Environment standards pose burden for EU applicants

03 March 1998

Environment standards pose burden for EU applicants

THE implementation of environmental standards, such as those concerning water pollution from agriculture, could be a burden for east European countries applying for EU membership.

Ken Collins, chairman of the European Parliaments environment committee, fears new members could weaken the EUs environmental progress. But he believes the addition of big agricultural producers such as Poland and Hungary will at last “break the budget” of the Common Agricultural Policy.

This would mean an end to what he calls the “unmitigated disaster” of
subsidising agricultural over-production to the detriment of the environment.