Crisis divides EU on greenhouse gas cuts

updated 8:10 p.m. ET Oct. 22, 2008

VIENNA, Austria - What price clean air, sparkling streams, stately chestnut trees along busy avenues? In some ways it depends on whether you are a citizen of Old or New Europe.

A debate on whether to stick to an ambitious European Union timetable meant to slash greenhouse gas emissions at a time of economic turmoil is dividing the continent.

Most governments within the 27-nation bloc insist on going ahead with a December timetable for legislation requiring a 20 percent cut in EU emissions by 2020. They say that will send a strong signal to the U.S., China and other big industrial states to embrace a new global deal on reducing emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

"The European Union must keep its leadership role" on the environment, French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told his EU counterparts this week.

But eight former Soviet bloc countries argue the EU's envisioned pace could hurt them more than the prosperous members of "Old Europe" — the 15 west European nations that have not had to play catch-up to compensate for decades of ruinous communist economic policies.

Complaints by poorer member states
Voicing the easterners' concerns last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told an EU summit that the bloc's environmental and energy initiatives must also "be tolerable for the poorer member states."

Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia all called for special consideration on the emissions cut timetable. Italy also complained about the plan.

The European Parliament endorsed the emission plan with a 499-130 vote Wednesday, but the opposition in the east raises doubts since major EU decisions require agreement by all the member governments.

The disagreement predates the global financial turmoil that threatens to cause a prolonged economic downturn. But as Hungary's currency crumbles, stocks hover at alarming lows in Poland and real estate prices plummet in Slovenia, the depth of malaise in the east has given greater urgency to New Europe's calls for scaling back planned emission curbs.

Their push worries environmental activists. They question whether eastern Europe's post-communist commitment to the environment is shallow, with leaders happy for the opportunity to rechannel resources into bolstering pensions, boosting employment and lowering inflation.

"They're using the financial crisis as an excuse," said Tomas Wyns at Climate Action Network Europe, a Brussels, Belgium-based umbrella organization of more than 100 environmentalist groups.

Communism's environmental sins
Eastern Europe has erased most — but not all — of communism's environmental sins since the Iron Curtain came down nearly two decades ago.

The worst cases are sites like Copsa Mica, the Romanian town where communist-era rubber-dye factories and a lead smelter spewed out pollutants that colored snowflakes black, left high levels of carcinogens in the air and reduced life expectancy in the surrounding region to 41.

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