Director of Policy Coordination,
Secretariat-General, European Commission

The Review of the Sustainable Development Strategy: A New Approach

On behalf of the Secretary General of the Commission, Catherine Day, I am very pleased to talk about the Sustainable Development Strategy at a Conference that deals with the very topic the Commission considers most important – how to move from discussing the strategy to doing it. This – indeed – is the main message of the Commission’s strategy ‘A platform for Action’.

Last year in December, the Commission adopted its proposal for the next phase of the Sustainable Development Strategy - the SDS II. We had an 18 months detailed review process in which many stakeholders from across Europe participated. We adopted three Communications on SDS in 2005:

• the February Orientations and a progress report,
• the draft Declaration of Principles for Sustainable Development adopted by Council in June
• the revised Strategy document of December proposing clearer objectives, targets and in particular and most important - a more effective monitoring procedure.

The SDS is about integrated policy-making; It is about the way we view the world and how we go about tackling the problems. The 3rd of April issue of Times Magazine is devoted almost entirely to Climate Change. The Headline reads: ‘Be worried – Climate Change isn’t some vague and future problem – it’s already damaging the planet at an alarming pace’. Current levels of carbon dioxide are higher than at anytime in the past 650 000 years; Bio diversity decline is accelerating and global poverty is on the increase. We need to act and urgently. These are immensely complex problems. We cannot solve them by using single sector approaches.

To have any real chance of success, we must work across sectors and in an integrated way. The problems are inter-linked – so should the solutions be. This is why the SDS matters and why it has real added value. Sustainable development is an overarching objective of the Union. Together the SDS and the Lisbon strategy work hand in hand to achieve this objective. The Lisbon strategy addresses the immediate concerns, looking to stimulate growth and jobs and helping the EU to adapt to global competition. The SDS addresses more slow-burning issues, looking at broader challenges, in the longer term and beyond the EU’s borders.

What does the Commission propose? We have made some progress since Göteborg but not nearly enough compared to the magnitude of the problems. The new strategy addresses some of the weaknesses of the previous strategy – unclear priorities, little ownership and absence of a clear monitoring mechanism. It confirms the main challenges but clarifies the objectives, and sets out a new and more rigorous monitoring mechanism. The main challenges we identified are:

• Climate change and clean energy
• Public Health
• Social exclusion, demography and migration
• Management of natural resources
• Sustainable transport
• Global Poverty and development challenges

The subtitle of the Commission’s review is ‘A Platform for Action’. We want to move beyond words and get into action. We want to clearly identify who can and should do what. We know what the challenges are and we have a good idea of the priorities. We must now turn our attention to the real issue: action and effective implementation in all policy areas.

Governments are an important part of the solution as they set the framework. They can push for the use of the broad tools available including better policy making and impact assessment, use economic instruments (getting prices right, shifting tax burden); and invest more in research and development, innovative technologies and education and skills. They also put in place the needed legislative framework. We need to work better at all levels of Government and make sure that we at EU level work with the national, regional and local level government on the SDS.

However, really to succeed, we need much wider involvement of the stakeholders, and civil society in the delivery of the strategy now. This is why the Commission is proposing a new approach that calls on mobilising and involving all stakeholders in delivering the strategy. To paraphrase the Strategy document, we call on the business leaders and all key stakeholders of Europe to engage in urgent reflection with political leaders on the medium- and long-term policies needed for sustainability and propose ambitious responses which go beyond existing minimum legal requirements’. In other words, we would like you to get involved directly in the action and share and exchange ideas on how to deliver results. We will in turn make sure that the SDS enjoys a much closer monitoring of these efforts at all levels. I hope this will be one of the themes further explored today. We can build on what is already underway in the Member States, institutions and European society. There are plenty of positive examples. The letter sent to Tony Blair By leading UK businesses ahead of the Gleneagles summit demonstrated real commitment on the part of business leaders to do something about Climate Change. Cities are getting together to push the sustainable development agenda: Berlin where 75 percent of new buildings have to include solar panels, London where congestion charging has been introduced; Copenhagen where one third of the population cycles to work. Austria, where Vienna is the city with the highest number of Good or Best Practices sustainable development programmes in the world.

We need to multiply these best practice examples and we want to involve all groups - business, consumer groups, citizens and all levels of government.

Let me conclude with a few words on how we propose to monitor this strategy in the future. Stakeholders have been clear with us: a better monitoring of progress is essential. Frankly, we have not managed to put an effective monitoring mechanism in place for the 2001 Sustainable Development Strategy. Therefore, we propose to strengthen governance of the strategy.

We propose first, a regular rendezvous (every two years) in the European Council to take stock and assess priorities based on a Commission progress report. We also want to include a peer review of the National Sustainable Development Strategies to promote mutual learning and the exchange of best practices.

We would finally like to involve the other EU institutions in the implementation of the strategy - including the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. We think that these other EU institutions should take on a new and more active role to help implement and monitor the strategy. It is only when all these different institutions and actors come together and take responsibility that we will see results.

Next steps: As the Austrian presidency will explain, the Council is taking up these and many other ideas and we are working closely with the Presidency and all Member States to ensure the best possible outcome for the final strategy in June.