In interviews with Bulletin Editor Pavel P. Antonov, three activists describe the way they see the present state of environmental NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe. Przemyslaw Czajkowski Przemyslaw Czajkowski, who in 1991 was an advisor to Milieukontakt Oost-Europa, is now the National Co-ordinator for the United Nations Development Programme Small Grants Programme for Poland. He participated in a 1991 Sofia meeting that sought to chart the future course of environmental non-governmental organisations in the region. Environmental protest was a major catalyst for political change in many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries at the end of the 1980s, but this does not seem to be the case now. Has the environmental movement lost its potential to put problems on the social and political agenda? It was not only that in 1989/1990 something had changed. Parallel to this there was the preparation for the Earth Summit in Rio, 1992. These are two factors that made a very happy conjunction for the green NGOs in this part of Europe. Then this movement's development was supported with outstanding Western assistance, which was linked not only to capacity building but also to the main event under preparation. Governments in this region paid more attention to environment. Not too long before, there was an accident in Chernobyl, and this brought another element - fear. So ecologists were heard by the public. … That is why today, by comparison, it seems that the greens have lost their influence, which was extraordinary in the early 1990s. How do you think the new priorities of the CEE governments affect the environmental civil society movement? Negatively. But there are some other questions we need to ask. Money is the new value. And this is not surprising - after 50 years of values that were placed in the very left of the spectrum, without the permission of people, against their dreams, against normal consumption. The natural reaction to this was to shift to the right, where there was no room for green NGOs to substantially influence the social dream of consumption. But isn't it the environmental NGOs' responsibility to impose environmental values on the social agenda? They are doing it. And they have been doing it throughout the past 12 years - with some failures - but maybe the weight of their success is not so visible because slowly the NGOs became part of the new system. Many former NGO leaders departed, and are now members of the business community, governmental organisations and donors. It was a normal change that some very radical activists from the movement's initial years began a normal life. And after years of being poorly paid and not having enough power, they became part of the system. But then we get a new wave of young, and very radical, people in the movement against globalisation. It seems that NGOs sometimes shift away from their original mission and start following the donors' priorities and requirements. Are donor organisations responsible for this phenomenon? Which donors are you talking about? Let's take, for example, the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), which is responsible for such a dramatic positive development of NGOs. REC is giving money for training, capacity building and operation costs of NGOs. This created a dynamic movement. … But NGOs were not smart enough to use the funding from Western donors to build their own capacity. They had no strategy for development. Because in some countries, local funding sources are not available, many NGOs became prisoners of Western funds. So now that some donors are stepping out of direct NGO support, do not be surprised to see some local NGOs going down. Do donors understand their responsibility in shaping the work of civil organisations? There is not really an evaluation of the impact, and what the project will lead to - not immediately after being finalised, but in one, two, three years. I think there is no full responsibility and no good understanding of the real impact of donors' money. My observation is that the donors are using a "slavery approach" to NGOs regarding their mission - I mean that donors are so focused on their own mission that they are not flexible. Doesn't following the donors' priorities and money make NGOs give up their mission sometimes? A typical CEE NGO has to implement grants. That becomes its life-cycle. … They become a consulting company, which spends donors' money. This is their departure from the idealistic first years when the mission was important. What is the way out for the NGO community? The region needs to follow the Hungarian example, where tax payers can decide how 1 percent of their taxes should be spent. It is a very modern and very good solution, which allows a real market of NGOs: If they are good, and propose good solutions and good ideas, they will get support from the tax-payers. If you are not responding to society's needs, and you are only talking against consumerism, then you are in a weak position. This Hungarian model could be a very good instrument for bringing financial sustainability to green NGOs. n Miroslav Kundrata Miroslav Kundrata, from Brno, Czech Republic, was director of Veronika newsletter in 1991 when he participated in the Sofia meeting of environmental non-governmental organisations. For the past four years, he has been director of the Environmental Partnerships Program in the Czech Republic. Environmental protest was a major catalyst for political change in many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in the end of the 1980s, but this does not seem to be the case now. Has the environmental movement lost its potential to put problems on the social and political agenda? Not really, I do not think that they have lost their potential. Their credit of power in the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s was linked to opposition to the system. The expectation that they would continue in the same position was unrealistic. The last 10-year period has showed that NGOs should work within the existing system, with the appropriate tools, and they cannot live in the past. Does environmental civil society in CEE have an image problem? I think it has a changing role. Of course there is still the watchdog role, which has continued since the very beginning of the 1990s and still keeps creating the image of NGOs among the general public. Sometimes this is a negative image, because it puts environmental NGOs in a position of conflict. But at the same time, a large part of the environmental civil sector is starting to play the role of a community developer, of being able to propose realistic alternatives for local sustainable development. There are more and more environmental NGOs who started with nature conservation and moaning in the meadows in the 1980s and are now real contributors to sensible community development. They are coming up with proposals for revitalising the local economy, protection of local heritage - they are also thinking in economic terms. It seems that NGOs sometimes shift away from their original mission and start following the donors' priorities and requirements. Are donor organisations responsible for this phenomenon? Some groups are growing and losing their initial dynamics and mission, and with the growth they are becoming slightly more bureaucratic. But new NGOs are arising. There is a certain cycle and there will always be such a cycle. … The problem is that the CEE NGOs are still dependent on state support and will probably be so a long time from now. Do you think that European Union accession in CEE countries will pose new challenges for civil society organisations that they may not be able to deal with? NGOs were supposed to be involved intensively in the EU accession process - the development of strategic plans of the region, the governments and the departments - two or three years ago. … NGOs are trying very hard to have their say and to become real partners to the governments on various levels, and to the EU. But the capacity of the NGOs to be active and to be involved is very limited. The problem is that funding for NGOs is almost exclusively for projects, but not for involvement in planning. What is the way out for the NGO community? I think NGOs should create a much more powerful lobby for change. They should communicate among themselves and create a platform for pressure towards real changes - aimed at the EU and their governments. And maybe even targeting the international donors. Are environmental civil organisations able to think and act regionally on the CEE level? NGOs have such a full plate on their national level that they do not have the capacity and resources to work effectively on a regional level. And probably the same is true for the governments. CEE governments create Visegrad platforms and other platforms to get a better position in the EU, but it is even more complicated matching the political culture and the interests of the different countries. The situations are different - Poland has a bigger problem with the rural community, the Czech Republic with the industrial and other reforms, and Slovakia has Meciar and the NATO problem. In October 1991, you participated in a meeting in Sofia that came up with a vision for the expected development of the environmental NGO movement for the coming 10 years. Are you surprised by what has happened since then? Reality is, of course, different from what one could have expected in the beginning of the 1990s. Nobody then could imagine the future because we were living in completely different conditions. On one hand, we are facing some bad effects from the market economy, including consumerism, wastefulness, automobilisation, etc. On the other hand, we understand much better that the system does not work according to the revolutionary ideas of the first environmental idealists. If we want to achieve a change, we should become rooted in the system and we should get the public trust for our ideas. And this is the main challenge for NGOs - to get public trust in their work. NGOs did not manage to gain public trust over the last 10 years - isn't this a failure? Yes, and the mistake is not the public's. A big part of the mistake is with our movement. Vida Wagner Vida Wagner is director of Umanotera - the Slovenian Foundation for Sustainable Development. She has been involved in the processes of interaction between the region's environmental non-governmental organisations and the European Commission. How important is the role of the European Union and the EC for the work of environmental NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). What are its most significant aspects? By setting standards of environmental protection that are usually higher than the existing legislation in candidate countries, the European Commission is seen as an ally by the environmental NGOs. The commission is also contributing to stronger enforcement by putting in place a system for the education of, and support to, environmental inspectors - the Impel network. ... The annual progress reports for the Accession Countries are also an important tool, informing the public on how the environmental targets set in the accession programmes are being met. All of these definitely work in support of environmental protection - even to the point where the EU partially overtakes the role of NGOs as watchdogs, pushing for higher environmental standards. However, when we look at the bigger picture, things are not so satisfactory. We can see that the model of economic development that the EU is promoting is not a sustainable one: Especially in the fields of transport and agriculture, it is clear that sustainability is not a consideration - neither in policy nor practice. What is the current level of interaction between CEE NGOs and the EC? How open and transparent is the process? The level of interaction between the commission and the environmental NGOs in the region is relatively high: The institution of the dialogues that take place twice a year has been an important channel of information - in both directions. Also the visits to the candidate countries by Commissioner Margot Wallstrom and her team set good examples of recognising the importance of civil society - even to the point where I have had more chances to meet the commissioner than I have to meet our national minister of environment! The actual accession process, however is a different matter: Harmonisation with the acquis is happening so fast, the negotiation position papers were (and are) prepared in such a haste that there is no room for a democratic dialogue with all parties concerned. I think this dilemma of meeting the deadlines and catching the momentum for enlargement on the one side, and the need for a slower, more democratic process on the other, is an extremely difficult one. What are the shortcomings in the process of interaction between the EU and environmental NGOs from CEE? In addition to the speed of the process, in my opinion the lack of interest in EU issues among NGOs is quite an obstacle. Most organisations do not see immediate connections between the developments in the EU and their own micro situations. I suppose this is natural, it even exists within member states, where there are specialised, national and international organisations that operate at the EU level and communicate with the commission directly, on behalf of the smaller and national organisations. There is a deficiency of such structures in our region, though. What could be done better? What are the things the EC and the NGOs could do to improve this process? For the first wave countries it is too late for anything to have much influence on the development of legislation, as most environment chapters have been closed. … There is much more scope for improvement in the countries where the process is not so advanced yet. The commission could (and should) support NGOs to participate - not only with money but also with expertise - twinning programmes with EU NGOs. How will CEE NGOs operate once their countries become EU member states? What will change? What are the threats and new possibilities? For the region as a whole, the biggest challenge is the creation of structures to respond to the needs of a supra-national policy arena. With today's information technology, they can take the form of networks, not necessarily of actual physical persons. Only such organisations will have access to decision-making at the EU level, and also to funds offered to NGOs. Which brings me to the other challenge: CEE countries have been recipients of donor money for the last decade, and this money has been drying up. It will need to be replaced by other systems of financial support. ... As far as the content, the substance of our work, the challenge remains in the struggle to resist the negative impacts of economic development as now practised in the EU, and the growing pressure of multinational capital. … And we will continue to be incubators of alternative solutions for a sustainable future.

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