Over the next few years, the European Union will face some crucial tests. The obvious ones are the need to make the Lisbon treaty work, and to find a way for the EU as an entity to play its part effectively in world politics.

But at the heart of the EU, separate from the nationalist cankers that are increasingly flourishing, there is a systemic weakness that the EU institutions must deal with – or it could bring the whole house down.

The problem is poor compliance. EU laws are laboriously adopted and should be universally observed but aren’t. The answer is better enforcement  - but there is no easy way of bringing this about. Non-compliance now affects the future of the Euro – to which Greece has done great damage by knowingly submitting inaccurate budget data – and many policy areas on which the good name of the EU rests, most notably environment and competition.

Let’s take the environment, since it is a policy area which most people are happy to see operate at EU level. There is now a dense network of directives in force, often with major cost implications for Member States (e.g. on water quality) and requiring major domestic policy changes (e.g. the landfill directive).All these have one thing in common: no-one can really swear, hand on heart, that they know how – or if - individual member states are implementing them in detail, on the ground.

The European Commission at least knows that all is not well. 40% of the complaints from the public about the non-application of EU law concern environmental issues. Waste and nature protection collect the highest number of complaints, petitions and infringement cases.  Sometimes the scale of Member States’ failure is dramatic: thus large numbers of illegal sites are still operating as landfills, estimated at 5000 in Italy and 1500 in France. Yet the landfill directive, adopted in 1999, required the closure of all illegal sites at the latest by July 2009.

Of course the Commission can pursue offending Member States to the European Court of Justice. This can take at least 5 years, and may result in a fine – an ironic conclusion if the Member State concerned pleads poverty as one reason for its non-compliance.

I think what we need is an EU environmental inspection force akin to the Fisheries inspectorate. This force would have the right to carry out investigations and inspections starting soon after the date at which Member States have to bring new laws into force. It would then hustle/cajole/remind recalcitrant countries to live up to the laws they voted for. The Commission is looking at such a force in relation to EU waste laws, but the arrangement could apply more widely to all environmental law.

Meanwhile MEPs should wake up to the fact that they are not doing their duty if they concentrate only on the scrutiny and adoption of new law. They should take evidence, and publicise, in their reports, the failures by Member States to adopt and/or enforce the law. This is a publicity operation no-one else can undertake. It would help, perhaps even save, the environment too – which is something everyone can support.

Dr Caroline Jackson

The Author's Biography

http://www.drcarolinejackson.com/

Dr Caroline Jackson was a Member of the European Parliament for 25 years (1984 –2009) and was one of the Conservative MEPs representing the South West of England – and Gibraltar. She now chairs the Institute for European Environment Policy, which has offices in Brussels and London, and is a member of the Advisory Board of SITA UK plc. She is a frequent speaker and author on environmental issues.

For 5 years – 1999-2004 – Dr Jackson was Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety – one of the largest and  busiest of the legislative committees of the Parliament . It was pointed out in Britain  at that time that she was “the most powerful Conservative in Europe”, since she had much more power to decide the environmental agenda than Conservative party spokesmen in London. Legislation passed during her chairmanship included the proposals on the control of chemicals (the REACH programme) and the first producer responsibility directives concerning waste.

Dr Jackson has a strong connection with developments in European waste issues over the last 10 years. She acted as rapporteur on the landfill directive in 1998 and on the waste framework directive in 2008. She is committed to ensuring that the merits of energy from waste are appreciated as a feasible accompaniment to recycling. In the EU more widely she continues to highlight the need  for universal enforcement and compliance with the waste laws now in force.

Dr Jackson retired as an MEP partly because she disagreed strongly with the current policy of the British Conservative party towards the EU. In particular she believes that it was a mistake for the Conservative party to withdraw from the European People’s Party and form a smaller, less influential group, with the Polish Law and Justice party and other fragments.

Dr Jackson  was born in 1946 in Penzance, Cornwall, and educated in Penzance and at St Hugh's College and Nuffield College Oxford. She studied Classics and History and holds an Oxford Doctorate in Philosophy with a thesis on 19th century politics. She is a former Research Fellow in history at St Hugh's College.  She is married to Robert Jackson, former MP for Wantage and Minister for Higher Education. Outside politics her main interests are music, gardening and walking the long distance footpaths of England.

Contact details: E mail cf.jackson@homecall.co.uk