Countries joining the European Union this week can look forward to cleaner air but less prolific wildlife; an environment protected by more legislation but under more asphalt too.
The European Commission will impose tough pollution standards on the acceding countries, some of which suffered the worst excesses of pollution under communist rule. It will also provide cash for an expansion of farming and for building new roads. Some fear that these activities will blight the landscape and further endanger species such as brown bears, beavers and bustards in some of Europe’s last remaining wildernesses. After Spain joined the EU 18 years ago, infrastructure development reduced Iberian lynx numbers by 90 per cent to just over 100.
Estonia’s woods and meadows, Latvia’s swamp forests, the grazing pastures of central Hungary and the Biebrza marshes of eastern Poland are all major wildlife havens. But now the land faces being drained and cleared for more intensive agriculture, subsidised by the Common Agricultural Policy.
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If the EU fails to stump up the cash to manage these areas in a sustainable way, “there is little hope for wildlife conservation in accession countries”, says Przemek Chylarecki, president of the Polish arm of Birdlife International. Birds such as the corncrake, imperial eagle and great bustard are most at risk.
Then there are the roads. The EU’s environment agency warned recently that accession countries were “moving rapidly towards the EU’s unsustainable transport patterns”, as car use escalates.
To accommodate the traffic, the EU plans to spend hundreds of billions of euros on a Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T). Last month, the European Parliament voted for new environmental safeguards for TEN-T projects, but it is not clear how effective they will be. Along the river Danube alone, the topography of the river basin makes it ideal for draining wetlands to make way for infrastructure projects, says Francisco Tavares of environmental group WWF International. Up to 65 per cent of protected sites could be destroyed in acceding countries such as Slovakia, the organisation estimates.
On the plus side, EU membership should hasten the clean-up of rivers, waste dumps and industrial pollution across eastern Europe. That is especially good news for the “black triangle” of southern Poland, south-east Germany and the Czech Republic that was so toxic with fallout from air pollution that until recently few trees would grow there.
The large markets opening up to the new member countries are also providing opportunities for sustainable agriculture. In Poland, peasant farmers hope to cash in by selling organic produce across the open borders.
Acceding countries have taken unilateral steps to protect their environment. The Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Poland last year agreed a treaty with four other nations of the Carpathian mountains to protect ancient forests and traditional farms.
But being a member of the EU club will have its benefits. Polish environmentalists are looking for EU backing to halt government-sponsored logging in Bialowieza forest, where Europe’s last bison roam and the howl of wolves can still be heard. And the might of the EU could be bought to bear on Cyprus and Malta to push for an end to the end the annual shooting of millions of migrating birds heading from Africa to northern Europe.