SPEECH/03/448
Margot Wallström
Member of the European Commission, responsible for Environment
The new EU Health & Environment Strategy
Conference on Environment & Health Strategy
Warsaw, 6 October 2003
Janek is three years old and lives in Warsaw. He is a typical three-year old boy. He is lively, he touches everything he sees and he loves it when his mother takes him for a walk in his buggy. Janek's mother too is very much like any other mother of a three-year old. She keeps an eye on him all the time, protecting him from all kinds of dangers. "Don't touch the iron it's hot! Don't run into the road you'll get run over! Don't lean out of the window you might fall!”
Does any of that sound familiar?
But what Janek's mother does not know is that her child is also exposed to dangers she cannot even see.
Even before birth, in his mother's womb, Janek was exposed to hazardous substances, which had accumulated in her body and which she continued to absorb from air, water and food while she was still pregnant.
After birth, dangerous substances reached Janek in his mother's milk. Then, when he began crawling, Janek breathed in dust and soil that were full of toxins.
Even when he is out with his mother in the streets of Warsaw, Janek is more exposed to health risks than she is. When he is sitting in his buggy or walking alongside her, car emissions blow directly into his face.
Janek's life has just started, and he is already under attack from environmental hazards. And there are more in store for him as he gets older.
The story about Janek shows why it is so importance that you are here today. To create a healthier environment for our children really matters to me. And I know it does for you as well. It is a difficult task, which requires the steady commitment and close cooperation of everyone involved. I would therefore, first of all, like to welcome you to this conference. It is here in Poland that we will start our work together with the aim of better protecting our children from environmental hazards.
We know that environmental risk factors have an adverse impact on human health, and in particular on that of our children. Preliminary estimates by the WHO suggest that almost one third of the global burden of disease can be attributed to environmental factors. Over 40 % of this burden falls on children under five years of age, even though they make up only about 10% of the world's population.
Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental hazards. Not only are they more exposed to pollutants, like Janek, because they are small and closer to the ground. Children also breathe more air, drink more water and eat more food than adults, relative to their body volume. In addition, their nervous, respiratory and reproductive systems are very sensitive since they are not fully developed.
Health statistics are showing a dramatic increase in childhood diseases associated with environmental factors. In Europe, one child in seven suffers from asthma. This number has tripled compared with what it was 30 years ago. In some European countries, every fourth child suffers from an allergy. Cases of leukaemia, the most common form of childhood cancer, have also become more frequent.
However, the exact relationship and interaction between the environment and health is unknown. We have a fairly good understanding of the cause-effect relationship for many single pollutants in air and water, but we do not know which health effects are caused by complex, real-life exposure to a combination of risk factors.
The conclusion we have drawn is that we must expand the scope of environmental action, ranging from the health implications of low-level exposure over a period of time to the cocktail effects of a numbers of different pollutants.
That is why the European Commission in June this year launched a new European strategy for Environment and Health, which focuses specially on children.
Since we are entering uncharted territory that involves two usually separated policy areas - environment and health - we have to work across and between traditional policy areas. This is reflected by the fact that the “Environment and Health Strategy” was presented jointly by the Commissioners for Health and Research David Byrne and Philippe Busquin - and by me, in my capacity as Environment Commissioner.
The ultimate objectives of this strategy are to reduce the burden of disease caused by environmental factors in the EU - including the new member countries as of next year. We need to identify and to prevent new health threats caused by environmental factors and to strengthen the EU's capacity for policy-making in this area.
We refer to the strategy as the “SCALE Initiative”. We need to scale up our actions and efforts to protect our children and ourselves from environmental risk factors. But SCALE is also an acronym, and each letter stands for one of its elements:
The letter S, for Science, indicates that the strategy will be science-based.
C stands for children, since we want to focus on this particularly vulnerable section of society. In Europe, there are 157 million children, most of them living in urban areas, where - to take just one example - air pollution is particularly bad.
A stands for awareness. We need to raise the awareness of citizens they have the right to know about environmental risk factors that may affect their own health and the health of their children. This is particularly important as we know that environmental dangers are a great worry to European citizens. In a recent Eurobarometer survey, some 89% of the respondents expressed concern about the potential impact of the environment on their health.
L stands for Legislation, since full use will be made of the advantages that European legislation offers to complement national and international initiatives.
Finally, E stands for evaluation since all actions taken within this strategy will be evaluated continuously, with the two-fold purpose of verifying their effectiveness in reducing environmental-related health problems and enabling us to address new ones as they emerge.
With SCALE we are taking a long-term view. It is ambitious, and it will take time before it starts producing results - but these results will be essential to help us achieve our aim of protecting the health of this and future generations.
The European Environment and Health Strategy will be implemented in cycles, initially focusing on four priority diseases:
- childhood respiratory diseases, asthma, allergies
- neuro-developmental disorders
- childhood cancer
- endocrine disrupting effects
These illnesses are linked to environmental factors such as indoor and outdoor air quality, dioxins, heavy metals, endocrine disrupters, electromagnetic fields and the urban environment.
Straightaway we shall be launching pilot actions to examine the effects of these environmental factors. We intend to establish indicators and bio-monitoring systems that will help us better understand where, how and why they affect humans and particularly children. For example, we want to monitor the health of 100 000 children in different cities across Europe over an extended period of time and relate their health conditions to the environmental situation in these cities.
From the outset, the strategy will be developed for the enlarged EU, since there are many regional differences related to environmental health problems.
In Poland, and the other nine acceding countries, accession to the EU will already help bring significant health improvements. EU environmental legislation has always been health-driven, and full implementation of the environmental “acquis” will result in cleaner air, purer water and better waste management.
For example, full implementation of the EU Directives on air quality will lead to at least 15 000 fewer premature deaths from exposure to air pollution and to between 43 000 and 180 000 fewer cases of chronic bronchitis.
So how will the strategy actually be developed? The Commission - together with stakeholders - will draft a detailed action plan for the period 2004-2010. This action plan will be presented next spring, and it will be our major input for the Fourth Pan-European Environment and Health Ministerial Conference in Budapest in June 2004.
To come up with a good action plan, we depend on the full participation of all the stakeholders in the field of environment and health: the medical and research communities, professional associations, business, NGOs, local and regional authorities, EU Member States, the Accession Countries, European Institutions and international organisations.
The conference here in Poland today is an excellent opportunity to closely involve stakeholders from the Baltic region. It will allow the Commission to discuss the complex issue of environment and health with local and regional networks and authorities in those countries, and to take their specific problems into account. It is the first regional conference of three that will take place in the coming ten days - the other two conferences will be held in Brussels and Rome.
This conference here in Warsaw will also “kick off” the activities of the technical working group on integrated monitoring, which will cover the themes of dioxin & PCBs, heavy metals and endocrine disrupters. The conference in Rome will focus on the priority diseases and health objectives, and the one in Brussels on biomonitoring of children, indicators and research needs.
The aim of the various working groups is to report on the situation with regard to the key issues selected. They will establish the state of knowledge in the specific area, detect gaps in data and other specific information needs. Based on that they will identify measures to improve public health and decision-making. The working groups will propose a set of actions or recommendations and also identify new elements for the next cycle.
The contributions of the various Working Groups will be gathered and evaluated by the Consultative Group that has been established to guide the environment and health policy development process. It includes environment and health experts from Member States and Acceding Countries and all relevant stakeholders.
In addition, in March 2004 the Commission will be organising a major stakeholder conference, which will also be open to the general public, with the aim of finalising the detailed “Action Plan”.
As you can see, we have much work ahead of us.
I would like to thank Poland for hosting this initial conference on integrated environment and health monitoring. Poland is very well advanced in tackling environmental health and its environment and health policy is fully in line with the European vision.
I would also like to thank all of you here today: first of all, I must thank the experts who have volunteered to work closely with the Commission for the next six months. But I would also like to thank the local and regional environment and health experts who have come to Warsaw today to exchange ideas and information on environment and health. Let me stress how pleased I am that you are interested in joining us on this journey. Your input will be most valuable in shedding light on the complex relationship between environment and health.
To conclude, I would like to go back to Janek and his mother. My wish is that our work together will help children like Janek to live healthier lives. This is what the UN Convention on Children's Rights requires us to do - to aim for the “best achievable health” of our Children. A healthy environment for Janek and all other children should not be a privilege, but a basic human right.
My own motto is: What is harmful to our children is bad for everybody. But what is good for our children is good for us all and for the future of our society as a whole.
Thank you for your attention.