The European Parliament´s Environment, Food and Safety Committee approved today its report on the Commission's "Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe" drafted by Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (D66, Netherlands), which defines improvements to resource efficiency in the context of declining availability of natural resources around the world.

The report highlights a commitment for Europe to develop targets to achieving an ambition of decreasing its resource consumption. It also underlines the importance of drawing up long-term visions for a green economy as a necessity to reach sustained future growth aligning to a resource efficient economy.

MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, European Parliament´s rapporteur and Vice-chairman of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee underlined: "We simply cannot afford to take twenty years for the transformation towards a sustainable economy. Competitive global markets and the spectacular rise of emerging economies do not give us this much time. It is Parliament’s task to set priorities and to push Member States and industry towards a more ambitious agenda."

"The Commission and Parliament are setting a new agenda for future growth. Business as usual is not an option. For example we need to get rid of environmentally harmful subsidies which also hamper innovation. Especially now, in times of austerity, government subsidies and stimulation packages need to focus on strengthening our economies in a structural way. So instead of subsidising diesel lease cars we should put that money on sustainable energy like wind or solar power", he said.

"We all have a couple of old mobile phones in the cupboard and own more clothes than we can wear. Instead of paying record prices for resources we should learn how to substitute them by recycling and recovering our valuable waste", he added.

The report includes a number of concrete measures:
• Promote waste as a resource (rapidly increase our use of recycled raw materials),
• Creation of indicators for resource use and development of resource efficiency targets for the EU,
• Involve industry, civil society and other key stakeholders in setting up new strategies for higher resource efficiency,
• Enforce implementation of EU waste legislation (harmonising and set-up more ambitious recycling targets, prescribing minimum treatment methods, better controlling of illegal shipment and dumping of waste),
• Reduce, and gradually phase out, waste that ends in landfills,
• Promote green public procurement (stimulating the technologies with significant environmental impacts),
• Improve the recyclability and reusability of products by revising the Eco-design Directive,
• Mobilisation of innovation programs, in both the public and private investments,
• Shifting the tax burden to environmental taxes and phase out environmentally harmful subsidies

For more information please contact:
Neil Corlett: +32-2-284 20 77 or +32-478-78 22 84
e-mail: neil.corlett@europarl.europa.eu
Norbert Halko: +32-2-284 2602 or +32-484-75.17.22
also consult: www.alde.eu