Environmental Policy Emphasis during the German EU Presidency
Today State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Matthias Machnig, presented the environmental topics on which Germany will concentrate during its Presidency in the European Council in the first 6 months of 2007. The core topics will be climate and energy, sustainable mobility and biodiversity. "Ecological innovation is needed to achieve progress in the field of these major challenges. For this reason Germany will launch an ecological industrial policy at EU level", noted State Secretary Machnig at a conference of the "Network European Movement Germany" in Berlin.
To keep up its lead role in international climate politics and to give new impetus to the bogged down climate negotiations the EU should commit itself at the spring summit meeting of the European Council in March 2007 to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. The European Council is also expected to adopt an Energy Action Plan which will concentrate on increased energy efficiency and an increased use of renewable energies, the modernisation of the internal electricity and gas markets and a coherent European external energy policy. Matthias Machnig pointed out: "It will be easier to determine new European climate targets if we make full use of the enormous energy efficiency potential in the EU of more than 20 per cent" During its Presidency Germany also wants to achieve major progress for climate protection by incorporating air traffic into the emissions trading scheme and by making a policy decision on how automotive CO2 emissions can be reduced in the future.
The informal meeting of environment ministers in Essen in June next year aims to give impetus for an ecological policy for innovation and industry at European level as a concrete element of the Lisbon strategy. Faced with dynamic growth in important newly industrialised countries, the global challenges of climate protection and resource scarcity require ecological innovations. "This is the only way for the EU and Germany to maintain their competitive position and secure employment", Matthias Machnig noted.