Wallstrom replaced as EU Environment Commissioner

Margot Wallstrom of Sweden has been promoted in the new European Union Commission to head the commissions communications efforts.  She has been replaced as Environment Commissioner by Stavros Dimas of Greece. 

Dimas, from the Greek conservative party New Democracy, is believed to be less personally committed to environmentalism than Wallstrom.  Recent months had seen Wallstrom argue publicly with Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio of Spain over the economic effects of the Kyoto Protocol.

Dimas appointment has already worried some in Europes powerful green movement.  Under the headline, All hope is lost, the Guardians environment correspondent John Vidal wrote (Aug. 18):

 If the European Commission really wanted to signal that it didn’t give a monkey’s [British slang for couldnt care less] about the environment then it would probably choose as its new environment commissioner an old, rightwing free-marketeer lawyer who used to work for the World Bank and had responsibility for Africa in the bad old 1970s.  Impossible?  Not in the slightest.  Welcome Stavros Dimas, 62, Greek economist, Wall Street banker, and conservative lawyer.  The fragile hopes of Europe‘s mountains, rivers, climate and forests rest on you.