E N V I R O N M E N T A L T R A I N I N G
EU talks with CEE NGOs
By Adriana Craciun and Robert Atkinson
CEE governments and parliaments have already created many institutions and mechanisms to facilitate the EU accession process. However, the role of civil society and its active contribution has been under-utilised. NGOs and the general public have had no formal access to these institutions. And surveys indicate that citizens and NGOs are poorly informed on EU matters.
Awareness about the environmental implications of EU policy is fairly low. This is a deficit in the current accession process as NGOs represent an informed public. They are able to raise awareness of the issues and often provide different views from those given by governments - views usually closer to those of the general public.
The new dialogue, initiated by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), will consist of four meetings during two years between the EC and CEE NGOs and will allow discussions and debates on current EU accession processes. This will enable both sides to present views on the impacts of integration and how they will be perceived and improved.
The first conference will take place in parallel with the Life Week events in Brussels from October 20-23. NGOs from the 12 accession countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) will be invited to take part. The event will concentrate on topics such as the status of enlargement and the role of environment, pre-accession funding at the national level, NGO-EU relations and forms in which the dialogue may continue in the next two years.
The REC will facilitate the meetings, disseminate related information and host the following three meetings (March and October 2000, March 2001) at its head office in Szentendre, Hungary.
(For more info, contact Adriana Craciun at acraciun@rec.org.)
