The EAP seminar in Romania.
"The EAP still has not become a living document. The West should realize that if it is not more pro-active, the process will flop," says John Hontelez, chair of Friends of the Earth International. Hontelez wrote parts of the EAP, a strategy for finding short term solutions for priority environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe.
The EAP seminar in Romania.
The EAP is not perfect, as Hontelez readily admits, but he maintains that it could and should play an important role in European environmental policy. "This EAP is better than no EAP," he adds. "At the very least it presents a platform for discussing the Central and Eastern European environment."
Richard Ackermann, the principal author of the EAP from the World Bank, is more optimistic. The rationale behind the EAP is difficult for many to accept because it represents "a new way of thinking," says Ackermann, but he is also "surprised by how far we've come. The EAP's message applies as much to the most sophisticated environmental institutions in the West as it does to Central and Eastern Europe."
Tom Garvey, the EU's new representative, said the East can learn much from the West's environmental mistakes.
Visnja Jelic-Muck from Croatia ponders the complexities of the NEAP discussion at the REC's third annual General Assembly.
The second component was the development of the actual Environmental Action Program for Central and Eastern Europe, a document described as a general methodology or strategy for short-term investment to address high-priority environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe. The document also advises that these short-term actions be consistent with longer-term objectives. There is no EAP for Western Europe because the representatives that had gathered in Dobris agreed that unlike its central and eastern counterpart, Western Europe did not require an action program to help set priorities for improving the environment. The priority was with the post-communist countries that were suffering from intense industrialization at the expense of the environment.
The third part of the EAP process was a "longer-term Environmental Program for Europe," making the Dobris conference not only the cradle of the EAP but also the birthplace of the Environment for Europe process. The EAP fits within this process, which is based on West-East cooperation to create a cleaner environment throughout the Continent.
The entire program was finally endorsed by Europe's ministers of environment at a conference in Lucerne, Switzerland in April 1993, making it the second major conference in the Environment for Europe process and the first European meeting of its kind, since the UNCED Conference was held in Rio in June 1992.
The EAP relies heavily on economic tools to protect and improve the quality of Central and Eastern Europe's environment. It is a strategy "based on a 'three-legged' approach of policy reform, institutional strengthening, and investmentÉ.The program concentrates on short-term, immediate action, but ensures these actions are consistent with longer-term economic, social, and environmental objectivesÉ.[the EAP] provides a framework and guide for identifying the highest priority problems; and for developing realistic, efficient, and cost-effective solutions. It is intended as a basis for each country in Central and Eastern Europe to set its own national environmental priorities, and to improve and promote cooperation between and among Eastern and Western countries."
The rest of the EAP spells out how this is to be done. It includes sections on how to set priorities, what kind of regulations and controls to use for what results, what type of investments are the most effective, and where responsibility lies for acting on the EAP. The EAP offers more than just recommendations or solutions. It also explains the rationale behind those recommendations.
One of the EAP's most important roles is to force ministries to set priorities based on the seriousness of environmental problems and the availability of government resources. Unfortunately, as the EAP itself acknowledges, this is usually difficult.
GLOBE EU's Nicolas Tavitian questions the future of the EAP.
"One of the most important goals of the Action Program is to show that difficult choices have to be made, and that resources should be concentrated on those problems where the greatest environmental benefits can be achieved relative to costs," reads the EAP. The question now, says Ackermann, is not "where can we find the resources to do what we think must be done?"; it is "how much can be achieved for different amounts of available resources?" According to the "Declaration" drafted by the ministers at Lucerne, the EAP would serve as "a basis for action by national and local governments, the Commission of the European Communities, and by international organizations and financial institutions, and private investors in the region." Besides stressing this East-West cooperation, the declaration states that the EAP should also invite the "indispensable participation of the informal sectors." The EAP even has sections on "what enterprises must do," and Ackermann stresses the significance of determining the appropriate "locus of decision making, whether national, regional, or local."
In reality, however, the EAP is nothing more than a set of guidelines developed to assist Central and Eastern European governments to affect positive changes in the health of their respective environments. If the health of the environment is to be improved, ministers must go one step further and transform these guidelines into workable programs of their own. By endorsing the EAP, it was expected that Central and Eastern European ministers of environment would use the EAP's strategy and recommendations to develop their own national environmental action programs (NEAPs).
"People have unfair expectations. The Dutch had 40 full-time staff members involved in preparing their national environment protection plans, and it took them three years. Hungary only has two people," says Pomazi.
The meeting in Budapest eventually produced the NEAP status report presented at the GA.
There are other problems that can be traced back to the beginning of the process. John Hontelez is one of many who believe that important momentum in the Europe for Environment process was lost in the year that followed the Lucerne meeting. What the ministers endorsed at Lucerne has turned into an unwieldy document fittingly labeled the "green elephant" Ñ it totals 160 pages and has 12 annexes. The World Bank was supposed to abbreviate the text in order to make it less intimidating and more useful. It did, but it took an entire year to prepare, and now the 83 page, 6 annex little brother of the green elephant has also been dubbed with a nickname: the "blue elephant."
The next step required the Regional Environmental Center to translate the document into 13 languages and distribute it to the ministries of environment in the respective Central and Eastern European countries. This took another six months, but was necessary before the ministries could organize the one-day seminars needed to introduce the EAP and debate its approach and recommendations for developing NEAPs. During the year and a half between Lucerne and the seminars, interest in the EAP declined.
A certain misunderstanding between Central and Eastern European governments and the West has also contributed to deficient NEAP development; many countries had false expectations regarding the kind of support they would receive from the West. This is understandable. The Lucerne declaration contains encouraging sections that say Western organizations "will continue and intensify their support for the reforms and for specific priority projects and programs." Ministries thought this meant money, but Hontelez explains that instead of funding, they got lectures about the process they needed to undergo before they asked for support. This only added to the ministries' loss of interest in the EAP.
Western support, whether it is cash, in-kind, or moral, is crucial if NEAPs are to be successfully implemented by Central and Eastern European governments. The ministry of environment is usually the weakest in the government, and Western interest in their programs helps raise their importance on the government agenda. Only with the West's ongoing persistence for the EAP does it stand even a remote chance of being accepted. The West could also be the force that provides the push to get much needed public support behind the EAP.
"The process cannot be pushed onto others; they must take ownership; they must want to do it," says Anna Bramwell, coordinator of the OECD Task Force on the Implementation of the EAP. But she is careful to point out that, although public support is important for legitimating the work process and its results, strong leadership is an essential part of getting things done. "You need a strong driver at a high level, like what you have in Latvia."
Even the strongest leaders can only push the process so fast. When Western policy makers met at Dobris and again in Lucerne, they were optimistic about the power and speed of change in post-communist Europe, explains Jan Kara. The structure and strategy of the EAP were based on the assumption that Central and Eastern Europe could turn itself around within a few years, but because the EAP represents a new way of thinking, it will take time to institutionalize. People now realize that what they thought was a short-term program of about five years will now take at least twice that long.
Ministry of Environment officials, NGOs and journalists participated in one-day seminars held in ten Central and Eastern European countries to publicize the EAP.
The difficulties the NEAP process is encountering with Central and Eastern European governments also points to another problem: governments are hesitant to adopt new policies. Because the EAP was developed as a short-term project, it may be difficult to transform into a process that will be effective in the long term. Once staff in Central and Eastern Europe's ministries of environment have adopted this "new way of thinking" for quick results in the short term, they won't want to adopt another new way of thinking for the long term, says Eva Kruzikova, director of the Prague-based Institute for Environmental Policy. What was intended as a quick fix for acute environmental problems could drag on for decades.
This raises another common critique of the EAP: its approach. The EAP says Central and Eastern Europe should focus on immediate environmental problems first and worry about the long term later. But critics are asking if it wouldn't be better to reverse the process: decide on your country's long-term objectives and let these determine its immediate priorities.
"They may be working according to EAP principles," explains Bramwell, even though the name and structure are different.
National green plans are a good beginning, but it can be difficult to transform them into actual NEAPs. This is largely because the NEAP process requires consensus building and bridging gaps between sectors, but "in many countries we don't have the process for consensus building," says Jernej Stritih, the OECD's regional coordinator for NEAPs and Slovenia's former state secretary for environment.
Despite the miscommunication that exists between East and West over support, Western governments and international organizations understand many of the difficulties involved in drafting workable NEAPs and are helping overcome them. The Dutch ministry of environment, for instance, worked with its Latvian counterpart toward developing an NEAP. Similarly the US Agency for International Development has assigned an advisor to lead a working group at the Polish ministry of environment to develop and write the Polish NEAP.
A seminar in Romania introduced the EAP approach to government officials and NGOs.
The third pan-European conference of ministers of environment is scheduled for the end of October in Sofia, Bulgaria, and it is there that governments will be graded on how well they have developed and implemented NEAPs: it is unlikely anyone will receive passing grades. But even if a single NEAP never materializes out of the process, the EAP will have been valuable for the international cooperation it has fostered and the debate it has generated over the future of Europe's environment. "The EAP is an invitation to a political process...in which the issues at stake are openly debated," Ackermann says. Of this there is no doubt. But an obvious question arises: Did Central and Eastern Europe need the EAP just to talk about the environment?
Richard Ackermann
Environment Division
The World Bank
1818 H Street NW
Washington, DC, 20433 USA
Copies of the EAP translated into Central and Eastern European languages are available from national ministries of environment. If you can't get one there, contact the REC Local Office in your country. If that fails, contact Melita Rogelj at the REC Head Office in Budapest.
The Regional Environmental Center has also produced a country-by-country report on the status of environment policy in the Region. It includes a helpful overview chapter. A copy is available from the REC library; it is called the Report on the Stage of Advancement of the Central and Eastern European countries in Development and Implementation of the National Environmental Action Programs (NEAPs).
Milieukontakt Oost Europa and Friends of the Earth Europe have prepared several excellent anthologies and summary papers. They also have a newsletter devoted to the NEAP.
Mileukontakt Oost Europa
P.O. Box 18185
1001 ZB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: (31-20) 639-2716
Fax: (31-20) 639-1379
E-mail: info@milieukontakt.nl
Website: www.milieukontakt.nl.