With 48 votes in favour, 3 against and 5 abstention, the EU Parliament’s Committee on the Environment adopted a report on “A resource-efficient Europe”, one of the flagship initiatives within the Europe 2020 Strategy. The text proposes some important steps towards the definition of a Resource Efficiency Roadmap for Europe.
Overall the document calls for better action of using resources and suggests Member States to cut waste landfilling and incineration as well as to make a smarter use of environmental taxation. In particular, the Committee recommends the European Commission (EC) to make proposal for a phase out of the waste landfill by the end of 2014, tacking into account successful strategies in some EU countries. The Commission is also required to aim at strongly decreasing the incineration of recyclable waste through an improvement of the 2020 recycling targets included in the Waste Framework Directive.
Concerning the taxation, the report urges to boost environmental tax and to remove environmentally-harmful subsides by 2020. Moreover, the Commission is urged to agree by 2013 on clear, robust and measurable economic indicators that take account of climate change, biodiversity and resource efficiency. Finally, the document calls on the EC to form Joint Task Forces for the development of the European Resource Efficiency Action Plans in three key areas (namely food and drink, housing, mobility).

Read more on the latest issue of Climate Policy News, by Marinella Davide.
Photo by World Economic Forum.