June 2012 editorial
How worse can the economic crisis get? Much worse, as the developments of this past month prove…
Spain and Cyprus officially submitting formal requests for bailout of their banks and Italy’s economic outlook not the least improving, the future of the € indeed looks uncertain.
As Europe sinks in economic disarray, the crisis serves as an excuse for a global environmental policy rollback: the epic failure of Rio+20 is the manifestation of the political hypocrisy that still regards the environment as nice-to-have in times of economic luxury.
This month’s news is primarily related to new projects for hydrocarbon exploration and capping of support to renewables, since energy is a foremost concern in all debt-ridden EU countries. You will not read any bad environmental newsbites from Greece, given the political upheaval and uncertainty that the two successive electoral periods have caused. However, as WWF Greece’s annual legislation review shows, the past year has been marked by an unprecedented environmental rollback, primarily deriving from commitments included in the relevant austerity and structural adjustment programme.
Finally, it is important to note a policy trend that seems to favour green taxation reforms at the EU level. Promising developments that we will continue to monitor.
We sincerely hope you find this e-bulletin interesting and useful to your work.
Theodota Nantsou (WWF Greece) and Isabella Pratesi (WWF Italy)