Everyone seems to have a view about the European Union: Nobel Peace prize winners, mass social experiment or collosal waste of tax payers money taking away sovereign powers. This is why there is such anticipation about the Prime Minister's speech on Friday.
The debate about whether to stay, renegotiate the terms of our membership or leave is obviously intensely political. But I do think it is worth understanding the envionmental pros and cons of our membership. This is a subject neglected by most commentators.
I remember attending the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool in 2005 and hearing a passionate speech by John Gummer (now Lord Deben) making the case for European co-operation to deal with trans-boundary environmental issues such as climate change. The case for multi-national action can equally apply to saving species that don't respect administrative boundaries or trade restrictions to limit the movement of pests and diseases.
The EU does arguably have the best nature conservation legislation in the world and the largest network of protected areas anywhere in the world. The EU Birds Directive (and its sister directive on Habitats and Species) was established in 1979 with the principle that no EU Member should be able to gain economic advantage by trashing its environment. As I have said previously, the laws include what I consider to be entirely sensible tests of sustainable development. They have never been universally loved because they do have a knack of stopping daft development (remember Dibden Bay or the Lewis wind farm?). This despite the fact that UK is bottom of the league table of Member States in terms of percetage of land protected.
What some people often forget is that these laws have served wildlife well. There is peer-reviewed scientific evidence proving that those priority birds - listed on Annex 1 of the Directive - did better in the European Union between 1990 and 2000 than in those non-member European countries. This is because the Birds Directive works.
Yet, the EU is also well known for its dysfunctional common policies on agriculture and fishing. Both policies have over the years caused environmental harm but reform (however glacial) has begun to reward environmentally sensitive practices. This is particularly true for the so-called Pillar II of the CAP which provides the largest single pot of money for conservation through grants payable to those landowners who want to farm in an environmentally-friendly way. As I have blogged on many occasions, these schemes have provided a lifeline for species such as cirl bunting, stone-curlew and corncrake. The funding arguably underpin our rural economy by helping to create an attractive countryside which people want to work in and visit.
And then there is the much-loved single fund dedicated to nature conservation - LIFE. It’s one of the few sources of grant dedicated to protecting and enhancing biodiversity and supported a vast number of projects here in the UK (such as supporting bittern or restoration of peatlands in the Flow Country) and across Europe.
But it would be foolish to see the EU entirely through rose-tinted spectacles. There can be significantly environmentally damaging consequences from EU funding. Roads, funded by EU funds, can threaten internationally important wildlife sites and even encourage high-carbon infrastructure at a time when we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. And this is why we, with our Birdlife Partners, have been calling for radical overhaul of the EU Budget.
Were we to leave the EU, the nature conservation community would have its work cut out to ensure all the best bits from our membership of EU were not lost, but of course there would be an opportunity to get rid of the perverse spending!
So, I also look forward to hearing what the Prime Minister has to say tomorrow. Whatever he decides, I hope that he recognises and values the environmental benefits of our membership.
What are you hoping the Prime Minister says about Europe on Friday?
It would be great to hear your views.
Good I look forward to RSPB, WWF et al setting out clearly and cogently how EU law has benefitted the UK and driven good practice in all sorts of areas; its position on climate change and influence is of particular importance. It is politics of the most beggarly detail, that so often describes the Conservatives, to say other.
However I have long considered the CAP profoundly economically and socially unjust in that it drives not only environmental degradation but farm size agglomeration and land ownership concentration; in line with mechanisation. This will slow with high energy costs.
I fail to undertstand RSPB for failing to take a clear stand on the 2100 beneficiaries over 100 grand that absord two thirds of this budget; having been part of the work that drove this forward over a generation I see that as a beggarly equivocation to UK large farm interests and a failure to drive a wedge there at an EU level where farm size and High Value Areas tend to run in parallel; as they do in UK. Perplexing. I can only presume that hoary old chestnut; Deeply Perfidious Albion in some concealed guise.
Peter Plover