The countries of the Visegrad Four (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) along with Romania and Bulgaria will join forces at the EU summit in October to push for projected EU environmental goals to be softened, representatives of the respective environment ministries agreed at a meeting in Bratislava on Tuesday.
According to Slovak Environment Minister Peter Žiga, while the countries support the new environmental policies, their economic realities shouldn't be ignored. The EU's environmental package proposes, for example, a 40-percent reduction in greenhouse gases, a 27-percent increase in the share of renewable resources used in energy production and a 25-percent rise in energy efficiency by 2030. The six countries think that only the goal involving greenhouse gas emissions should become binding. “Other goals should be used more as benchmarks than be made obligatory,” said Žiga.
