an important personal concern. They also believe that despite the economic crisis, almost nine in ten Europeans think EU funding should be allocated to support environmentally friendly activities.

According to Eurostat, forests cover around 40% of the EU27 land area and half the EU27 consumption of renewable energy comes from wood. In the European Union, three quarters of forest area was available for wood supply in 2010. Furthermore, renewable sources of energy provided 9% of total gross inland energy consumption in the EU in 2009.

The European Commission has launched the process to to find the city that will inherit the European Green Capital title in 2014. EU Environment Commissioner, Janez Potočnik stated that this award is a powerful incentive to help convince local authorities that sustainable urban development is the key to a successful future.

According to MEPs, the first step towards measuring the EU economy on a wider basis than GDP should be better monitoring and reporting of environmental data. The European Parliament also support the Commission's groundwork towards supplementing "Beyond GDP" economic measure with social and environmental indicators and called for concrete and consistent proposals for indicators that can be monitored by Eurostat.

A directive approved by the European Parliament will ensure that revenue from these charges is used to improve the performance of transport systems and cut pollution. On average, 3 to 4 euro cents per vehicle/km may be added to charges for using transport infrastructure to cover the external costs of road haulage. The directive will cover not only trans-European transport (TEN-T) networks, but all motorways, and will apply to vehicles of over 3.5 tonnes.

During its 18th meeting, the Member State Committee unanimously agreed on four draft decisions based on ECHA’s testing proposal examination and on five draft decisions based on compliance checks. The Candidate List will be updated soon as the seven new substances and the “toxic for reproduction” will be added as the basis for identification as an Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) for cobaltdichloride.

The European Council of 4 February, in its conclusions on the "Innovation Union", invited the Commission to make proposals to accelerate, simplify and modernize standardization procedures, notably to allow standards developed by industry to be turned into European standards. Now, the European Commission proposes a package of legislative and non-legislative measures to develop more and faster standards.

The Ombudsman’s action follows several complaints from citizens suggesting a lack of information concerning the changes made to the maximum levels. Therefore, he has asked the European Commission to provide citizen-friendly information about the maximum permitted levels of radioactive contamination of foodstuffs in the EU before and after the Fukushima accident in Japan.