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Stop subsidies polluting the World
Courtesy of European Environmental Bureau
Many subsidies are not only economically inefficient; they also harm the environment.
Environmental NGOs have been calling for the removal of environmentally harmful
subsidies for many years. The Parliament and Council of the European Union have
also called for “reforms of subsidies with considerable negative effects on the environment”,
in their Sixth Community Environment Action Programme.1 The European
Commission went as far as setting a clear target in its sustainable development strategy,
submitted to the Gothenburg Council in 2001: “Phase out subsidies to fossil fuel
production and consumption by 2010.”
But in reality, not much has happened to achieve progress. The EU-15 missed the
opportunity to start an ambitious programme for phasing-out environmentally harmful
subsidies (EHS). Now, with 25 EU-Member States, the dimension of the problem
has grown because every Member State has a different subsidy regime with specific
regulations and beneficiaries.
Therefore the EEB calls on the EU to reform its subsidy policies, putting forward seven
key specific demands. After setting out these demands, the EEB explains the environmental
threats posed by specific subsidies and the opportunities arising from reforming
them. Thereafter, this paper provides examples from three sectors of environmentally
harmful subsidies, together with the EEB’s concrete demands for tackling them.
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