Sustainable Development Strategies
The concept of sustainable development - development that meets the needs of society today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs - has emerged as the overarching objective for environment and development communities around the world. Sustainable development is also a key objective in both the European Union and European Community Treaties, to be achieved at least in part by integrating environmental considerations into the development and implementation of policies.
All EU Member States have developed national strategies for sustainable development, in line with international commitments made within the 1992 Rio Summit and follow-up processes. EU Heads of State and Government also agreed to elements of a EU SD strategy at their meeting in Gothenburg in 2001 and subsequently added to this in Barcelona in 2002. The Gothenburg text was based on a Commission proposal from May 2001, which also identified a number of priority areas for EU to take action. A key theme was also to secure a new approach to policy making, involving in particular the introduction of new sustainability impact assessments. The proposal also committed to annual Spring Summit reviews of progress in developing and implementing the SD strategy and to a major review at the beginning of each new Commission, with the first review due in 2004/5.
IEEP has been closely engaged in the discussions over the EU SD strategy, working with national ministries, non-governmental organisations and on our own initiative to support its development. This includes work to elaborate the external dimension, as well as to reinforce the EU's institutional architecture in favour of SD. The development, delivery and assessment of national sustainable development strategies is also a major area of work.
For interviews, comment and articles, please contact our policy specialist Marc Pallemaerts