The primary goal of the 1999 Award, which was in its pilot phase, was to direct the attention of cities to future EU environmental requirements and to place them on the path towards compliance with EU requirements that will be mandatory after accession. It did not aim to check whether cities fully comply with these requirements, but rather to indicate selected EU priorities and relevant EU environmental legislation. The Award evaluated not only the present level of compliance with EU standards, but also a city's general level of commitment to identifying environmental problems and its willingness to elaborate a consistent strategy to solve these problems. 215 applications were received and the recognition certificates were presented to the best cities in two categories: The full winners - for outstanding progress in implementation of the European Community's environmental legislation in all relevant fields: Access to environmental information; Air quality; Water management (divided into two parts: drinking water and waste water); Waste management; The sectoral winners - award for progress achieved in some relevant fields, but not in all. The finalist diplomas were given to other towns with top scores from the evaluation.

Click on the map to see the winners Download the list of winners (140 Kbyte PDF file) Award 2000 Award 2001