33. Stresses the strong links between poverty and the environment and the fact that the poorest are often the principal victims of environmental degradation; notes that efforts to reduce poverty, primarily through economic growth, often ignore the need to integrate environmental considerations into policies for combating poverty; recommends therefore that specific initiatives are taken to address these poverty and environment linkages within policies and programmes, and also ...[+++] that economic growth needs to be de-coupled from environmental degradation by promoting sustainable consumption and production, to address both the supply and the demand in developing countries;

15. Highlights in this respect the Council's rhetoric supporting eco-innovation, eco-technologies and the sustainable management of natural resources; demands that the respective EU instruments such as the 7th Framework Programme on RD, the EIB funding programmes, the Community Innovation Programme etc. should be reoriented to support sustainable development and the delivery of eco-efficient technologies, products and services; also calls on the Commission and the Council to deliver legislative proposals to set up the proper regulatory environment for sustainable development (e.g. on Integrated ...[+++] Product Policy, Production Integrated Environmental Protection, energy and resource efficiency etc.) and to review the European regulation of network industries (energy, transport, communications) in this respect;

In any case the idea first presented in the Fifth Action Programme of integrating environmental policy with other policy areas is also the driving force behind this Sixth Action Programme and it is quite clear that only in this way can we make progress on environmental issues.

The main objective of the programme, of course, is to integrate environmental policy with the other sectors of policy.

(4) Environmental assessment is an important tool for integrating environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of certain plans and programmes which are likely to have significant effects on the environment in the Member States, because it ensures that such effects of implementing plans and programmes are taken into account during their preparation and before their adoption.

increase the capacity of staff to integrate environmental aspects in the cooperation programmes.