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Historians haven't made an objective assessment of how much environmental problems contributed to the revolutions of 1989 and 1990, but for those who lived in Central and East European then, we know that the environment was one of the main issues on political agendas in the late eighties. At that time, it became clear that the gap in environmental performance between West and East was widening and that, despite all the rhetoric, the oppressive and uncompetitive communist regimes were neither willing nor able to reduce the pollution that affected millions living in the cities and industrial regions. Environmental issues were an important catalyst demonstrating the failure of the system and a first rallying point for the democratic opposition in many countries. In Poland, environment was one of the topics discussed at the 1989 Roundtable negotiations leading to democratic transition. They resulted in the commitment of pollution charges to environmental clean-up, which today means that several hundred million Euros are annually disbursed by national and regional environmental funds. A great number of environmental NGO activists moved into government positions in the early nineties, riding the wave of public support for environmental improvement. This infusion of "green blood" into the structure of governance of society quickly bore fruit. Within a few years, a series of new environmental programs, environmental laws and institutional reform followed the democratic changes. In developing the environmental institutions, the CEE countries tried to use the best practices and ideas from the West, helped by the various assistance programmes of donor countries and projects of the International Financial Institutions. Most countries set up or significantly strengthened existing environmental ministries with the advent of first democratically elected governments. In Slovenia, for example, the Green Party was part of the Democratic Opposition coalition that won the election in 1990 and held 5 ministries, as well as the posts of deputy prime-minister, member of presidency and deputy speaker of parliament in 1990 and 1991. After those first years, the political priority of the environment fell back in the context of economic and social reform and the emergence of classical political party elite in our countries. Still, most of the environmental policy and institutional ground gained in the early nineties is there, proving to be a strong asset in the process of EU accession. In Hungary and Czechoslovakia, environmentalists rallied against the construction of the Gabcikovo - Nagymaros dam scheme. When President George Bush visited Budapest in the summer of 1989, a way was sought for the western governments to support this emerging environmental civil society and thereby to promote the development of democracy. The idea of setting up an independent, non-partisan and non-advocacy organisation for the entire region emerged and The Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe was established ten years ago by the U.S., the European Commission and Hungary, along with other donor countries. The basic mandate of the REC then was to help civil society to assume its role in protecting the environment and thereby contribute to the development of democracy. Since 1990, the REC has been providing funding and capacity building to the mushrooming civil society groups being established or strengthened in the environmental field in each CEE country. Many NGOs are working in the areas of nature conservation and environmental education. At the same time, new types of NGOs have emerged, focusing on influencing policy and becoming involved in the drafting of environmental legislation on the national level. At first, the CEE environmentalists mainly tried to copy Western models, but gradually they developed their own identity and role in pan-European NGO cooperation. Partly because of the recognition of the link between environment and democracy in the CEE region, NGOs have gained an increasing role in environmental policymaking at the international level. The culmination of this process can be seen in the Aarhus Convention, where NGOs participated in the drafting and actually organised one of the sessions at the Aarhus Ministerial Conference in 1998. In 1991, my colleague Josef Vavrousek, then the Czechoslovak Federal Minister of Environment invited environmental ministers from all over Europe to a conference at the Dobris castle, that became the starting point of the Environment for Europe process. A series of Ministerial Conferences followed in Lucerne in 1993, Sofia 1995 and Aarhus 1998. The next one will be in Kiev in 2002 and tomorrow's event is the midterm event for the Ministers from the Central and Eastern Europe. The whole process started with the agreement to prepare a European State of Environment Report (published in 1995 and 1998) and the Environmental Action Programme for the CEE (endorsed in 93), and led to such achievements as the Aarhus Convention. The Convention seems to also be an important model for the global implementation of Agenda 21. We hope that the Kiev process will also represent the European contribution to the preparation of the upcoming global summit now known under the title "Rio +10". But as the countries of central Europe moved forward with democratic and economic reforms, South East Europe remained blocked by a succession of wars and instability in and around the former Yugoslavia. These wars had severe direct adverse impacts on the environment through destruction of industrial sites, massive uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources such as forests as well as neglect and destruction of environmental infrastructure and services. And indirectly they delayed the development of environmental policies and institutions comparable with other CEE countries. Furthermore, the international community paid little attention to the environment when trying to establish peace and stabilize the region, that is, until the Kosovo war last year, when the REC and UNEP published reports on the environmental impact of the war. Subsequently the Stability Pact for South East Europe includes environmental improvement as well as building civil society among its objectives. As we look back since the breakdown of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, the region has made significant advances in improving the quality of the physical state of environment. Among the most important achievements are certainly the improvements in air quality. I have chosen to present you three examples in order to demonstrate the progress our countries have made. The first example I would like to show you are trends in SO2 emissions, which predominantly originate from the energy sector and heavy industry. In the period between 1989 and 1995, SO2 emissions have fallen sharply - by 58% for the entire region while during the same period of time, the drop in the EU was 33%. Of course, a large portion of the emissions were eliminated in the early years of economic transition as a result of the collapse of old, state-owned industries. However, a number of countries have maintained a sharp trend in SO2 emissions decline throughout the economic recovery also. While the average SO2 emissions per capita remains still above the EU average, there is good reason to believe that throughout the process of approximation to European Union standards, the region's citizens will enjoy equally sulfur-free air as that of our Western neighbors. The second example I would like to show you is the decrease in emissions of NOx, originating mainly from the industry and transport sectors. While during the years 1989-1995, the EU managed to decrease their NOx emissions per capita by 10%, the CEE countries achieved a 38% decrease and, on average, the NOx emissions per capita in CEE are actually lower than those in the EU. In order to continue to enjoy this advantage, it will be important to focus more attention on combating emissions from transport, which are becoming the main factor influencing NOx emissions in the region just as in the West. The third and final example is CO2, a greenhouse gas significantly contributing to one of our biggest headaches on a global scale - climate change. If we look at the trends over the past years, we can see a moderate decline in CO2 emissions per capita - 3% in the EU and 26% in CEE, made between the years 1989 and 1995. Looking at individual countries' emisions per capita, we can see that most of them are below the EU average. However, a great challenge in the coming years will be to continue to reduce CO2 emissions in order to meet the Kyoto protocol targets and to reduce them further after 2012. Thanks to various circumstances, the Central and East European countries possess a great wealth of well preserved landscapes and natural resources, a variety of ecosystems and several populations of species that are very rare or already extinct in Western Europe. Sustainable forestry was developed in Central Europe in the 19th century and the culture of sustainable use has survived until today. In the centrally planned systems, significant areas were nationalised and some even closed to the public (for example, along the Iron Curtain). Also, the failed agricultural policy under forced collectivisation was not able to repeat the success of the West European agriculture, to intensively utilise every square meter of land. The Bialoveza forest on the border between Poland and Belarus is ranked among the oldest forests in Europe. The Romanian forest ecosystems are home to 60% of the European brown bear 40% of the wolf populations. Slovenia at 54% is the third most heavily forested country in Europe after Finland and Sweden. Grasslands used as pasture are a very important ecosystem for numerous endangered plant and animal species. They include natural or semi-natural meadows in the Baltics and alpine and sub-alpine pastures and meadows of South East European countries. Coastal zones range from dunes, cliffs, lagoons, and river deltas to very diverse islands - more than 1000 in Croatia - and include countless internationally important marine and bird areas, as well as Ramsar sites. The Danube delta is the largest delta in Europe and spreads over a surface of about 580,000 ha (113,000 ha of which are permanently covered by water). Rivers perhaps have suffered the most from pollution, artificial drainage and streamlining in the past decades which has led to serious pollution of the Baltic and Black seas along with an increase in the frequency of catastrophic floods such as in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland in 1997 and in Hungary in 1999 and this year. But there are still preserved wetland areas along the rivers, such a s Kopacki rit between the Danube and the Drava, that support a huge variety of life and help maintain the natural balance of the rivers. Since the changes around 1990, nature has come under threat because of liberalisation of economic activities and less strict enforcement. Freedom in Albania, for example, triggered massive clearcutting of forests and a migration of people from the mountains seeking more economic opportunities in the coastal areas, putting additional strain on the fragile coastal ecosystem. On the other hand, countries have increased the number and size of protected areas and started integrating biodiversity in physical and development planning. One such example is in Slovakia, where the territorial system of ecological stability was launched as an integrated structure interconnected to the elements of other ecosystems, thus ensuring a diversity of life conditions and forms in the landscape. Because of the relatively low level of economic development and the need for thorough restructuring of economies in transition, nature conservation combined with the development of sustainable tourism and economic activities can offer a model for improving the livelihoods of local populations in valuable rural areas while preserving their natural resources and biological and landscape diversity. Emerging models can be seen in the Lonsko Polje Nature Park in Croatia, Strandja Nature Park in Bulgaria, Kiskunsag National Park here in Hungary. There are also a number of success stories for crossborder cooperation among different stakeholders, working to protect important biodiversity areas. The recently signed trilateral agreement on the Prespa lake beween Greece, Albania and FYROM, as well as the Lower Danube Green Corridor are among the great achievements for nature conservation in this region. All of these achievements and sometimes quite dramatic positive changes were enabled by several crucial factors. I have already spoken about the broad public support for all kinds of environmental measures. In fact, the development of civil society goes in parallel with environmental improvement. From its earliest days the REC has had the development of civil society as a major goal. Support to environmental NGOs - vital civil society institutions - has been, and continues to be, a major part of the REC's work. The Center has supported the NGO sector of the region through capacity building, free information and tailored manuals, networking, conferences and dialogues, and most notably by its local and regional granting programmes. The REC should be given some credit for the increase in size of the environmental NGO sector. The absolute growth in registered environmental NGO numbers is steady, from 793 in 1992, to 1,681 in 1994 to 2,747 in 1997. Research has shown approximately 200 new NGOs were registered each year since 1990. And in most cases the number of NGOs per capita has risen. The trends show growth, but the sector is far from its potential. A simple comparison with the state of the NGO movement in most EU countries puts the role and impact of NGOs in CEE in some perspective. NGOs still need support on the basic level, as local philanthropy has yet to take root and the economic difficulties puts pressure on the members of the NGO community. In many countries good NGO people have left the sector to join businesses. We need to support the development of new leaders. The starting point for substantial environmental improvement was a very rapid buildup of essential institutions that were lacking completely or were inadequate under the communist rule. In the CEE countries the environmental ministries, inspectorates and often institutions were quickly established and began working. Most important, the basic laws, sometimes quite strong ones, even stronger than the current EU legislation, were immediately drafted and passed smoothly and quickly through the Parliaments. Improving environment is certainly a very costly issue. But again, due to the broad public support, the governments of CEE were able to spend large amounts of money from public budgets on the environment. The business sector also fully accepted the challenge and devoted a significant part of its investments to environmental abatement. Although the community of international donors is providing funding for a small portion of these costs, domestic financing plays the decisive role in CEEC and accounts for over 90 per cent of all environmental expenditures. The slide shows the domestic pollution abatement and control investment as a share of GDP in 1995 in some CEECs and compares them to those in some EU countries. It is obvious that environmental expenditures are very significant in both CEECs and Western European countries and that in many CEECs the environmental investment share of GDP is comparable (and even higher) to those in Western Europe. Many CEECs have implemented a complex set of institutional and policy measures addressing environmental financing. Of the 10 EU candidate countries in CEE, nearly all have created extra-budgetary environmental funds operating at the national and/or local levels and accounting for important shares of total national environmental investment expenditures. For example, a recent OECD/PHARE study found that in 1996, environmental funds accounted for about 33% of total environmental investment expenditures in Poland, whereas the comparable share for funds in Slovenia and Lithuania was about 20%. It should be emphasised that CEECs acknowledge the importance of environmental financing and that in many CEECs environmental expenditures show the gradually growing tendency. This slide demonstrates the dramatic growth trend for domestic environmental expenditures in Czech Republic between 1990 and 1997. The total growth during the indicated period is significant and comes to 675 per cent! A significant portion of pollution reduction is the consequence of restructuring in the CEE industries and the business sector in general. Many of the worst polluting industries were just unable to survive in the new market economy and stopped their activities. In other cases the new investors brought new and cleaner technology and improved environmental management. Many of the forward looking, European and global market oriented companies in the CEE, regardless of ownership, see environmental management as one of the key elements of their competitiveness. This is clearly demonstrated by the number of companies receiving ISO 14 000 registration. On the other hand, many of the historic environmental problems remain unsolved or are taking a long time to clean up. After the privatisation they are mostly the responsibility of the government or are linked to industries with uncertain futures, such as mining. This year's Baia Mare disaster is a reminder of these unsolved problems that will be present into the quite distant future. The environmental policy of the time period from the fall of communism until the last one or two years was essentially governed by the strong and explicit public demand for the substantial and rapid improvement of the disastrous environmental situation that was one of the most visible parts of the nasty communist legacy. At present, most of the CEE countries have entered a new stage with the new governing principle: accession to the European Union which is supported by the majority of population. More than half (54%) of all Hungarians, two thirds of the Romanians and 83% percent of Macedonians interviewed recently would like to see their country as part of EU as soon as possible. Women tend to prefer the option of waiting 10 years in Romania, but in Hungary the case was the opposite. Using Western countries as a good role model in general appeals to 44 percent of the sample interviewed. Only 11% in all three countries say that their country should find its own pace and route for development. When asked to rank the expected developments, rural respondents gave higher rankings to environmental developments. But respondents from rural, industrial and capital regions all shared low expectation for development in the specific area of nature protection. An overwhelming majority of respondents said that the EU and their own country should pay equal shares of the costs for accession investments. When asked what comes to mind when they here the words "European Union," almost all respondents automatically thought of accession for their own country. When asked to name concepts that they associate with the words "European Union," the most frequent responses were positive effects on development and positive effects on wealth of the country. Only the fifth-most frequent response was not positive, the concern about negative effects on society like "westernisation" or the loss of identity. Concerning the impact of EU membership on the environment, more than half of all respondents are optimistic, and expect accession to bring a better environmental situation and more protected areas. When asked to give specifics on expected environmental changes from EU accession, respondents mentioned better environmental regulations, more international co-operation and better environmental information. Respondents were less hopeful regarding the effects that EU accession could have on air pollution, street traffic, soil pollution and agriculture. When answering the open question about environmental changes that would occur as a result of the accession process, most of the replies related to their hopes for more environmental protection in general and for stricter. Slightly lower ranked came the desire for better enforcement of these rules and a positive effect on peoples' behaviour. Overall, most people in CEE countries see accession to the EU as something both inevitable and desirable. From the point of view of environment it is seen as a generally positive process. On the other hand, we should not forget some question marks and even possible negative impacts and try to solve them in a positive way. Within the EU, the main political concerns raised are (1) that the candidate countries just want to join in order to receive generous EU funding and (2) that the future members want to create unjustified profits by environmental dumping, i.e. benefiting from lower environmental standards. At the same time, the most common perceptions in the candidate countries are (1) that the current EU members are only interested in invading and conquering their markets for environmental services and technologies, as well as cars and consumer goods, (2) that double standards for compliance with the Acquis are applied to current as compared to future members, (3) that the policy signals coming from other sectors in the EU (particularly transport and agriculture) are in conflict with the proclaimed environmental goals of the EU, and pose a serious threat to environment of the candidate countries. Hopefully, we shall be able to eventually dispel these misconceptions, but let us be aware of them. The challenge of dealing with environment in the EU enlargement is no longer just to spread the existing EU policies eastward, but to develop a common policy framework that will provide environmental benefits for the citizens across the continent, making enlargement a win-win proposition for environment and quality of life for all. This will be a new experience for both the current members and for the candidate countries. Until now they were both used to a model where the candidate countries just tried to copy or transpose western policies and legislation, and now they will need to establish a mutual dialogue. This will be harder for the candidate countries, who have been locked into a model of receiving orders from imperial or foreign capitals for centuries, and are now projecting a similar role on Brussels that Soviet Moscow used to play. But also the current member countries will have to be open to discussions about changing certain EU priorities in order to achieve better results in the new member countries. The meeting among the CEE and EU Ministers and Commissioner Wallstrom on June 19 in Szentendre is an attempt to hold such an open dialogue. In their dialogue, we hope that the Ministers, with the participation of NGOs and other stakeholders, will see EU Enlargement more as an opportunity for advancing the environmental agenda in Europe than as a barrier that needs to be overcome. We see opportunities in several areas: First is the reinforcement of the rule of law and policy implementation across the continent. The candidate countries should comply fully with the Acquis within a reasonable time after their entry into the Union, but also the current members must comply fully. This is a moral obligation that needs to be upheld by the 6th Environmental Action Programme - otherwise the question of environmental dumping will be asked in a reverse direction. Several candidate countries already today spend a much higher percentage of their GDP on environment than most EU members. Second is the further consolidation of the environmental Acquis following the advances and addressing open issues in the candidate countries. Moving towards more framework directives and flexible mechanisms, Strategic Environmental Assessment, environmental liability, use of economic instruments and market mechanisms will improve the cost effectiveness of the policies. Costs will be an important concern in view of the very high estimates for compliance with the current legislation in CEE countries. The third opportunity is in the area of sectoral integration. The consequences of extending the current EU perverse subsidies in transport and agriculture to the candidate countries would be disastrous for environment, biodiversity, social structure and economies of Europe as a whole. The situation is more positive in the energy and industry sectors (CEE countries are some of the few countries where the greenhouse gas emissions have actually dropped in the last decade), but the remaining potential gains of really integrating environmental concerns into the ongoing restructuring are tremendous. Attempts to adjust the EU policies were already made in Agenda 2000, especially in the field of agriculture. The 6th EAP could go much further, having in mind that just the way EU funding is structured will strongly influence development patterns in the new member countries. Fourthly, taking a leadership position on certain issues can help candidate countries assume their full role of member countries more quickly, so that they don't just remain a poor relative, waiting for handouts and instructions from the richer family, but start actively contributing in all respects. And we believe that this is the ultimate goal of enlargement itself. By 2005, after some of the accession countries should have acceded to the EU, the REC will be an EU based organisation contributing to the improvement of the European environment, by facilitating development and implementation of pan-European, EU, regional (CEE, SEE), national, and sub-national environmental policies. The REC will continue to provide significant capacity that will speed up the process of environmental integration of the CEE countries with the EU and will benefit the EU from within. The REC itself will continue as an innovative model of providing a flexible set of key services to the environmental sector as a whole and to the environmental stakeholders in particular. These services include grant-giving and other support to the environmental civil society, information exchange, policy research and development, facilitation of dialogue, capacity building and networking. To accomplish this, REC will pursue the following strategic goals:
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Press Release: REC Marks 10 Years of Helping CEE Environment |
    
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