Features: Greening Up Poland

Polish experts question the EU's double standards for environmental clean-up but are the first to admit that no one's forcing accession on them. by Susan C. Pearce 23 May 2001 GDANSK, Poland--As Poland vies for accession into the European Union, Polish experts argue that the union's environmental requirements are often too rigid and contain standards that seem to apply only to future members.

The Soviet legacy left Poland and its neighbors a considerable environmental mess to clean up--irrespective of EU accession. Some experts, however, say that the double burden of the transition to a market economy and the requirements for EU accession pose new environmental dilemmas.

At an early March conference on environmental protection in the Baltic region held in Gdansk, Poland, the environmental status of Poland's candidacy for EU membership took center stage. Students, professors, and professionals from the Baltic region discussed how EU expansion to the East could ecologically impact candidate countries.

Without a doubt, Central and Eastern Europeans largely welcome the further development of their economies, including increased capital investment, more consumer goods, and growth in tourism. However, the by-product of such economic expansion has been a massive increase in waste, and effective recycling programs to handle such waste are yet to be fully implemented.

"Poland's main environmental problems now include the quality of drinking water and the quality of water in general. In addition, we have a number of 'hot spots' from Poland's industrial past: places that are so polluted that people should be forbidden to live there," says Gabriela Szuba, a representative of Poland's EU Integration Unit at the Environment Ministry.

But at the same time, Szuba stresses that some Western imports could further harm the environment. "Some trends in transport development are very likely to become real problems in the future. That is where we are copying the West. We don't want to develop railroads; we don't want to develop public transport; we want to buy cars."

The beginning of the 1990s saw a spurt of ecological improvements, led by Poles buying new, more energy-efficient cars. But the exponential increase in automobile purchases is moving the country in the opposite direction, as people rapidly move from buses and streetcars out onto gridlocked roads and highways. Only last year did the rate of automobile purchases begin to level off.

Compounding the Western transport trends in presenting difficulties for Polish environmental officials, the EU has put forward its Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), with which Poland must comply by 2010. The directive is designed to bring areas such as drinking water, waste water, city air quality, and waste management into line with EU standards.

The task of implementing the IPPC directive has hit Poland harder than other applicant countries because of Poland's size. "Poland is the largest of the current candidate countries for EU accession," according to Szuba. "That leads to a larger scale of investment. In terms of monetary spending, [Poland has] a much larger territory to take care of. We have 3,600 enterprises that must comply with the IPPC Directive ... Unfortunately our administration is not proportionately larger than in other countries."

An EU fund called the "Instrument for Structural Pre-Accession" help, or ISPA, allotted almost $150 million annually to Poland, beginning in the year 2000. Although certainly appreciated, that assistance does not come near to the $28 billion that Poland will eventually require. "But then again," Szuba emphasizes, "we wanted to become a member. Nobody forced us. I am afraid that we must accept it."

THE PRICE OF POLLUTION

On the other hand, some forms of pollution are on the decline, as certain heavy industries close down throughout the region.

Included in those industrial closures are 80 percent of Poland's sugar factories--layoffs that have created massive unemployment problems. That is one example where development is good for enlargement, since it conforms to EU production standards, but hurts the economic transition, which calls for expansion and a lowering of unemployment rates, says Soren Riishoj, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Management at the University of Southern Denmark.

And as far as EU requirements concern transportation issues, Riishoj says that what's good for European Union enlargement is not necessarily good for the transition. "Take the issue of building new highways: It has been forced on Poland by competition with its neighbors," he says. "German transport firms that carry goods further east were not able to use [Poland's] existing [transit] highways, as they could not handle the heavy loads." As a result, he says, Poland will spend about 20 billion Euros on building highways that it would not have built if EU membership were not on the agenda, and that large sum of money would have gone instead to other unfinished and much-needed transitional projects.

Regardless of EU demands, however, it is costly for Poland to ignore environmental issues. Riishoj charges that "specialists in Poland calculate that pollution annually inflicts economic costs--including damage to forests, soil contamination, and accelerated building corrosion--equivalent to between 10 and 20 percent of the nation's GDP."

Officials estimate that the economic costs of accelerated corrosion alone annually exceed the combined yearly state expenditures on education, medical services, and defense." Economist Joost Platje, the Gdansk conference organizer, says that "from an economic point of view, implementing the EU directives are costly now, but in the future there could be additional costs if nothing is done."

DOUBLE STANDARDS?

As conference participants considered how Poland might comply with the costly environmental directives that the EU demands, time and again the question arose: "Is this a two-way street?" Implementation of a series of environmental directives in Poland will cost upwards of $28 billion. "The EU gives us directives to install waste water treatment plants," Szuba says. "And yet the city of Brussels, the seat of the EU, does not even have such a plant."

"It seems that the European Union places much stricter demands on applicant countries than on member countries," Szuba contends. "The IPPC will be very difficult to implement," she says, "and at the moment, some member states who must comply by 2007 are working on finding the best ways of implementation."

"If we are talking about environmental protection, the EU is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," according to Steve Terrett of the Cambridge University law faculty. In his opinion, "Among EU institutions, it is the European Parliament that has always been the greenest because it has the least power." Although the EU uses economic incentives to limit pollution levels, a country is able to exceed its limits by buying these pollution rights from a neighboring country.

"I see a trend in the EU away from environmental directives toward soft laws, which are less enforceable," Terrett asserts. Individuals who claim a breach of environmental protection laws by EU states must appeal to the European Court of Justice. The court states that individuals cannot challenge some measures. And the court will rule in favor of an individual challenge only if the party can show a "direct and individual concern" from the people involved. "The court interprets this very narrowly," he says.

"For some reason, the EU and the member states think that there are stricter regulations in the EU, and that in Poland you can do whatever you want," Szuba says. "It's simply not true. For about 20 years, we have had a system in place as well. It was there even before it [environmental regulation] started in the EU. If you want to establish an industrial enterprise and start operating, you need permits from the local, regional, or central authority ... for emissions to the air, to the water, to use the water at all. If you do not comply with the permits, you pay fines. Sometimes our standards are even stricter than those in the EU. Our goals are the same as the EU; we just haven't had the means to implement and enforce the regulations."

Poland fares well on energy consumption per capita in comparison with Western countries in general. Yet numbers can be deceiving. Szuba warns, "If you look at how much energy in Denmark comes from renewable sources, and when you look at where we get our energy, approximately 90 percent comes from coal burning and only 5 percent from renewable sources." One year ago, however, the Polish government passed a law that encourages household improvements to save energy, called "thermo-modernizations." People who make such improvements in older buildings are eligible for loans from the state. Possible improvements that qualify include installing a more efficient heating system in the household, changing the windows, or insulating the building.

Poland's environmental chapter of the EU membership negotiation process was opened in July of 1999. Following the December 1999 Helsinki meetings of the European Council, each applicant country is to be judged individually, taking into account its own particular circumstances. That leaves open the possibility of negotiation and compromise. There are 16 points related to EU environmental standards for which Polish authorities have requested transitional periods, arguing that Poland has inadequate funds and administrative capacity to carry them out.

Yet Poland is interested in moving EU accession talks forward. By early April, Poland's negotiators had backed down on six of its requests for transition periods. The negotiators also agreed to shorter periods for several of its requests.

"Yes, I think Poland and the EU are moving forward and reaching clarity," Riishoj agrees. "Of course, there have to be some concrete plans. But Poland can't afford the $28 billion required," he warns. "It doesn't have the money or the labor force. It is certainly a double standard if member countries are not also required at the same level."