Activites

• 2002/11/28 Final act published in Official Journal
• #2416
• 2002/03/11 Council Meeting
  • 2416
• #2413
• 2002/03/04 Council Meeting
• 2002/02/28 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T5-0081/2002 summary

    The European Parliament adopted this resolution with an overwhelming majority of 490 votes to 12, with 18 abstentions. It believes that the environmental pillar of sustainable development should be considered of equal importance to the economic and social pillars. It stresses, therefore, the importance of a commitment to the 'environmental mainstreaming' approach and its further development. With this in mind, there is a need to develop evaluation tools and indicators and convergence criteria in all sectors related to sustainable development in order that there can be a proper balance between economic, social and environmental dimensions of the sustainable development strategy. Moreover, specific and measurable targets for reversing unsustainable trends should be established. The Parliament wants more indicators established to assess the environmental aspects of sustainable development in order to ensure that the environment, which was made the third component of the EU's sustainable development strategy at Gothenburg, carried as much weight as its economic and social components. It is demanding an indicator to evaluate resource consumption so that progress in breaking the link between economic growth and resource use can be measures, and says that indicators are particularly important in the area of biotechnology. Parliament points out that biotechnology, if applied prudently, can be a contribution to sustainable development and welcomes, therefore, the biotechnology action plan presented by the Commission for the Barcelona European Council. It regrets, however, that the Commission considers the reservations of a lot of citizens about GMOs and specific forms of stem cell research mainly as a lack of acceptance. It stresses therefore that the request for labelling and traceability of GMOs and for priority for the work with adult stem cells, to which the European Parliament has drawn attention on several occasions, is legitimate. It considers that the European Council should call on the Commission, the Council and the European parliament to adopt rules for compensation liability in environmental matters, including pollution with GMOs. Parliament also considers that, if the Commission has not submitted a proposal for new chemicals legislation before the Barcelona European Council, the European Council should call for the Commission to speed up its work with a view to complying with the deadline for the EU strategy. The resolution also looks ahead to the Rio+10 UN Conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in September. Lastly, Parliament considers, in view of the importance of the Johannesburg conference and the need for broad representation of political groups and committees concerned, that a large European Parliament contingent of up to 25 Members should be authorised to attend the conference as part of the EU delegation.�

• 2002/02/27 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament

Documents

• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0081/2002
• Debate in Council: 2416

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)