BZB no. 30 - With or without Union. Polish environmental NGOs'attitude towards European integration
The European Union is quite a unique political and economical entity. The time when the European Economic Community was created it had such tasks as establishment of an institutional framework for Franco-German reconciliation after the second world war and building an economic framework of co-operation that could prevent a repetition of the economic crises of the 1930s - crises which resulted in the rise of nazism (Tyrie 1998). When Monnet and Schuman launched the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1950, their strategy was to use very practical means to secure peace and democracy in Europe and, as was stated in the preamble to the Treaty, "to create real solidarity". The very specific technique of finding intergovernmental compromises has produced a "peculiar animal" (Kaldor and Vejvoda 1998), the successor of the ECSC - the EU is neither a typical intergovernmental nor international institution nor a new European state, even though it "possesses significant elements of supranationality" (Kaldor and Vejvoda 1998).
The Member countries delegated many of the prerogatives of the nation states to this supranational body. They were driven by the belief that this is the way to improve the quality of live not only for the citizens of their country but for the whole continent. The united Europe could become the stabilising factor in the region, cultivating the tradition and culture of the nations also helping them to overcome the problems of nationalism and particular interests of the individual states.
There is, however, a concern if these aims are filled or at least could be achieved in the future. Why few countries did call themselves Europe, taking into possession the term which belongs to the whole continent? Is European Union a real heir of these values which are the best in European tradition? And what is in reality the driving force behind the European Union policy?
The European Union disposes of power to influence the policy of its members and might enhance their sustainable development. The problem is if the EU is capable of doing that within existing structure. The executive body - European Commission consists of army of appointed, not elected, bureaucrats, which lacks of democratic legitimacy, whereas the prerogatives of the European parliament are narrow. What is maybe even more important is fact that the policy on the scale of the EU requires quite new approach in policy making. The politicians should overcome their habit of thinking from the perspective of coming election and elaborate a policy with the time horizon of few decades. Only such long term policy can really include the requirements of the sustainable development. It is worth to mention that in many cases the European Union has been in the past capable of setting up such visionary and long range goals.
Certain long term relevant trends to the way the Union functions appeared, however, just in the last few years. These include population trends, new technologies, restructuring of markets and enterprises, and the globalisation of the economy and the end of a bi-polar world (Dauderst and Lippert 1995). As Commission President Jacques Santer stated: "The Union's environment is changing fast, both internally and externally. It must set about adapting, developing and reforming itself. Enlargement represents a historic turning point for Europe, an opportunity which it must seize for the sake of its security, its economy, its culture and its status in the world." (EC 1997c).
It becomes more and more clear that along with the changes in global political, economic and social situation and facing the challenge of enlargement the European Union must most probably redefine its role and objectives. At the same time, the European Commission must rethink its work and improve its management, co-ordination and monitoring capacities (Dauderst and Lippert 1995). Significant reforms of the European Union's policy, reflecting the enlargement, are required. This includes, inter alia, adapting the mechanisms for the governance of the Union as well as solving the problem of high costs of accession. Political changes are necessary in areas like Common Agricultural Policy and Common Foreign and Security Policy. But how these reforms can be achieved is still an on-going debate (Dauderst and Lippert 1995).
Certainly enlargement will cause several cleavages within the EU states, like for example the North-South cleavage confronting the Southern countries with the potential new recipients of the aid from the East in the fight over the limited resources from the structural and cohesion funds or the "structural cleavage" characterises by the debate between the "Intergovernmentalists vs. the Integrationists", i.e. between the supporters of the internal market and free trade versus the Unionists who see the EU as a form of a multi-national state (Dauderst and Lippert 1995). EU enlargement in this context is called a "Trojan Horse" of the Great Britain which support the idea of wider Europe instead of the deeper co-operation - Europe that is limited in nature to a democratic area and a free-trade zone. In widening its membership, the EU will have to narrow its power and limit its ambitions (Lesourne 1998). On the other hand the EU has always been seen by Intergovernalists as "simply a vehicle for greater economic prosperity" (Tyrie 1998), which is not necessarily the good response to the challenge of globalisation.
The opinion that "Maastricht is nothing more than an answer to globalisation" was expressed by the German Minister for finances Theo Waigel. Schepelmann (1997), member of the Friends of the Earth-Europe, claims that Europe needs an answer to globalisation but this response should reflect "humanistic tradition of Europe and the global principle of sustainability". Having narrowed the dispute on the future of Europe to merely economic and monetary questions has led to an alienation of the Europeans from the European idea. Schepelmann thinks that if national referenda on EU membership were held right now, they would be probably lost. He also gives a negative example of growing tendency for removing the environmental issues from European agenda. He cites the member of the German Parliament Hausmann, who argue that export of German social and environmental standards into the world economy would lead to mass unemployment and social riots. According to Schepelmann it is one of the evidences of general backstep in politician attitude towards the environmental protection.
To assess the impact of enlargement on the EU as well as candidate countries is a complex task. There is a great degree of uncertainty and a large number of important factors that will to some extend affect the process of enlargement. The process will very much depend on the economic situation within the present EU members and on the economic performance of applying countries. The other important factors are the future form of the EU's policy, the date and schedule of accessions and determination demonstrated by the EU and associated countries during the pre-accession period (EC 1997 b). The future shape of the Common Agricultural Policy, might have a profound effect on the preferred model of farming (medium size farms versus big, semi-industrial farms) and accessibility of the structural and cohesion funds on the scale of investment in environmental protection in the accessing countries. The result of the debate between the "Intergovernalists" and "Integrationist" might have, on the other hand, a substantial influence on the social and cultural situation in the united Europe.
The question as to "whether" and "how" the Eastern enlargement will take place can define the "final structure" of the EU in much deeper sense than the previous enlargements. According to Dauderst and Lippert (1995) it is a new historical dimension. However, the arguments about Eastern enlargement can also lead to postpone beginning of the reforms - as Dauderst and Lippert assumed - even permanently. They state that the latter option "would be in line with the history of integration up to now" . On the other hand there is a consensus that the reforms are needed. For the Eastern countries, taking into account the distant deadline of accession, that in fact means that they are unable to predict the kind of Union they will eventually join.
The authors of the "Agenda 2000" are convinced that enlargement will strengthen Europe as an economic entity and will contribute to sustainable growth (EC 1997a). From the context of the document it can be assumed that enhancing sustainable growth means rather sustaining further economic growth.
The vision of Europe's future which emerges from the survey presented in this work is far from optimism. Development of big co-operation which monopolise the market is going hand to hand with growing overconsumption and rapid development of burdensome for the environment road transport. Aid programs support mainly economic growth, carelessly endanger the wealth of future generations. Moreover the financial aid directed to Poland is used in inefficient way. The European fortress is closing its gates against the emigrants from the poorer countries, which cause deepening the gap between the rich and the poor and according to some sociologist also burying chances of Europe to cope with the future challenges such as ageing of the population (Masser, Sviden and Wegener 1992). Development of the army of euro-bureaucrats lacking a democratic legitimacy makes attempts to influence their decisions more difficult and diminishes the role of public participation in the political life. According to the surveyed Polish NGOs even positive trends like more rigorous directives of European Commission concerning the environmental protection will be weakened by the lack of enforcement in the Member States.
There is much less optimism regarding the European integration. It is very unlikely that the EU will play a role of "peacemaker" on the continent and will stabilise political situation also outside own borders. Accession to the EU will neither cause a shift in food production towards the eco-agriculture in Poland nor diminish the differences in the standard of living between the Poland and "old" Member States. European integration will not bring an enrichment of biodiversity in Europe and the EU will not become a model of sustainable development for the rest of the world. Also the "cultural biodiversity" of Member States might be threaten by the unification following the integration.
As a matter of fact only economic performance of EU was appreciated by the respondents. The European Union may become a third economic power effectively competing with the economies of North American and Japan.
It is reasonable to ask why in this case 66% of the interviewed members of environmental organisations supports the idea of joining the European Union. As a main argument in favour of accession there were mentioned economic reasons. Does it mean that economic prosperity is more important than the state of environment even for the ecological organisations? This conclusion would be highly injustice.
First of all the some of the NGO's leaders point our that most of the unwanted and listed above changes will take place independently from the Polish accession to the EU. By integration with the Union we have an opportunity to influence this process. The alternative is the "wild, not controlled globalisation", while the EU accession will be a "civilised one" (Kozakiewicz 1998). Integration is also the matter of national safety. Regardless our present positive relation both with Germany and Russia, the medium size state as Poland, located between two powers, has to anchor itself in the bigger and stronger structure. From this perspective all other issues are of minor importance (Czajkowski 1998).
But the contradiction between the evaluation of the EU and willingness to join it anyway, might be also a result of lack of consistent information policy of Polish government concerning the EU, which would help to fully assess the advantages and disadvantages of integration. The lack of information leads to situation where evaluation of accession the European Union has to be done on very uncertain base.
It is worth to bear in mind that the environmental activists usually are more politically aware than the general public and more active in obtaining information. In other words, the confusion caused by the coming EU accession and its results among the society is probably much higher. This situation is not, however, specific for Poland. One of the national survey poll in the Netherlands showed that 60% of the Dutch public is indifferent towards the European Union and 85% sees no clear advantage of a unified Europe (Dütting 1997).
Aside of the informational policy there is also a problem that, as it was mentioned before, the future shape of the EU is not yet defined and therefore difficult to evaluate. It also, to some extend, depends upon the accessing countries as well. They must set up their priorities clearly defining what will be their input to the EU and why they want to become a part of it. This goal cannot be, however, reached by the government alone. In fact without public access to information and to participation in the decision making process regarding the European integration, even the issue of accession becomes questionable. Along with the on-going, more developed and concrete negotiations on the deadline of accession, one can observe diminishing support of Polish society to the idea itself (PBS 1998).
Public participation is particularly vital in the environmental sector because it can be a great support to effective environmental policy. An informed and aware public can contribute to the decision making process, supplementing and enhancing or redirecting the governmental environmental efforts (Hallo 1997). Only making the accession process transparent will assure the dialogue between the government and public based on meritorical and concrete issues.
The gross of the surveyed Polish NGOs estimate their knowledge on European Union as medium or low. Thirty-two of them could not point out who is responsible for environmental policy of European Commission. On the other hand almost all declare interest in the possible influence of the enlargement on the Polish environment. Evidently the quality and quantity of information they obtain are not satisfactory. The main source of information for most of them is television. One of the features of that medium is its superficiality. Information provided by TV are usually not very analytical, focused on the "news" rather then the mechanisms or actors "out of the limelight". Therefore the TV audience can easily overlook the main problems and issues, watching the bare, skin-deep "political epiphenomenons".
The research revealed that NGOs were particularly interested in the problems concerning the environmental issues (which is quite obvious) but also the internal structure of the EU. The demand of information on the second issue might create some problem due to the small (although growing) number of specialist in this field in Poland. This is a challenge especially for the journalists, which in short time have to obtain a knowledge on the EU, its structure, way of acting, legislation and etc. They efforts must be, thus, supported by the government and its proper educational and informational efforts.
The EU and Polish government informational policies were, however, evaluated by NGOs quite low. The EU and Polish publications respectively occupied last positions. To some extend it could be justified by the fact that accession has become a present day interest just few months ago and the government has not enough time to elaborate an effective informational policy. The positive signal is the beginning of the series of meeting with the representatives of different sectors, including environmental NGOs, with the Minister for the European integration (chief of the Committee for European Integration).
In his opening speech during the first meeting with the non-governmental organisations Minister put the pressure on the importance of public participation in the process of enlargement (Czarnecki 1998). There were representatives of approximately 25 different non-governmental organisations on that meeting. Also vast majority of the surveyed NGOs declared they willingness to take part in the debates on Polish accession. The next meetings will allow to evaluate the value of such co-operation between the first and third sector as well as the commitment of the Minister for implementation the principles of the public participation in the work of the Committee.
It is worth to mention that NGOs actively look for information. One of the ways is their co-operation with the counterpartners from the EU. Half of the participants has already established such contacts. This co-operation on the grassroots level may play an important role in the process of building bridges between the "new" and "old" members of the EU.
The need of public accession is also raised by the Western NGO. Coalition for a Different Europe demands: "Europe with transparent decision-making, in which democracy is not limited to voting rights only, but based on the active political involvement of the people and their organisations. A Europe in which the inhabitants of all member states decide themselves what collaboration across borders they want, how, for what purposes and have the means to control their representatives" (DCDE 1997b). The EU is in possession of legal instrument (directive 90/313/EEC), which initiated the process of making environmental information more accessible. The next step was the Convention on Public Participation signed during the conference in Aarhus which is a very promising tool for extending the right of citizens to participate in the decision making process (UN/ECE 1998). Both tools can be used in making the debate on enlargement more open to the society.
According to Dauderst and Lippert (1995) there are three main motives which drive the CEE states to an EU membership: EU membership symbolises entry into the Western wealth and security system, is the best way to modernisation and it is a political guarantee against an end or a revision of the democratic and economic reforms.
These are mainly economic and political advantages. However, as 26% of the surveyed in these work organisations mentioned, that the accession will have an important socio-cultural and environmental dimension. Also Agenda 2000 highlights importance of these factors. According to it: "the full exploitation of the potential of the Single Market will enhance Europe as an economic entity, contributing to sustainable growth. Its competitiveness depends on dynamic enterprises and the skills and knowledge of its people. In order to turn growth into jobs, employment systems should be modernised. Beyond these economic goals, Europeans also want a cohesive and inclusive society based on solidarity, as well as a high quality of life, sound environment, freedom, security and justice. The internal policies of the Union should be more resolutely oriented towards meeting these objectives" (EC 1997c).
The reforms within the European Union must focus on the environmental issues, first to cope with the challenges of the next millennium, second to better address the environmental problems of the accessing countries. The Eastern enlargement creates an unique opportunity to change the meaning of sustainable development from the used cliché into the guidepost for the future, to shift the EU policy from focusing on economic growth to focusing on sustainable development. It is very uncertain if both sides - the EU as well as accessing countries- will use this opportunity. Many environmental activists are afraid that the real result of enlargement will be just the opposite.
For the decision-makers in the EU one of the possible solutions to the environmental problems in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) is to continue adoption of the principles of market economy. Economic transition has already resulted in the shutdown or upgrading of many of the most energy inefficient and polluting industrial installations. An adaptation to world market prices for energy will probably further accelerate this positive trend. The gap between acceding and present members in the levels of environmental protection will probably steeply narrow, for environmental and for economic reasons, although this will require massive investments in the acceding countries, mainly in the public utility sectors for water, energy and waste. Up to now the CEECs' actions in the environmental field lead mainly to "end-of-the-pipe" solutions focused on point sources whereas the EU has entered into a phase where the main objective is to deal with the effects of diffuse, non-point and hard to control sources in sectors such as agriculture, transport, energy, tourism and specific industrial branches (Barnes 1994). Moving from "pollution reduction" to "pollution management" also requires expenditures on research and policy co-operation. A vast effort will also be needed for enforcement of the EU environmental law (Piotrowska 1994).
Significant improvements in the performance of industry of the acceding countries and potential reduction in pollution will go hand in hand with unwanted (from an environmental point of view) changes in other sectors. Expansion of the Single Market through enlargement will, for sure, have a profound impact on the transport sector. Substantial financial resources, partly from the EU, will be allocated to develop the transport networks, and to adapt the acceding countries and their transport fleets to Community social, safety and other technical requirements, in order to comply with the Common Transport Policy (EC 1997a).
The environmental movements argue that improvement in the quality of cars' performance in the acceding countries will be negligible in comparison with the overall rise in pollution emissions caused by the rapid growth in road traffic. The growth of the demand for transport in the EU even without enlargement is estimated at over 40% both for goods and persons between 1992 and 2010. Because of the economic importance of freight, 12 000 kilometres of new motorways are under construction in the EU. They are supposed to fill the "missing link" in the European road system. An efficient transport network is for the European Commission a vital component of the internal market (EC 1997a). According to the EC the "bottlenecks and congestion lead to lost opportunities, wasted resources and market which underachieves in terms of productivity and job creation". The EU recognised the Trans-European Networks as a priority sector in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. The TENs are in the phase of extension to the associated countries (EC 1997a). The effect of the predicted growth of transport will be disastrous, according to the environmentalists. Traffic contributes considerably to important environmental problems like the greenhouse effect, depletion of the ozone layer, acid rain and smog in the cities. Furthermore construction of the roads threatens valuable natural sites. The EU concept of sustainable mobility assumes that traffic should be able to perform its social and economic functions whereas the negative impact on the environment should be restricted by technological solutions. This concept will probably be promoted in the aspiring countries. Instead ECOs demand a gradual shift in investments in transport infrastructure. By year 2000 at least 50% of transport infrastructure investments should go to the railways, at 2002 the minimum should be 65% and at 2004 - 80%. All transport infrastructure projects and plans should be submitted to a strategic environmental impact assessment, including not only the direct impact but also the broader and long term impacts (Rooy 1993).
In this context very significant is the Polish program of highways' development, supported by the EU. One of the priorities of the PHARE in 1994 was an investment and pre-investment technical assistance to motorways A4 and 11 other project on road infrastructure, in 1996 co-financing the A4 motorway along with EBRD. Most of the 2.600 kilometre toll highways network costing 8-15 billion dollars network should be, however, financed, constructed and operated by the private sector. The program was criticised from the start, by the environmentalist as well as by some economists. This year it comes out that from financial point of view, because of still
low intensive traffic flow, the investment will not be effective. Therefore the motorway consortia strongly pressure the government to involve public money in the investment. Most probably this money would come from the 6-8 million ECU of the EU aid that Poland should be getting for infrastructure and environmental programmes from 2002 onwards (Bowdler 1998). The EU involvement in the highway program already has bring about many controversies. As the Coalition for Protection Sw Anna Mountain claims the western bureaucrats support the motorway through the ¦w. Anna regardless the natural and historical heritage of this place (Korbel 1998). The further support of the EU to the highway program may only inflame the problem.
Common market is another challenge for the environment in the accessing countries. Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development warns: "many areas in Central and Eastern Europe are still unaffected by consuming trends. But as emerging markets with a lot of potential consumers and work force they are perfect targets for the expansion of the transnational corporations. Those investments however are often ecologically and ethically questionable and even if not, they bring "development" that causes overflowing consumption, alienation of people and irreversible changes to the environment" (ASEED 1998).
One of the other potential consequences of a Common Market is that the increase in scale of the market and production systems favours large scale and risky technologies such as nuclear or biotechnologies respectively. Consequently it will have a negative impact on the small-scale technologies that may be sustainable Furthermore as long as environmental standards in the acceding countries are not harmonised, there could be a relocation of industry to the countries with lowest standards. This could, in consequence, encourage them to keep these standards low (Zagema, Kodde, and Oomen 1993, Hontelez and Lek 1993).
Almost 97% of the respondents to the questionnaire expressed their concern that the harmonisation of the environmental standards might be postponed due to its high costs. In other words, in their opinion, the negotiators will pay much more attention to the harmonisation in the other sectors while the adjustments in the environmental will not be put at the front of the agenda. According to the results of the survey such solution is highly unacceptable for the most of the respondents. Also the European Environmental Bureau is in opposition to the conception of long harmonisation periods for the implementation of the EU environmental standards in Poland (Walczak 1998).
The European Commission is, however, already making clear that requiring full implementation of the environmental acquis before accession will postpone the accession date considerably. It estimates that for ten CEE applicant countries the total costs for its implementation will amount to 120 to 130 billion ECU. It is a very heavy burden for these countries, equal to 3-5% of their GDPs in the next 20 years (OECD countries, much richer, spend only 1-1,5% GDP on environmental protection) (Coffey 1997).
In Poland the cost of adjustment to the EU standards in the water management could reach even 40 billion dollars (140-200 USD per capita annually), while in improving the air quality approximately 11 billion dollars, including modernisation and restructuralisation of the industry. In Spain and Portugal where the transition period in the water management lasted 20 years, the expenditures reached the level of 133 USD per capita annually. Up to 80% of the investments were, however, covered by the EU. It is highly unlikely that Poland could count on similar financial assistance. On the other hand usage of economic instrument which is higher in Poland than in the EU may significantly lower these costs. Moreover according to some Polish economists The EU overestimated the real costs of accession sometimes even by 400% (Walczak 1998).
The European Commission has suggested that the candidate countries should be required to comply only with the priority areas of environmental policy by the time they join the Union. Timetables for achieving full compliance would be set down in their treaties of accession. Denmark opposes this concept. It says that the prospective members must meet the EU standards when they join to avoid the risk of companies moving their operations eastwards to omit the EU environmental control. Denmark believes that it would take the CEECs about a decade to fully comply (EC DG XI 1997b). Also the independent Polish Institute for Sustainable Development underlines that, however, the fully compliance with the EU standards may need a transition period, but it should not slow down the environmental reforms. Moreover there are many sectors where the harmonisation may be done much faster than in the others (InE 1997).
For the environmental movement this is an important issue to look at. Hontelez (1997) warns the western ECOs that the situation when the newcomers become a conservative force inside the EU with regard to the further development of environmental policies should be avoided. If they join while not having implemented yet with many existing EU Directives, they will probably rather focus on preventing additional burdens or even reducing the existing burden. Furthermore, in Hontelez' opinion weakening the pressure on these countries to implement EU environment legislation does not help environmentalists in these countries in their fight for making environment and sustainable development a national priority. Therefore the accession procedure should become a major incentive for green policies (Hontelez 1997).
The other side of the coin is that postponement of enlargement may "create loss of momentum and dangerous tensions in Europe and prolong a division that many people in CEE want to see dissolved" (Hontelez 1997). As a solution Hontelez suggests to make a "Sustainable Europe" the primary objective of the enlargement process and give "priority for environmental investments, preferably creating local jobs and experiences; side management of transport rather than promoting an ever expanding transport infrastructure; decisive policy for energy efficiency and renewables, promotion of agriculture responding to the vision the Commission has for the future (integrated into rural development, environmentally and socially friendly) rather than promoting the unsustainable west-European practise of today" (Hontelez 1997). Nowadays the opposite is happening. In its relations with the applicant countries, free trade comes first, not environment. For example, the Commission puts pressure on the Polish government to lift a ban on second hand cars import not having a catalytic converter, and protects unlimited access for western disposable products, often replacing more sustainable native products (Hontelez 1998).
Polish NGOs support the idea of preservation of higher standards in the environmental protection that the EU ones. Sommer (1996), however, points out that from one side Poland has an opportunity to adopt its law to more progressive pattern but from another it has to abandon solutions which are not "false per se, but because the majority has chosen other solutions" and that is the price for accession. Also Nowicki -former Polish Minister for Environmental Protection claim that some of the standards must be abandon because they are "theoretical, unrealistic and unreachable" (Walczak 1998) The overall structure of the general legal concepts of Polish law is yet similar to that of most Member States, including the concept of acts approved by the parliament, concept of delegated legislation, concept of the role of the court and the concept of administrative decisions although Polish environmental law was created when the harmonisation with the EU legislation has not been yet one of the priorities.
Although Polish NGOs declared in the questionnaire their lack of trust in the commitment of the EU to the principles of the sustainable development, they put even less trust in the commitment of the Polish government. Fifty-five per cent of the respondents thinks that the environmental protection will be an important issue for the EU, while only eleven per cent that for the Polish government. It is very symptomatic, because it shows that however the EU is generally criticised by NGOs they are willing rather to believe in its good intentions rather then in the intentions or declarations of own authorities. Surprisingly most of them believes that Polish government will use the opportunity connected with the EU accession for the promotion of a sustainable development. Taking into account the answers for the previous question and the fact that better enforcement of the environmental law was the most often listed advantages of the integration with the EU, one can deduct that they rather mean that the government will be forced to act in this way by the requirements of harmonisation. The bureaucratic immobility may be an important obstacle. As the example may serve the fact that even the European legislation regarding the environmental protection was translated just recently (Mistewicz 1998). Also the National Strategy of Integration raised many concerns articulated by the Institute for Sustainable Development. The Institute regards the lack of public consultation of this document as an important omission. It emphasis that the economic threats, mentioned in the Strategy, were limited to increase of competition, unemployment and cost of production. The environmental costs, such as endangered biodiversity, increasing demand for the energy supply accompanied by the higher emission of the greenhouse gases caused by the economic acceleration were not taken into account. The Strategy suffers from lack of references to such problems as prohibition of development nuclear - plants in Poland or international waste trade. The Institute points out also that the Strategy does not use the opportunity of the accession for undertaking proper measures leading to sustainable development, like "green-tax reform" or pro-environmental restructuralisation of the economy. The Institute supports the idea of national referendum (which is not taken into consideration in the Strategy) on the EU accession. The referendum would enhance the debate on the advantages and disadvantages of integration and reforms which could be done in connection with it (InE 1997). The referendum would create as well a convenient opportunity to present the NGOs' point of view on enlargment (Kamieniecki 1998).
The EU policy focused on sustainable development must take into consideration the reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy in order to develop environment-friendly and quality-oriented agriculture. According to the "Business Central Europe" the EU does not know what to think about Central European farms. Some members worry about millions of inefficient farms requiring massive aid. Others are scared that a flood of cheap agro-food import will send their own protected farms into bankruptcy. Whereas the main concern regarding the agricultural sector in Poland is caused by millions of small farms, there are several thousand Czech and Hungarian farms over 1000 hectares compared to an EU average of 25 hectares. The region large farms could become dominant in the EU and might provoke a backslash from EU farmers determined to protect their own markets (Meth-Cohn 1998).
The surveyed NGOs were very concerned about the EU policy in this field. The importance of accurate information on the agricultural policy was scored even higher than the importance of information on public participation and transport policy of the EU. It can be concluded that the future of the agriculture sector is one of the biggest concern to the surveyed group. The respondents were often challenging the present EU agricultural policy focused on big, very intensive and highly subsidised farming. They were afraid that such a policy will result in severe social problems like higher unemployment and destructive changes in the social structure in the rural areas. The pressure of competition with the big, farms, externalising environmental costs of production (high usage of machines and natural resources) may lead in Poland to diminishing biodiversity, due to development of monocultures and genetic manipulation, and increasing the load of the pollution from the non-point sources due to high use of pesticides and fertiliser.
The cost of the CAP is increasing and the EU has to reconsider its attitude towards the agriculture. The enlargement creates a chance to find a solution which take into account the non-productive values of agriculture as well as the real cost of the food production and which may result in the reorientation of the production from quantity (semi-industrial farming) towards quality (eco-agriculture) even at the costs of higher food prizes. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) only partly meets these expectations. It states that agri-environmental measures should be reinforced and encouraged through increased budget funding, in particular supported should be services which call for an extra effort by farmers, such as organic farming, maintenance of semi-natural habitats, alpine cattle keeping, etc. "Finally, with respect to better integrating the environment into the market organisations, the Commission will make a proposal enabling Member States to make direct payments conditional on compliance with environmental provisions" (EC 1997a).
The lack of concrete proposals for better environmental integration into the agricultural policies of acceding countries is regarded by the World Wide Fund as an important omission (Yellachich and Murray 1997). In its opinion the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are extremely rich in terms of biodiversity (species and habitats) and yet they have not been encouraged to use this natural wealth to their advantage. WWF is disappointed to see that 2,5 billion ECU has been forecast for specific rural development accompanying measures by 2006 for the new Member States without a single reference to the environment and nature protection. They fear that these funds will be used in a way that degrades the natural environment. In its Agriculture Strategy Paper, the European Commission argued that countries of Central and Eastern Europe are in greater need of infrastructure and structural support than price support. WWF agrees in principle with this statement, but cautions that improvements to rural infrastructure should not damage nature, biological diversity and the environment at large. Countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be encouraged to develop support mechanisms that pursue environmental and sustainable rural development goals. These countries should receive pre-accession funding to develop agri-environment pilot programmes and to help capacity building in the field of ecologically sound agriculture (Yellachich and Murray 1997; EC 1997a).
The Polish ECOs dealing with agricultural issues point out that it is a great challenge to develop agriculture in such a way that the social and ecological richness of the countryside remains preserved. Most farmers see the intensification leading to drastically decreasing in the number of farms and increasing in the use of fertilisers and pesticides, as a huge threat and would prefer to keep on working in the traditional way. But this not solve the problem in the long run. Environmentally friendly modernisation could advert the disadvantages of Western agriculture and still create sufficient employment (Wietrzna-Łopata 1997). According to Hontelez Poland should start a campaign in favour of eco-agriculture, which will be supported by the consumer's associations and environmental NGOs from the Western Europe. The demand for "healthy food" in the West is still bigger than the supply and that could be a chance for Polish agricultural sector. This, however, will require a high standard of food production, lack of which is generally still a weakness of Polish farmers (Walczak 1998)
The Coalition Clean Baltic - a network of NGOs from all countries around Baltic demands proper measures to stimulate less intensive and organic farming, introduction of environmental conditionality on all agriculture subsides, undertaking a step towards fully integration of environmental policies into EU agricultural policy, including inter alia pricing policy. The support should be given to the labelling of products which have been
produced with environmentally friendly methods. Moreover CCB is convinced that the opening of the western markets to ecologically sound agricultural products from the Eastern countries will enhance a shift from today's unsustainable practices in production towards the sustainable ones (CCB 1996).
The accessing countries will need in the near future a great deal of financial involvement from the EU. The sum of financial aid declared for the enhancing environmental protections seems however, at least in the opinion of the surveyed NGOs, insufficient in comparison with the needs. Investment will be needed to address problems that have a direct health impact on the population, and to improve situations linked to the past legacy of environmental mis-management (contaminated soil, hazardous waste, etc.). Although the majority of financing would need to come from the private sector, substantial amounts of funding by the Union will be necessary, especially during an initial period characterised by underdevelopment of capital markets. A very important effort, including substantial EU technical and financial assistance, would appear indispensable for a rapid progress of acceding countries towards adjusting to the EU environmental acquis, especially in the areas of water and energy related issues (Moltke 1993). The EU officials underline the problem connected with allocation of large amounts of funding and attention over an extended period of time to problems of new members. It could have a detrimental effect on Community environmental policies; Member States governments could find it more difficult to deal with the burden of promoting sustainable development (e.g., in global issues such as the green house gases and ozone depleting substances). This allocation might also restrict development of environmental regulations and policy among present members of European Community and divert Community environmental policy away from global issues (EC 1997b).
On the other hand it must be stated that due to higher marginal environmental benefits of investments in the acceding countries, focusing investment in environmental infrastructure in the latter should bring higher social and environmental benefits and therefore higher protection for all European citizens. Indeed, there is evidence to prove that investments in certain CEECs to address transboundary problems would result in cost savings for the EU, compared to trying to solve these problems within the present Member States. From this perspective environmental protection is an important component of economic growth. Investments required for improving environmental protection in acceding countries could develop important markets for EU industries in the environmental and other sectors; this in turn could be a strong stimulus for this industry which will be able to cope with the requirements of the highly competitive world market (Johnson and Guy 1992, Adler and Salau 1993).
The EU should make the most of the opportunity to drastically reduce the environment pollution by investing in the acceding countries where the marginal costs of the improvement are still lower than in the West. The agreement signed by the EU during Kyoto conference obliged it for the significant reduction in the emission of the greenhouse gases (UN 1997). If the EU countries will not manage to meet the requirements they will have to buy the tradable permits for emission. The costs of the permits, sold on free, international market will be much cheaper in to the new States members due to higher marginal benefits of the emission reduction in these countries. In fact investing in the accessing countries is an investment in the future of the EU.
However, the experience concerning the EU financial aid so far is not always positive. The criticism of PHARE - the main tool of the EU financial aid up to now- is based on the slow movement of funds, lengthy appropriation and implementation processes as well as high fees for Western consultants. Despite its environmental scope, PHARE not always serve the needs of the environment. The first PHARE grant in 1989 was a donation of 60 million USD of pesticides banned in the US and Europe (Szwed 1997). The interim report on the PHARE performance agreed that the programme has realised "less than its full potential: its effectiveness and impact have been diluted by lack of leverage to ensure good programme performance, by deficiencies in project cycle management and by preoccupation with financial and procedural control". Nevertheless PHARE contribution was of great importance in areas where other donors shown little interests such as democracy and civil society (EC 1997d). Because the future of the EU support for the third sector in not clear, the ECOs warns that lack of continuity of such programs may significantly weaken the civil society in Poland and furthermore make the public participation in the process of integration much more difficult (Ku¶mierczak 1998)
Dauderst and Lippert (1995) advice that the EU financial assistance should be planned rapid and careful and all inputs should be procured as cheaply as possible and - preferably - in the CEE countries. They reasonably notice that comprehensive consulting reports without applicable results are too expensive at any price and that aid should reach out from the capitals into the "provinces" as the capitals are already foci points for contacts and financial flows. Moreover, the EU should link its regional and sectoral distribution of aid to transparent criteria which have been agreed with the partners. They also pay the attention to other then loans financial instrument. According to them: "For some countries writing off their debts would be more useful than new loans". It should be especially applicable to projects which immediately serve European interests: i.e. stabilising democracy, reactor safety, environmental protection, energy conservation, the fight against nuclear proliferation. Good example of such solution is debt-for environment swap, resulting in the creation of Eco-fund in Poland - very efficient tool of financing investments in the environmental protection (EkoFundusz 1995).
The NGOs raise also a question of the relation with the CEE countries which will not become its members in the near future. ASEED claims that the enlargement may further divide the Eastern and Central European region and it potentially creates new frontiers between "poor and rich, secure and insecure countries within CEE". Both the EU and the accessing countries must find ways to avoid a destabilisation of the rejected CEE countries and to offer them appropriate alternative forms of relations with the EU (ASEED 1998).
The same tone appears also in the statement of the surveyed Polish NGOs. The newly formed co-operation with the fast growing social movements, mainly from neighbouring Ukraine, might diminish or in the worst scenario cease to exist due to very strict EU regulation of the flow of people from the non- EU countries. The building of the new wall between the EU and non - EU European countries may have very negative social, economic and environmental effect. The Coalition for a Different Europe declares: "We do not wish new "iron curtains" to be drawn against the east and the south. We should base our security on neutrality, disarmament, global solidarity and co-operation rather than military strength. An important step in this direction is the creation of nuclear free zone in Europe, from the Black Sea to the North Sea and from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. Europe should be open to those who seek refuge and safety, that means no to Schengen" (DCDE 1997b).