Public participation is a vital part of functioning EIA systems. Properly designed public involvement has been proved to have substantive beneficial implications on i) identification of the environmental friendly alternatives of the proposed development, ii) quality control of the prediction and evaluation of the environmental impacts, and iii) streamlining of political discussion on the social benefits of the proposed development.The Regional EIA Workshops (Split, 1996 and Szentendre, 1997) concluded that almost all EIA systems in CEE and NIS require a certain degree of public participation during the assessment process, yet the procedural background for public participation and the methodological practice in soliciting of public comments differ considerably within the region. The Sofia Initiative on EIA will therefore elaborate, together with the REC Public Participation Program, a comparative study on the effectiveness of the public participation systems within the national EIA systems in 15 CEE and 5 NIS countries. The study will identify best practices and draft recommendations to be presented result in recommendations at the Aarhus Ministerial Conference.
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