OXFORD: It is generally agreed that gross abuse of the environment was one of communism's many crimes. In some places -- Slovakia, for example, but also a Belarus reeling from Chernobyl's fallout -- resentment about the poisoned landscape, and the formation of environmental pressure groups, contributed greatly to the general disaffection with the old communist regimes.
Rising energy prices and growth in the once restricted service sectors of the economy -- both hitting hard at the Stalinist-era heavy industries upon which communists once lavished resources -- contributed to the region's improved environment of recent years. Many questions remain: What environmental standards should the transition economies apply? Should they impose the same environmental requirements on domestic and foreign investors? Questions also exist about the speed at which higher emissions and other standards applied to newly constructed plants are to be applied to older ones. But the issue I want to address is this: what role should foreigners play in these decisions?
Foreign influence takes several forms whose legitimacy varies. Neighbors have a legitimate interest in air and water pollution that spills over national boundaries. The framework for dealing with these on a bilateral or multilateral (regional) basis is not well developed but precedents exist for a variety of arrangements that take international spillovers into account in setting national policies.
The same is also true, though the history is shorter, of international agreements that limit each country’s emission of greenhouse gases, say carbon dioxide, that contribute to global warming. In the case of these pollutants, carried on the wind, a vast majority of the consequences of any country’s emissions will be visited in due course on citizens of other countries. Global agreement, if feasible (and if enforceable), is appropriate.
What is less clear is whether foreigners should have anything to say about national pollution standards affecting only local workers and local residents in the immediate neighborhood of a plant. Provided that the local people concerned have access to reliable information on the consequences of local emissions, and on the implications of these emissions in terms of jobs, health, or various environmental standards, and provided that local residents have channels for making their views felt in a democratic process, it is the local choice, not that of any foreign body, that should prevail.
Such qualifications are not trivial. A wealth of relevant data and material held by many national bodies, as well as international ones such as the European Commission, the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Programme, or, for occupational risks, the International Labor Office, can be drawn upon to inform local populations. And, to be sure, there are doubts about the openness of the channels of democratic decision making in some of the successor states of the disintegrated Soviet Union. Such doubts, however, should be directly addressed; any foreign influence would be better directed at democratization, where it is deficient, rather than at environmental or safety standards.
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Here the greatest threat probably comes from the European Union. Several postcommunist states are knocking at the EU's door. In desiring EU membership these countries open themselves to prolonged diplomatic wrangling in which their inherited environmental sins are likely to provide EU negotiators with a multi-purpose hammer.
The threat from the EU takes two forms, one of established procedure and one of unstated and/or inappropriate objectives. The procedural danger relates to the possibility that applicants will be presented with environmental standards to which they will have to conform if they want to join the club. After a long or short transitional period, during which the economies of would-be members adjust to EU membership, many strict environmental demands are likely to be imposed by the EU, regardless of the EU's own notion of "subsidiarity" -- which says that (where possible) decisions should be taken at the lowest possible political level rather than at the supra-national level -- and of the fact that a uniform standard, if it must exist, should take account of the interests of all members, rich or poor, new and old, alike.
The ostensible rationale for injecting uniform environmental standards into EU membership talks is that such rules are necessary if "fair competition" among new and old EU members is to take place "on a level playing field". But that metaphor misleads: economic competition is not about identifying a winner in a fair game. It is, instead, a mechanism to assure the efficient, cost minimizing allocation of resources so that an economy secures the goods and services essential to meeting its people needs.
Costs, in the case of environmental regulation, must include the dissatisfaction caused by environmental damage as a result of economic activity. If national tastes, preferences or sensitivities on the environment differ in this respect, possibly because expectations or incomes differ in various countries, this is a part of the efficiency that competitive markets promote: environmental damage should take place where those affected are, though informed, most tolerant of it (perhaps because their tradeoff between wealth and clean environment is somewhat different than that of people already enjoying very high standards of living). I am not saying that people in the post-communist world should or should not tolerate a certain level of pollution. What I am saying is that this is a choice they alone should make.
Not only is the metaphor of a fair game inappropriate, but as membership talks move ahead the argument it represents is likely to become a cloak for covert protectionism. Existing EU members may fear that whole industries might shift eastward because of lower environmental standards relating to purely local pollutants, or to lower worker safety standards, or lower wages. Those who see low wages as a threat to their jobs will demand the imposition of higher environmental and safety standards as a remedy, no matter how inconsistent these may be with the EU's core doctrines of democracy and subsidiarity.
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US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs have triggered a wave of retaliatory measures, setting off a trade war with key partners and raising fears of a global downturn. But while Trump’s protectionism and erratic policy shifts could have far-reaching implications, the greatest victim is likely to be the United States itself.
warns that the new administration’s protectionism resembles the strategy many developing countries once tried.
It took a pandemic and the threat of war to get Germany to dispense with the two taboos – against debt and monetary financing of budgets – that have strangled its governments for decades. Now, it must join the rest of Europe in offering a positive vision of self-sufficiency and an “anti-fascist economic policy.”
welcomes the apparent departure from two policy taboos that have strangled the country's investment.
OXFORD: It is generally agreed that gross abuse of the environment was one of communism's many crimes. In some places -- Slovakia, for example, but also a Belarus reeling from Chernobyl's fallout -- resentment about the poisoned landscape, and the formation of environmental pressure groups, contributed greatly to the general disaffection with the old communist regimes.
Rising energy prices and growth in the once restricted service sectors of the economy -- both hitting hard at the Stalinist-era heavy industries upon which communists once lavished resources -- contributed to the region's improved environment of recent years. Many questions remain: What environmental standards should the transition economies apply? Should they impose the same environmental requirements on domestic and foreign investors? Questions also exist about the speed at which higher emissions and other standards applied to newly constructed plants are to be applied to older ones. But the issue I want to address is this: what role should foreigners play in these decisions?
Foreign influence takes several forms whose legitimacy varies. Neighbors have a legitimate interest in air and water pollution that spills over national boundaries. The framework for dealing with these on a bilateral or multilateral (regional) basis is not well developed but precedents exist for a variety of arrangements that take international spillovers into account in setting national policies.
The same is also true, though the history is shorter, of international agreements that limit each country’s emission of greenhouse gases, say carbon dioxide, that contribute to global warming. In the case of these pollutants, carried on the wind, a vast majority of the consequences of any country’s emissions will be visited in due course on citizens of other countries. Global agreement, if feasible (and if enforceable), is appropriate.
What is less clear is whether foreigners should have anything to say about national pollution standards affecting only local workers and local residents in the immediate neighborhood of a plant. Provided that the local people concerned have access to reliable information on the consequences of local emissions, and on the implications of these emissions in terms of jobs, health, or various environmental standards, and provided that local residents have channels for making their views felt in a democratic process, it is the local choice, not that of any foreign body, that should prevail.
Such qualifications are not trivial. A wealth of relevant data and material held by many national bodies, as well as international ones such as the European Commission, the World Health Organization, the UN Environmental Programme, or, for occupational risks, the International Labor Office, can be drawn upon to inform local populations. And, to be sure, there are doubts about the openness of the channels of democratic decision making in some of the successor states of the disintegrated Soviet Union. Such doubts, however, should be directly addressed; any foreign influence would be better directed at democratization, where it is deficient, rather than at environmental or safety standards.
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At a time of escalating global turmoil, there is an urgent need for incisive, informed analysis of the issues and questions driving the news – just what PS has always provided.
Subscribe to Digital or Digital Plus now to secure your discount.
Subscribe Now
Here the greatest threat probably comes from the European Union. Several postcommunist states are knocking at the EU's door. In desiring EU membership these countries open themselves to prolonged diplomatic wrangling in which their inherited environmental sins are likely to provide EU negotiators with a multi-purpose hammer.
The threat from the EU takes two forms, one of established procedure and one of unstated and/or inappropriate objectives. The procedural danger relates to the possibility that applicants will be presented with environmental standards to which they will have to conform if they want to join the club. After a long or short transitional period, during which the economies of would-be members adjust to EU membership, many strict environmental demands are likely to be imposed by the EU, regardless of the EU's own notion of "subsidiarity" -- which says that (where possible) decisions should be taken at the lowest possible political level rather than at the supra-national level -- and of the fact that a uniform standard, if it must exist, should take account of the interests of all members, rich or poor, new and old, alike.
The ostensible rationale for injecting uniform environmental standards into EU membership talks is that such rules are necessary if "fair competition" among new and old EU members is to take place "on a level playing field". But that metaphor misleads: economic competition is not about identifying a winner in a fair game. It is, instead, a mechanism to assure the efficient, cost minimizing allocation of resources so that an economy secures the goods and services essential to meeting its people needs.
Costs, in the case of environmental regulation, must include the dissatisfaction caused by environmental damage as a result of economic activity. If national tastes, preferences or sensitivities on the environment differ in this respect, possibly because expectations or incomes differ in various countries, this is a part of the efficiency that competitive markets promote: environmental damage should take place where those affected are, though informed, most tolerant of it (perhaps because their tradeoff between wealth and clean environment is somewhat different than that of people already enjoying very high standards of living). I am not saying that people in the post-communist world should or should not tolerate a certain level of pollution. What I am saying is that this is a choice they alone should make.
Not only is the metaphor of a fair game inappropriate, but as membership talks move ahead the argument it represents is likely to become a cloak for covert protectionism. Existing EU members may fear that whole industries might shift eastward because of lower environmental standards relating to purely local pollutants, or to lower worker safety standards, or lower wages. Those who see low wages as a threat to their jobs will demand the imposition of higher environmental and safety standards as a remedy, no matter how inconsistent these may be with the EU's core doctrines of democracy and subsidiarity.