Svandís Svavarsdóttir umhverfisráðherra flutti eftirfarandi ávarp á málþingi um ESB og umhverfismál sem haldið var þann 25. október 2011 af utanríkisráðuneyti og umhverfisráðuneyti í samvinnu við framkvæmdastjórn ESB.  Á málþinginu var fjallað um hvaða áhrif þátttaka Íslands í Evrópska efnahagssvæðinu (EES) hefur haft á umhverfislöggjöf landsins og hvaða breytingar hugsanleg aðild að Evrópusambandinu myndi hafa í för með sér á því sviði. 

Good morning ladies and gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure to address you all here at the start of this seminar on Iceland, the Environment and the European Union. In the summer of 2009, the Icelandic parliament agreed to seek EU membership. Since then, extensive work on preparation for accession negotiations has been undertaken throughout the government – including the Ministry for the Environment. Thorough screening of Icelandic legislation in the field of the environment has been conducted, national legislation has been analysed and compared to EU legislation in the field, in order to identify the gaps between the two and to assess what needs to be done in the case of Iceland joining the EU.

Screening meetings on Chapter 27, the Environment Chapter, took place in November last year and January this year. In these meetings officials of the Icelandic administration – experts from the Ministry and its agencies - explained the outcome of their analysis and EU experts explained the EU legislation to their Icelandic colleagues.

Currently, our experts in the negotiation group dealing with the chapter on the environment are reviewing the outcome of the screening process. On that basis, a proposal will be prepared for the government on the negotiation position for the next steps in the process. This is the venue where Iceland will put forward the issues that need to be discussed and negotiated. Formal negotiations on Chapter 27 are expected to be opened some time in the new year.

As will be well explained later this morning, the main differences between the present Icelandic environmental legislation and EU environmental legislation lies in the field of nature conservation. Nature conservation is not a part of the EEA agreement, and therefore EU legislation on nature conservation has not been implemented in Iceland.

Icelandic legislation on nature conservation has not developed sufficiently in recent years – and in fact the argument can be made that it has progressed too slowly for decades. This is a fact, completely independent of the ongoing EU negotiations. In order to assess the need for legislative changes in the field, I appointed a committee to review the Nature Conservation Act just under two years ago. The committee carried out an in depth analysis of the act and other relevant legislation, which resulted in a white paper published at the beginning of September this year. The committee took notice of nature conservation legislation in neighbouring countries as well as the European legislation, taking special notice of the international development of nature conservation over the past years. The white paper identifies several areas where it is necessary to strengthen the present Icelandic legislation, and proposes a number of improvements in that regard.

The white paper presents a very thorough and detailed analysis, which is impossible to go into further in the short time I have here. I strongly urge anyone interested in nature conservation to get aquainted with the substance of the white paper and participate in the public consultation process started on the document. It is available on the ministry´s website and open for comments until 15 December.

As for this gathering today I find it always of great importance to have a good and informative dialogue on nature conservation and environmental issues in general and in particular to promote public participation in the debate. This is always the case but even more so now in Iceland while we are preparing for the EU accession negotiations. It is important that we understand what EU accession entails for the environment and that we look out for strengthening the environmental interests in the negotiation process.

As a member of the European Economic Area, we more or less fully comply with EU legislation on environmental issues. Our laws on nature conservation, although outside of the EEA agreement, are likely to develop much in a similar direction to EU legislation over the next few years. Broadly speaking, these two factors are unlikely to be the deciding factors in the negotiations, since there is little debate to be had. However, this is also the part of Iceland's negotiation where the hunting of whales, seals and various other animals would be on the table – so we do have some room for heated debate.

I welcome this seminar today and am sure it will be host to very informative dialogue. I wish you all a good discussion.