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EU Informal Environment Council

I represented the United Kingdom at the EU Informal Environment Council in Seville on 16 and 17 January 2010. The Council programme began with a session on the role of civil society post -Copenhagen. Short speeches from industry, trade union and civil society representatives were followed by ministerial discussion which highlighted the importance of Government, companies, NGOs and civil society working together. The second item covered environmental governance and technological co-operation which included presidency questions on mercury, international environmental governance and the sixth Environmental Action Programme. The session opened with two presentations from UNEP and the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies. In discussions on international negotiations on mercury, the UK intervened to call on the EU to proceed with caution in seeking to broaden the scope of the legal instrument, in order not to stall the intergovernmental negotiating Committee process. In addition, several member states showed support for the UK view on the need to reform the current international environmental governance system. In relation to the sixth EAP, the UK indicated that any new framework must be based on a comprehensive assessment of where we are now, what will be the challenges of the next 10 years and what are the most appropriate mechanisms to address these challenges. The final session in the Council programme focused on next steps following Copenhagen. The UK highlighted that it is in the EU's economic and environmental interests to show leadership, and the shared objective now should be to broaden, deepen and strengthen the commitments made in Copenhagen, and quickly to take forward the actions necessary to deliver the promises on finance that we made in the Accord. The EU should encourage more countries to associate themselves with the Accord, maintaining the momentum towards a legal framework. An exchange of views followed on the target that the EU should submit to the Accord appendix by January 31. The presidency concluded that while support was lacking for an unconditional offer of 30 per cent. the EU would need to find a formulation that underlined the EU's willingness to move to 30 per cent. in the right circumstances.