The City Towards EU Compliance Award competition was launched in the EU candidate countries for the first time in 1999. The objective of this initiatives were: to raise awareness of the challenges; and to give recognition to the achievements made by local governments in implementing EU environmental legislation. The award programme was launched by the European Commission, Directorate-General Environment, and is managed by the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC, Hungary). In 2001 the PHARE Programme, within the framework of the Regional Environmental Accession Project for Central and Eastern Europe, also supported the competition. After the applications were evaluated in each edition of the competition, the overall winners were invited to Brussels to receive recognition diplomas from the EU Commissioner responsible for environment. In addition, the 23 winners of the 1999 and 2000 editions of the City Towards EU Compliance Award Competition were invited by the REC with the support of the PHARE Programme to a competitive grant programme which aims to promote their efforts towards practical implementation of EU environmental requirements.

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