STOCKHOLM, Sweden, April 30, 1999 (ENS) - The Swedish parliament has
approved 15 environmental goals that it hopes will contribute to the
achievement of sustainable development within one generation - as promised
by prime minister Göran Persson in September 1997.
The fifteen goals call for the achievement and maintenance of clean air,
unpolluted groundwater, living lakes and waterways, vibrant water meadows,
a sea in balance and a living coastline, balanced use of fertilisers,
absence of acidification, living forests, a rich landscape, healthy
mountain ecosystems, a good built environment, a poison-free environment,
absence of radiation, a protective ozone layer, and limited climate effects.
They represent a boiling down of more than 150 previous policy objectives,
and were conceived in parallel with the new national environmental code,
which passed into law in January.
This legislation rolled together Sweden's 15 major environmental laws and
added in the use of the precautionary principle and the polluter pays
principle for contaminated land, some recent European Union (EU)
legislation such as environmental quality rules, and new powers for local
authorities to impose on-the-spot fines for non-compliance with 25
different aspects of environmental regulation.
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The Swedish Chemical Industries Association broadly welcomed adoption of
the policy, which it described as "negotiable and workable," while
stressing that much depended on the prioritisation agreed by the committee
and how it was put into practice. The most obvious targets for early action
are thought to include brominated flame retardants and chlorinated
paraffins.
Greenpeace Sweden also threw its weight behind the chemicals policy, which
it described as the most progressive of the 15 goals set by the government.
"The aged and ineffective risk evaluation system which has dominated
chemicals policy in the twentieth century is being abandoned," a Greenpeace
spokesperson said.
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