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Sixty-six environmental organisations from across the European Community
this week condemned the Community’s second largest spending programme for
causing repeated damage to the environment. The structural funds, which
pour 12 billion Ecus (£8.5 billion) a year largely into construction
projects in Europe’s poorer areas, need to be reformed to prevent more damage,
say the environmentalists.

The protest comes in the same week that Jacques Delors, president of
the European Commission, announced plans to increase the funds during the
next five years.

The environmental groups, including the World Wide Fund for Nature,
Amigos de la Terra in Spain and Elliniki Etairia in Greece, quote a number
of examples where they say projects supported by the funds have damaged
the environment.

For example, the structural funds are to pay a quarter of the costs
of a tunnel through the Pyrenees, part of a highway from Bordeaux to Madrid.
The tunnel had been routed through the Pyrenees national park, home of the
last few European brown bears and several other endangered species. The
road has been removed from the park after public protest, but construction
will still bisect the bears’ territory.

There has been no assessment of the impact of the road as a whole,
the organisations complain. They say ‘the whole model of economic development
that is being pursued’ is questionable, since the road will allow industry
to concentrate in the cities that it links, bypassing the depressed Pyrenees
region. The groups say that reopening a local defunct railway line would
have been a more sound alternative.

Highways built with Community money are also causing problems in Ireland.
The Dublin eastern bypass will destroy an important wetland and nature
reserve, but is likely to be permitted under forthcoming legislation. ‘The
only reason this proposal is being considered is that the Community will
contribute the bulk of the costs,’ charge the environmentalists.

Portugal, the current holder of the presidency of the Council of Ministers,
now receives 20 per cent of its total annual investment from the structural
funds. A new motorway from Lisbon to Oporto is expected to disrupt local
water flow and pollute drinking water. Despite ‘clear evidence’ of these
effects, the environmentalists says it has received support from the structural
funds.

Portuguese environmental authorities are refusing to sit on the monitoring
committee required by the structural funds because they say the road authorities
simply ignore them.

The environmentalists point to more successful projects, such, as the
plan to develop harbour facilities In Belfast Lough, which is also the winter
home of 20 000 birds. Careful zoning will protect everybody’s interests
largely because local environmental groups were included at the early
planning stages, say the groups.

Regulations governing the funds will be reformed next year. The environmentalists
say they will submit proposals for the reforms. They want a new budget for
training local managers in environmental protection; requirements for all
proposals to be open for public comment; and a pledge to cancel projects
that actually breach Community environmental laws.

The environmentalists want Community economics and finance ministers
to promise a new priority for the environment when they launch the reform
of the funds in the next few months. Laurence Rose, of the Eurogroup for
the Conservation of Birds and Habitats, says this will allow the Community
to clean up its image before the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in June.
‘What is the point of grand speeches at international conferences,’ says
Rose, ‘if the environment is dying at home?

Commission officials call the attacks ‘ironic’, since the structural
funds provide the only Community money for environmental improvement, with
several billion Ecus per year spent on projects from sewage treatment to
nature reserves. Officials say when the fund is involved, local authorities
must take account of Community environmental rules – something not always
done in rich states that do not need the funds.