Public participation in the Region:
An interview with Magdolna Toth Nagy

The Public Participation Program is one of the REC Initiatives Team's major projects. Early this summer the team published a Manual on Public Participation in Environmental Decisionmaking in Central and Eastern Europe in English. Since then, country-specific manuals have been published in ten local languages. Now, the REC is holding workshops funded by the Dutch Government in each of the countries to discuss the manuals and the status of public participation in the ten countries. So far, workshops have been held in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, FYR Macedonia, Slovenia, and Slovakia. Although each workshop is unique and addresses different issues, taken as a whole they provide a snapshot of public participation in the Region. Following are excerpts from an interview with Magdolna Toth Nagy who coordinates the REC's public participation program.

The Bulletin: How many people on average attend the workshops?
Magdolna Toth Nagy: There are usually from 25 to 30 people mostly from NGOs, central and local government, academia, and media. In Croatia one part of the workshop was open to the public and about 100 to 120 citizens attended and asked questions about their concerns.

TB: How is public participation in the environment different from public participation in other policy areas?
MTN: The legal base for public participation can be divided into two parts. First, there are basic constitutional rights including rights to free expression, to information, of free assembly, of association, of petition, and also the right to a healthy environment. These are basic human rights and important elements of an open and democratic society. Second, there are specific legal mechanisms that provide substantive and procedural rights for the three basic principles of public participation in environmental decisionmaking: (1) access to relevant information, (2) the right to participate, and (3) the right to complain, appeal, and sue. These legal mechanisms can be built into general laws (for example, administrative law, civil code, penal code), as well as into specific environmental legislation or other specific laws (for example, EIA, land use law, construction permitting, and media-specific (water, air, waste) laws). This can be done through concrete provisions for procedures.

TB: What was the fact or observation that you learned about in the workshops that surprised you the most?
MTN: We experienced, especially in Albania, that people are extremely patient and tolerant even when their basic needs and rights are unmet; they do not raise their voices, but wait because they are promised, "tomorrow things will change." But when does "tomorrow" start? If we are not trying to change what is today, how will things change tomorrow?

TB: What were some other findings that did not surprise you so much?
MTN: When we begin a workshop, the participants usually don't know much about existing legal possibilities for public participation. In most countries there are constitutional and other legal instruments which give them rights to participate, but they are not aware of them, or even if they know about them, they do not use them. By the end of the workshop, people realize that public awareness raising and environmental education about these possibilities and the methods of how to use them are the main issues. NGOs are supposed to mobilize the public to participate, but often they themselves don't know about the available instruments. They use other methods of public participation, like writing letters, organizing demonstrations, campaigns, producing newsletters, etc. but legal instruments are rarely used to their full potential.
Also, NGOs would like to be equal partners with governmental institutions when it comes to participation in environmental decisionmaking, but they are not always organized sufficiently and do not cooperate well enough among each other to be able to have a strong, united voice, or to present a professional standpoint in the dialogue with the decisionmakers. NGOs should have a strategy to organize themselves better and cooperate more efficiently with each other. Then they will be able to activate the public more and also the government will accept them more as partners in the process of decisonmaking. This is one of the preconditions of more efficient public participation. Of course, there are more parties needed than just the public and NGOs in the game to improve the efficiency of public participation. Government institutions, public officials, as well as business, have to have their role to play and behave in a more responsible, transparent and open way.

TB: Don't NGOs mind when you say to them, "You need to organize yourselves better and cooperate more?"
MTN: No, it's not me saying it, it's them. They are the ones who are saying it to us during the workshops once they recognize what's going on.

TB: What was happening before you arrived? I mean, surely the public was participating before your Manual on Public Participation in Environmental Decisionmaking was published this summer.
MTN: Of course, people and NGOs have been participating or have been trying to participate even before our manual and training were available. But in some countries citizen participation is just about to start. Citizens there have never had any tradition or experience with participatory democracy, and they are just now starting to learn how to be conscious tax-paying citizens who have not only duties, but also rights and want to exercise them. Of course, there is a long process ahead. Even in these countries NGOs are already using certain methods, mostly non-legal, non-formal ways of public participation, but they often act on an ad hoc basis, in isolation from each other. In some other countries NGOs are quite active and successful in using non-legal means of public participation and they want to be more prepared to start with the legal avenues.

THE BULLETIN * AUTUMN 1994