Plans to strengthen environmental inspections with the aim of tackling illegal trade in wildlife and toxic waste across Europe have been dropped.
The proposed Environmental Inspections Directive planned to order all European countries to establish monitoring and inspection regimes at border entry points throughout Europe. EU experts would have visited the sites to offer advice and assist in the resolution of disputes.
An EU source said: ''We wanted to increase the number, quality and consistency of inspections for everything going into and coming out of the EU.''
Many European countries cut their environmental budgets and inspection departments when the economic crisis hit. As a result some countries are now reliant on only two officials enforcing inspection rules.
Some argue that the situation concerning environmental crime has become too large to deal with. Across Europe there are now 2.5 millions sites with contaminated soil, often this results from the illegal dumping of toxic waste. Remediation costs for this alone is estimated to run into the trillions.
However waste leaving Europe causes just as many issues. 7.4 million tonnes of waste illegally leave the EU every year and often end up being dumped in developing countries.
Senior members of the European Commission cited a fear of UK opposition on the grounds of cost and excessive red tape as one motive for scrapping the plans. One official said there were concerns that: ''the UK would say this is a national competence and there should be no more transfer of powers [to Brussels], but the decision also had to do with costs – or alleged costs.''
Although it appears that any opposition from the UK would not have been alone. An EU official said: ''For many east European Member States the Directive would have meant an administrative burden. They were afraid that once you started monitoring the environment, you’d get more complaints, and more prohibitions.''
An official added that it is unlikely the proposal would be revisited as it does not coincide with the ''political priorities of the commission''.
