Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard claimed this week that major progress had been made

Date: 17/07/1997

to ensure the EU's three newest member states will not have to lower their environmental standards when special derogations from EU norms expire in 1998. In some areas, the Commission will attempt to persuade the rest of the Union to raise their standards to the levels in Austria, Sweden and Finland. A spokesman stressed there were “various ways of trying to achieve that goal”.