A N T I C I P A T I N G A A R H U S
| ISSUE GROUP OUTCOMES |
More than 90 environmental citizens organization (ECO) participants representing almost all European countries were present at the October Pan European conference "Towards Sustainability in Europe: ECOs Cooperation from Sofia to Aarhus" in Brussels. The conference was organized by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), on behalf of the Steering Committee of the ECO Working Group for Pan-European Environment, with the support of the European Commission, the Dutch Government, the Danish Government and the Belgian Government. The main aim of the conference was to prepare Environmental Citizen's Organizations (ECOs) for the next European Environmental Ministerial Conference to be held in Aarhus in June 1998. The EEB also hosted a special workshop on the enlargement process of the European Union, and a seminar on public participation. CEE ECOs started with a brainstorming meeting on their role in the Environment for Europe Process. Evaluating the experiences of the Sofia Ministerial Conference, the ECO representatives discussed what structure and actions are needed to prepare for Aarhus. Many suggested that the preparation should be an open process, keeping continuity with the past activities, but also bringing in new elements. They further expressed the view that instead of following the official governmental process they need to define and develop their own agenda and think how they can build a coalition and influence the decisionmaking process in the directions they outline as priorities. John Hontelez of Friends of the Earth opened the official part of the conference with an overall assessment of the Pan-European process before and after Sofia. Hontelez emphasized that after the positive developments leading up to the Lucerne Ministerial Conference, there has been a decline of the significance of environmental issues on the political agenda. He argued for a pragmatic, result-oriented approach in the preparatory process for the Aarhus Conference and work in ECO issue groups and networks. Among his suggested priorities are the need to focus on a Sustainable Europe Program, on grantmaking and investments in CEE, financial mechanisms, monitoring and implementation by ECOs to see what is used and what is not used on a national level from the Sofia results. In Sofia, the governments, international bodies and ECOs were sitting at one table and most agreed it is necessary to keep this setup for the Aarhus Conference as well. In the general discussion ECO participants argued for using the Sofia experience to open the door in all other environmental decisionmaking processes. Several ECOs claimed that there has been no or little impact from Sofia Conference on the national level and that ECOs should put more efforts in requesting the implementation of the Sofia results. The Sofia process has been overshadowed by EU approximation and the NEAP process, but ECOs can use again the UNCED process and Agenda 21 to give a new impetus to the implementation of these issues. The representative of the Danish Ministry of Environment, Thomas Becker said the Danish government would like to encourage strong ECO participation in all areas of the conference preparations, will provide funding for this purpose, and also will encourage governments to include ECOs in their delegations. It has been proposed to hold a half-day joint session of Ministers of Environment and ECOs during the Ministerial Conference. A new Steering Committee was elected which has the following members: Theresa Herzog, Switzerland; Vladimir Lay, Croatia; Erzsebet Schmuck, Hungary; Vida Ogorelec-Wagner, Slovenia; John Hontelez, EEB; Jeremy Wates, EEB; Ivan Gyulai, Hungary; Mara Silina, FOE; Olga Ponizova, Ecoaccord, Russia; Gunnar, Boye Olese, OVE, Denmark. The Steering Committee will facilitate the preparatory process for Aarhus. Funding for the activities will be coordinated through the Committee. The REC's Executive Director Jernej Stritih presented a suggestion of how the REC could help the CEE ECO preparatory process through earmarked grants and projects on public participation to promote better involvement of ECOs in the preparatory process. |
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The ECO participants held small workshops of the four issue groups set up before the Sofia Conference including the Environmental Program for Europe, Biodiversity, Public Participation and Environmental Action Plans. As a result of the workshops the following direction has been outlined for future work in different areas by the ECOs:
Agenda 21 Issue GroupThe Aarhus conference should be used for evaluating sustainability and to push for implementation of Agenda 21 in Europe. The focus of the issue group Agenda 21 will be therefore energy issues and climate change, transport, consumption and production patterns. Within the group they will give more attention to monitoring and educational questions, economic instruments and finances. Priority will be given to the questions of foreign investments, ecotaxes and pricing.
Public Participation Issue GroupThe Public Participation issue group will use the implementation of the Sofia Guidelines and the drafting process of the new convention on access to environmental information, public participation, and access to justice. The governments have been asked to review implementation of the Guidelines in national reports by October 1997 and based on that, the UNECE will prepare an overall report by December 1997. The text of the new convention is planned to be finalized by 1997 September. A ECO structure has been set up for participating in the negotiation which consists of a four member ECO delegation, a larger resource group supporting the delegation with expertise, and a large group of interested ECOs.
BiodiversityThis group will define priorities for themes, set up an action plan and will evaluate projects on different action themes. It is important to have an East-West balance in the action plan and also to focus on the effectiveness of investments. It is necessary to raise awareness within the ECO movement on biodiversity issues as well as on biodiversity strategy implementation. More attention will be given to how to incorporate biodiversity into the other sectors (forestry, agriculture, etc.). The issue group will establish a structure of three regional coordinators for the Western European, CEE and NIS countries, a Bureau and specific Task Forces as needed.
EAP/NEAPThis issue group will focus on the implementation of EAP, with a special emphasis on integrating environment into economic issues. Another area will be limking NEAPs to the international level. Education of ECOs on issues related to EAP/NEAP process will also be an important task for the group. |