Pollution knows no frontiers

Summary:

Oil spills... ozone depletion... dangerous chemicals... noxious air. The natural environment which forms the life-support system of our planet has never been at greater risk.

This in itself would be enough to demand a European Community response, but major disasters like Chernobyl have demonstrated once and for all that modern pollution respects no national frontiers. It makes sense to find common solutions to a common problem. Action at EC level is part of the Community's responsibility to its own citizens and to the wider world - but it also lies at the heart of plans to create a single market by 1992.

Dirtier rivers, smokier air and car-clogged cities must not be the price of a faster-growing Europe with open frontiers. A harmonized European approach, moreover, is essential if different national environmental standards are not to be used as barriers to free trade.

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