Mr. Pat Macken:

Before I begin I will introduce on my far left Mr. Fintan O'Connell, who is on our Presidency team, and Mr. Brendan O'Neill, who is senior adviser in the Department's environmental technical inspectorate. I may call on them occasionally during the presentation.

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to address the committee this afternoon on the 7th Environment Action Programme. As members will recall from previous discussions with this committee, the Irish Presidency has an ambitious environment agenda in terms of strategic policy, a very heavy international agenda, and a significant number of challenging legislative dossiers. With just over eight weeks to go before the curtain falls on the seventh Irish Presidency, intensive efforts are being made to achieve the targets set for it.

Thus far, good progress has been made across the range of priority dossiers identified in the Irish Presidency programme and we are still on course to achieve First Reading Agreement on our key priorities. Already, First Reading Agreement has been achieved on two dossiers - the amendment to the emissions trading scheme in so far as aviation is concerned and the priority substances in water file - while work is continuing on securing agreement on other dossiers.

These include two dossiers on CO₂in cars and vans, a proposal on ship recycling, which is designed to ensure old ships are recycled in a way that does not damage the environment, a dossier on batteries, which will extend the scope of the ban on batteries using certain levels of cadmium and, of course, the seventh EAP itself. Progress made is largely attributable to the intensive pre-Presidency planning in the 18 months leading up to the end of last year, about which we have previously spoken to the committee. This involved active engagement at ministerial and official level with the EU Commission, Council secretariat and European Parliament on the putting together of the Irish Presidency programme. Pre-planning has laid a solid foundation for the Presidency itself and, I am happy to say, we are well placed to achieve our key objectives. Success in any area, however, is always dependent on the degree to which consensus can be achieved within the Council itself and with the Commission and Parliament.

The seventh environment action programme, or EAP, is a flagship priority for the Irish Presidency in the environment field. As stated in the information note on the programme which has been circulated to members, environment action programmes have operated since the early 1970s to guide and drive policy and advance the environmental agenda in the European Union. Despite failures to fully achieve desired outcomes in some areas, the programmes have provided strategic policy focus and direction and the actions identified have served to significantly advance the environmental and sustainable-development agendas. The seventh EAP was developed against the background of Europe 2020, which was adopted by the European Council in 2010 and provides the overarching policy framework aimed at making Europe a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy and society. As a flagship initiative on resource efficiency under Europe 2020, it sets out a path for advancing the transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient and resource-efficient future. The seventh EAP seeks to operationalise the objectives of the resource-efficiency roadmap through a series of agreed actions. The new EAP proposal, "Living well, within the limits of our planet", was published by the European Commission on 29 November 2012. The proposal, when adopted, will succeed the sixth EAP, which expired in July 2012. Currently, there is no EAP in place.

The path towards the formulation of the seventh EAP has been the subject of important guidance through three sets of Environment Council conclusions, most recently in June 2012, while the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a seventh programme in April 2012. Ireland has been active in this development process since 2011 and made a submission as part of a consultation process undertaken by the Commission. The priorities listed in the Irish submission focused on areas such as greater integration of environmental principles across all policy areas, better implementation of EU legislation, a focus on innovation, international issues and the urban environment, all of which were well reflected in the proposal that was ultimately published by the Commission. We are now in a good position through our Presidency role to develop the necessary consensus across all of the main actors and, hopefully, bring this flagship dossier across the line.

The proposal for the seventh EAP is in the form of a decision to be adopted through co-decision by the European Parliament and the Council. The seventh-EAP European Parliament rapporteur, Mr. Gaston Franco, was appointed in December 2012 and, at an early engagement, indicated his intention to work with the Irish Presidency to achieve a first reading agreement by June. Mr. Franco and the chairman of the environment committee of the European Parliament attended the informal Council in Dublin last week. As the briefing note circulated to the committee sets out the main elements covered by the EAP, I will not go into too much detail on them. The seventh EAP sets out a strategic agenda for environmental policy with nine priority objectives to guide EU environment policy up to 2020. For each priority objective, the rationale is set out in ten to 12 paragraphs, with actions and requirements specified to deliver the priority objectives by 2020. These actions and requirements could be described as the operational side of the draft proposal and are the main focus of the negotiations. The programme sets out a framework to support the achievement of the nine priority objectives through better implementation of EU environment law, state-of-the-art science, securing necessary investments in support of environment and climate change policy and improving the way environmental concerns and requirements are reflected in other policies. The programme aims to boost efforts to help EU cities become more sustainable and improve the EU's capacity to meet regional and global environment and climate challenges.

The Irish Presidency has thus far held ten meetingson the seventh EAP in the Council working party, the latest of which was held in Brussels yesterday. An additional two meetings are planned for Thursday of this week and next Tuesday, respectively, to prepare for trilogues which involve the Presidency, on behalf of the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission. This process has involved the Presidency seeking to build compromise and amend the text where required, while at the same time being conscious of the obligation to uphold the level of ambition in the seventh EAP. We are not just seeking agreement for the sake of securing agreement but must ensure the final document is credible, environmentally ambitious and capable of achieving desired outcomes across the environmental agenda to 2020. Inevitably, there is a distance to go to achieve consensus in a number of areas under discussion. That said, we are pleased with the progress being made in what has been a very intensive process. The areas where significant issues remain are narrowing.

The following main issues of concern for member states have been clarified in the Presidency redrafts of the seventh EAP and form part of the ongoing negotiations. First, the proposed legislation on soil protection is still opposed by the same blocking minority that has rejected the outstanding Commission proposal since 2006. The Presidency is trying to ensure that the seventh EAP includes action on soils in the period to 2020 and is striving to forge a compromise text that might gain a broad measure of support. Second, the low-carbon roadmap to 2050 and references to mandatory targets for the climate and energy framework beyond 2020 pose difficulties for a number of member states. Third, there are issues about the inclusion of references to the development of indicators and targets for resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production. Fourth, references to the treatment-of-chemicals legislation is proving to be contentious. These discussions are complex and technical. The fifth issue of concern is the proposal to fully implement the EU biodiversity strategy, which is priority objective 1. Sixth, the issue of an environmental inspection support capacity at EU level raises questions and reluctance in a number of member states, although this issue has been clarified in the Presidency redrafts as an inspection support capacity to respond inter aliato member states' requests for assistance.EU legislation in this area has been always an important issue for Ireland itself. Seventh, the implementation of landfill proposals were initially problematic for some member states. However, the revised wording on which we have been working to take account of postponements of targets under the landfill directive and provide clarity on the provisions under the waste framework directive have addressed these concerns.

More than 500 amendments to the Commission proposal were tabled for consideration in the European Parliament's environment committee. Following the committee's vote on the amendments, the overall number was reduced to just over 200. The committee also voted to give the rapporteur a mandate to enter into trilogues, which means the Presidency will be moving into a process of direct engagement with the Commission and the European Parliament in a series of trilogue meetings in the May-to-June period. We look forward to engaging with the European Parliament in an open and constructive manner to rapidly achieve agreement on an ambitious and realistic seventh EAP which will help us all to "live well, within the limits of our planet". While success will be dependent on securing agreement between Council and Parliament, we are cautiously optimistic that we can get the flagship dossier over the line by the end of our Presidency.

I am happy to go into more detail on any issue and to answer any questions members of the joint committee may have.