European Union

Greetings and welcome to EURACTIV’s Green Brief. Below you’ll find the latest roundup of news covering energy & environment from across Europe. You can subscribe to the weekly newsletter here. The European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in Parliament, is...

Parliament is ready to start negotiations on a common charger to reduce e-waste and make the use of different mobile phones, tablets and digital cameras more convenient.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Parliament is ready to start negotiations on a common charger to reduce e-waste and make the use of different mobile phones, tablets and digital cameras more convenient.
Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Written by Vivienne Halleux.

In the European Union (EU), one in eight deaths is linked to environmental pollution. Pollution is also one of the five main causes of biodiversity loss, representing a significant cost for society. The EU has set the goal of achieving zero pollution for a non-toxic environment by 2050. This would mean reducing air, water and soil pollution to ‘levels no longer considered harmful to health and natural ecosystems and respecting the boundaries the planet can cope with’.

Achieving this long-term ambition will mean updating the comprehensive legal framework currently in place at EU level to address pollution in order to keep up with the latest scientific evidence. In 2022, the EU is expected to review its air quality standards to align more closely with the recently updated World Health Organization recommendations, and to look into pollutants affecting surface and groundwater. Additional areas that should be revised in parallel include key laws designed to tackle pollution at source, setting requirements for pollutant emissions from industry and vehicles, for urban wastewater treatment and sustainable use of pesticides. The key challenges in achieving the zero pollution goal remain to ensure policy coherence, compliance and enforcement. Other issues to monitor include liability for pollution and related costs, with recent assessments pointing to the need to be consistent and rigorous in implementing the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

Parliament has pushed for ambitious action to protect people’s health and the environment from pollution. It has argued that air quality legislation should also cover non-regulated pollutants with demonstrated adverse impacts, such as ultrafine particles, black carbon, mercury and ammonia. It has also called for decisive action on pollutants of emerging concern in water, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, microplastics, endocrine-disrupting chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Finally, it has urged the Commission to design a dedicated legal framework for soil protection, equivalent to that existing for water and air.

Recently, steps have been taken at global level to curb plastic pollution through legally binding means and to form a science-policy interface body on chemicals and waste.

Read the complete briefing on ‘The EU’s zero pollution ambition: Moving towards a non-toxic environment‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Wednesday, 4 May

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

Wednesday, 4 May

Source : © European Union, 2022 - EP

The European Parliament has green-lighted a new report on the EU’s organic action plan, which stresses a market-based approach but makes no mention of the bloc's ambitious target to see 25% of agricultural land farmed organically by 2030.

Companies will have to set a much broader range of sustainability targets under draft new European Union reporting standards, environmental impact body CDP said on Tuesday (3 May).

Ukraine's prosecutor general accused Russia on Tuesday (3 May) of using rape as a tactic of war and described Russian President Vladimir Putin as "the main war criminal of the 21st century".

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about Estonia and Lithuania being among the best when it comes to press freedom, over 100,000 Ukrainian refugees finding jobs in Poland, and so much more.

The CIA says Russians disaffected by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine may be trying to get in touch with US intelligence – and it wants them to go to the darknet.

If this proposal ultimately goes through during the talks of EU ambassadors today, then it would deal a severe blow to Europe’s shipping industry considering that many EU tankers transfer Russian oil to China. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected on Wednesday (4 May) to outline new sanctions against Moscow, including a ban on imports of Russian oil by the end of this year.

 The Commission’s 2022 Rule of Law Report will have a particular focus on media matters, an EU spokesperson told EURACTIV Greece, following a new report showing that Greece has become the worst EU country when it comes to media freedom....

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday (2 May) appealed to voters to protect abortion rights by backing candidates who support them in November's elections after a leaked Supreme Court draft showed it could soon overturn its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

A massive hacking attack, with Russian involvement that took place on 16 April completely disrupted the Bulgarian State Post Office, which still does not function properly, the government’s IT expert Vasil Velichkov has said. The state post office counts 2,973 post...

The French Communist Party concluded on Tuesday night (3 May) an electoral agreement with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left La France Insoumise party joining the left alliance with the Greens ahead of legislative elections. The deal allows the transition to a...

Slovenia’s human rights ombudsman and media experts have urged action to address deteriorating press freedom as Slovenia now ranks 54th in the latest World Press Freedom Index – dropping 18 spots compared to last year and ranking the lowest since...

Prime Minister Edi Rama has called the Reporters Without Borders’s assessment of press freedom in Albania a “lie” and “fantasy” after the country dropped a staggering 20 places in one year. On Tuesday morning, RSF released its annual World Press...

Construction of a terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Greece’s Alexandroupoli is important “for the entire region, the entire Balkans,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said at a ceremony marking the start of construction, adding that he, like many others,...