The European Council on 15-16 June 2006 adopted the new EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS). For the first time, the guiding principles behind sustainable development are integrated in a single framework, which defines the responses to be adopted to tackle the principal sustainable development challenges facing the EU:
- climate change and green energy
- sustainable transport
- sustainable consumption and production
- threats to public health
- social exclusion, demographics and migration
- conservation and management of natural resources
- the war on poverty in the world and the challenges in terms of sustainable development
The guiding policy principles include fundamental rights, intra- and inter-generational fairness, the participation of the social partners, the integration of considerations of an economic, social and environmental order, and the application of the precautionary principle and the ‘polluter pays' principle.
The SDS also proposes that Member States should transfer taxation away from labour towards resources and energy consumption.
From September 2007, the Commission will be reporting every two years on the implementation of the SDS in the EU and the Member States. The European Council in December will examinine the progress achieved every two years, and issue guidelines on sustainable development which could contribute to proposals relating to the Lisbon strategy (examined at each spring European Councils).
The Commission's evaluation will focus on the sustainable development indicators devised by Eurostat.
{New sustainable development strategy (June 2006)
ETUC press release (June 2006):The new EU Sustainable Development Strategy:a step forward in the right direction
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The ETUC's Executive Committee in June 2005 adopted a declaration in response to the proposals from the European Commission for the SDS. During the consultations on the revision of the SDS, the ETUC called for a realignment of the social, economic and environmental dimensions of the strategy. It also pressed for more account to be taken of the links between environmental, social and economic problems, for example working conditions and public health, or employment and climate change, and for relations with the Lisbon strategy to be made clearer.
The ETUC also demanded that workers and unions be fully recognised as players in sustainable development strategies, and as negotiating partners on topics relating to sustainable development at all levels, namely company, sectoral, national and European levels.
One of the main problems surrounding the SDS is its relationship with the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy, which was realigned to focus on growth and employment in 2005. The new SDS starts by underlining the need for synergies between the strategy and the Lisbon objectives but remains unclear in the way it is formulated. It defines sustainable development as the "overall objective" for the whole range of European policies and regards the Lisbon Strategy as the "motor of a more dynamic economy". In the ETUC's view, environmental protection, social inclusion and economic growth are mutually reinforcing aims.
Declaration by the ETUC Executive Committee, June 2005:Review of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy
As part of the alliance with the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and the Platform of European Social NGOs, the ETUC has adopted some joint declarations in favour of the integrated and balanced application of the social, economic and environmental objectives of the EU.
