ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN EAST GERMANY - EXAMPLE: SAXONY

D. Angst

State Secretary, Saxon Ministry for Environmental and Physical Planning, Ostra-Allee 23, O-8010 Dresden

1    INTRODUCTION

When the State Government assumed office in autumn 1990, the environmental situation in Saxony was marked by a multitude of environmental burdens of every description. Not only the classical environmental burdens, which are to be found in other industrial countries, could be noted which include, for example, massive water contamination. In the Dresden area, the Elb, East Germany's largest river, is almost biologically dead. We should, however, not forget to mention too the extreme air pollution. To date in Saxony alone, emissions of sulfur dioxide were twice as high as in the old Länder counted together. Damage to forests in the Erzgebirge also show, however, the massive atmospheric pollutants from the CSFR. In 1989 alone, imports of sulfur dioxide into the former GDR amounted to 638,000 t. As Saxony borders directly on this region, it is affected most by this.

In addition, there are burdens from sites suspected of contamination, above all too from uranium mining by Wismut AG, at present difficult to estimate, the enormous burdens due to countryside lying fellow as a result of the mining of lignite coal as well as the heritage from the CIS troops.

Capital required to clean up all this environmental damage will amount to several billion Deutschmarks over the next few years.

The GDR leadership was very well aware of this damage and preventive measures were introduced to eliminate the damage but these proved totally inadequate.

In certain parts of the GDR there was already an environmental administration which was working, however, only against a background of economical and health objects, that is to say environmental protection was not practiced for its own sake rather only to achieve economic aims or meet hygienic requirements.

For example, for this purpose there were five water resources boards responsible for keeping water clean or in other words taking care that contamination did not exceed a certain levee and thus create possible economic damage.

It was the task of the regional institutes of hygiene and government environmental inspectors to see that air pollution was kept at a bearable level so that public health did not suffer too much.

The massive air pollution was countered by a comprehensive legal code and a large environmental administration but this very administration did not act in the execution of these laws for economic reasons. In addition, there was no differentiation between specialized and enforcement administration.

2    ESTABLISHING ENVIRONMENTAL ADMINISTRATION

Against this background, the newly formed Land government started work and thus too the environmental administration of the Free State of Saxony which was to be newly established.

Environmental administration in the old Länder orientates towards other aspects. For historic reasons, environmental administration was established here according to media criteria i.e. the tasks of environmental authorities are modeled on individual environmental media. There are water resources boards for prevention of water pollution, trade supervisory offices for keeping air clean or nature preservation authorities depending on the importance of an environmental medium or the respective pressure to solve problems.

Towards which aspects is the structure of environmental administration in Saxony orientated?

First, it was necessary to establish an efficient ministry as the supreme Land authority whose task it was to cover all environmental media and to have a interdisciplinary character. And as it was the intention from the beginning to introduce the ecological assessment in the Land Planning Act as the basis for Land planning, it was more than obvious also to integrate Land development in the ministry alongside the areas general administration, water, waste and soil, protection against emissions and nature preservation (see Annex 1).

In the environmental administration in Saxony it is necessary to differentiate between specialized and enforcement administration. This is exactly the point which contributed to a large extent to the failure of GDR environmental policy: the lack of proper enforcement of existing laws.

In Saxony a three-tier administrative structure has been selected (see Annex 2). As specialized authority, a Land environmental and geological authority was allocated to the Ministry as supreme Land authority.

The chief task of this Land authority is to cover environmental burdens in Saxony and give information to the public. A monitoring network is being operated for this purpose which covers and assesses all environmental media.

The administrative counties and towns forming their own counties are responsible in Saxony for enforcing the comprehensive environmental legislation at a lower level. If larger projects are involved or district boundaries are crossed, the presidents of the regional administration are responsible as regional authorities. It is, however, too much to expect the county office district authorities and presidents of the regional administration to expertly assess environmental effects.

Therefore, to support enforcement, five specialized environmental state agencies have been established which undertake expert valuations, make recommendations and elaborate proposals for decision-making by the enforcement authorities (see Annex 3). With the formation of these specialized environmental state agencies, it was possible for the first time in the Federal Republic of Germany to achieve concentration which is not confined to one media in one authority. This means the need for agreement and coordination at the level of more than one authority is avoided and accelerates ratification procedure.

Sectoral environmental administration prevailing in the old Länder which is organized according to individual sectors has been dissolved in Saxony and only one integrating specialized authority created. This model has met with approval throughout the Federal Republic and meanwhile attempts have been made in several old Länder to adopt parts of it and also achieve concentration.

3    CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I would just like to briefly consider the main substance of environmental policy in Saxony in order to give you an idea of the complexity of the tasks. Environmental policy in Saxony is guided by a sequence of priority which may be divided into three stages

The key point by far in mid schemes in the field of environmental protection was therefore water management. Water is the no. 1 provision for human beings and making available drinking water meriting that qualification is not always simple. Of public funds amounting to 556.7 million DM available in 1991, almost 440 million DM were applied to water/sewage. Emphasis here was on projects to redevelop the Elb.

However, waste management measures too, which had to be completely restructured in Saxony after the collapse of the SeRo (secondary resource) system and the appearance of the flood of packaging after the Wende (reversal), were subsidized with approx. 60 million DM. The "principles of waste management" of the Ministry of the Environment, approved by the Saxon State Government in early summer, direct the way back to the economic cycle and the way out of the cul-de-sac of one-way products.

Measures to keep air clean are to be financed, according to the German federal law on protection against emissions, above all by the operators of large power plants which is why the 28 million DM spent was expended above all for community and social demonstration projects.

With the structure of environmental management we have selected and the key areas set it should be possible by the end of this decade to make up the large deficits in certain areas and reestablish in Saxony an environment worth living in; in other areas, such as sewage clarification, it will probably take 20 to 30 years until the pace of the western Länder is matched.