UK and EU environmental and public health organisations have joined forces to urge that the reset in UK-EU relations should deliver meaningful progress on climate, nature and environmental standards, ahead of the UK-EU Summit on 19^th May.

A letter to UK and EU leaders due to be published on Wednesday, led by the European Environmental Bureau and signed by 28 organisations, calls for closer environmental cooperation to be part of reset discussions.

Both parties have a common interest in protecting their shared environment and climate from the triple threat of climate change, nature loss and pollution, which can be resolved better together and to their mutual benefit. Joint leadership is also needed internationally on the environment and climate, in an increasingly uncertain world order.

The signatories of the letter are calling for:

1. UK alignment with higher EU product standards, including its regulatory protections from harmful chemicals and other environmentally driven product standards. This would benefit our shared environment, restore a level playing field and help trigger a race to the top. It would also help to unlock a more ambitious trade reset.
2. Increased regulatory cooperation and convergence in a variety of additional areas of environmental policy to protect our common health and environment. For example, joining forces to tackle commodity-driven deforestation and aligning circular economy rules, particularly around batteries and packaging waste, and ensuring that the extraction and use of critical raw materials is governed by the principle of sufficiency.
3. Formally linking the UK and EU Emissions Trading Schemes, that would reinforce joint climate ambition and help both achieve net-zero targets.
4. On fisheries, the EU should take inspiration from some of the UK action to protect its coastal and marine environment. This would help to secure the future livelihoods of its own fishers, which depend on a healthy, resilient and productive ocean.
5. UK reengagement with European scientific bodies, including the European Chemical Agency (via associate membership) and European Environment Agency, to foster more research and scientific cooperation on environmental pressures across the European continent.

Francesca Carlsson, European Environmental Bureau and Member of the EU Domestic Advisory Group said:

“The Summit will be a historic moment for the EU and UK to reset their relations and to cooperate on their shared ambitions and values. Environmental degradation, the climate crisis and pollution are common existential threats that require common solutions.”

On key asks in the letter:

• On UK regulatory alignment, Chloe Alexander, Senior Campaigner, CHEM Trust said: The decision of the last UK government to reject Theresa May’s proposals for a ‘common rule book’ with the EU, came not only at the expense of a closer trading relationship with the EU, but also of our environmental protections. A UK commitment to catch up and match new EU regulatory protections from harmful chemicals is urgently needed to get our regulation back onto a safer and more secure footing, and to prevent the long-term costs to our health, environment and economy from failure to regulate pollution at source. It would also help with forging closer environmental collaboration and cooperation that could help trigger a race to the top, as well as a more ambitious trade reset”.
• Ben Reynolds, Executive Director of independent green think tank IEEP UK* commented: “As the UK were integral in designing much of the EU’s environmental legislation for so many years, it is no surprise that there is much we still share in terms of our ambition for environmental policy and regulation. The UK’s desire to reduce trade barriers to increase economic growth will require alignment or close cooperation on environmental standards and regulation, which are woven through, for example the products we buy and sell. Despite the UK not moving as far and fast as the EU on tightening up and strengthening some aspects of these standards and regulations in recent years, it is not difficult for the UK to catch up”.

Note: As an independent body, The Institute of European Environmental Policy UK (IEEP UK) does not sign on to letters but supports many of the recommendations put forward in the letter.

ENDS 

Notes to editors:

1. The EEB is the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe. It currently consists of over 185 member organisations in 41 countries, including a growing number of networks, and representing some 30 million individual members and supporters.
2. For further information contact:

• EEB: Ruby Silk,  silk@eeb.org
• CHEM Trust: Ellie Hawke, hawke@chemtrust.org
• IEEP: Edward Worsdell, eworsdell@ieep.uk

3. Great Britain has fallen behind the EU in many areas of environmental regulation post-Brexit, threatening the UK-EU level playing field, the protection of our common health and environment and increased trade friction.

• The UK has still not adopted a single restriction on a harmful substance – compared to 11 in the EU, with big groups of harmful substances such as PFAS targeted for bans in the pipeline. The differences in UK/EU chemical protections are set out in this table, with further details in this briefing.
• GB-EU divergence in pesticide standards is growing, shown here in official data collated and analysed by Pesticide Action Network UK. The data provides detail on pesticide active substances that are now approved for use in GB but not in the EU, and changes in hundreds of GB Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs).