The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Vienna

What price clean air, sparkling streams, stately chestnut trees along busy avenues? In some ways it depends on whether you are a citizen of Old or New Europe.

A debate on whether to stick to an ambitious European Union timetable meant to slash greenhouse gas emissions at a time of economic turmoil is dividing the continent. Most governments within the 27-nation bloc insist on going ahead with a December timetable for legislation requiring a 20 percent cut in EU emissions by 2020. They say that will send a strong signal to the U.S., China and other big industrial states to embrace a new global deal on reducing emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. "The European Union must keep its leadership role" on the environment, French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told his EU counterparts this week. But eight former Soviet bloc countries argue the EU's envisioned pace could hurt them more than the prosperous members of "Old Europe" - the 15 west European nations that have not had to play catch-up to compensate for decades of ruinous communist economic policies.

Voicing the easterners' concerns last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told an EU summit that the bloc's environmental and energy initiatives must also "be tolerable for the poorer member states."

Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia all called for special consideration on the emissions cut timetable. Italy also complained about the plan.