EU ACCUSED OF
WASTE EXPORTS "DOUBLE STANDARD"
Member States Planning Weaker Controls on Exports to
Developing Countries, Claims Greenpeace
by ENDS Daily
May 18, 1998 -- The EU is planning to apply lower
environmental standards to some wastes being exported to
developing countries than it does on EU territory,
Greenpeace has alleged. According to the group, a
forthcoming amendment to the EU's 1993 regulation on
transfrontier shipment of wastes will set a "disastrous
precedent" and violate both EU law and the UN Basel
convention on international trade in hazardous waste.
Greenpeace has called on the European Commission not to
accept the "double standard". The amendment will define in
EU law wastes to be subject to a ban on exports from
developed to developing countries agreed by parties to the
Basel convention in 1994. The EU has already incorporated
the ban into EU law but delayed definition of wastes to be
covered until official Basel convention lists were
completed, which they were in February (ENDS Daily 27
February). Now, says Greenpeace, EU member states want to
apply just the new Basel lists to waste exports to
developing countries, rather than using them to complement
the existing EU hazardous waste lists. This will mean some
wastes, such as aluminium skimmings, being considered
hazardous when traded within the EU but non-hazardous for
exports to developing countries, it says. The move "sends
the message to developing countries that they do not need to
be protected from EU hazardous waste as much as the EU
protects itself."
Contacts: European
Commission (http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm), tel:
+32 2 295 1111;
Greenpeace EU unit (http://www.greenpeace.org), tel: +32 2
280 1400.
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