The expansion of the European Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has become a defining period in European politics. The issues surrounding expansion are numerous and complex, and within these issues is include the debate over the environmental implications of accession. This process has resulted in the governments and parliaments of the accession countries creating institutions and mechanisms to facilitate the integration process. It has been recognised by the Commission (in particular European Commission Directorate General for Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection (DG-ENV)) that NGOs and the public have had a lack of opportunities to become involved in this debate. Indeed surveys indicate that citizens and NGOs are definitely not well or sufficiently informed on EU matters. As a result awareness about the environmental implications of EU policy is fairly low. To address -- in part -- this lack of information DG-Environment teamed up with the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) to build a dialogue between key EU institutions and NGOs from the accession countries. The dialogue project -- consisting of four meetings over two years between DG-ENV and NGOs -- will allow discussions and debates on current EU Accession processes in the environmental field. It was designed to inform NGOs about ongoing enlargement and environment issues; to improve transparency and relations with Candidate Countries NGOs; and to explore ways with the NGOs whereby they can play an active and constructive role in the enlargement process. This will hopefully enable the NGOs to be better equipped to take an active role in the discussion on EU environmental policy and the accession process. Provision of up-to-date information from EC officials has been a major facet of the project. NGOs for the dialogue were selected on the basis of an application procedure. The target was to involve those NGOs already working on accession issues and allow a fair geographical representation. NGOs from all 13 Accession countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey) were invited to take part in the first round of discussions. Additional NGOs were selected from the South East European countries, who though not yet candidate countries are heading in that direction. The first of the four dialogue meetings took place in Brussels from October 20-23, 1999. It focussed largely on different pre-accession funding instruments. The Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström participated in all meetings. The second meeting, which is recorded by this REC publication, took place in June 2000 in Szentendre, Hungary. The meeting ran alongside the 10th Anniversary of the REC and a CEE Ministerial Consultation on key environmental issues. This gave the participating NGO dialogue group a unique opportunity to air their opinions directly to decision makers. The dialogue between DG-ENV and NGOs is facilitated by REC’s NGO Support Program. It represents part of REC’s goal to promote NGOs and government to work together. The dialogue has given NGOs the opportunity to meet directly the officials working on enlargement issues, gather the most recent information and briefings on the process and also enabled like-minded NGOs to network and develop common activities. Robert Atkinson Head of Programs NGO Support and Capacity Building   Acknowledgements Thanks go to the following people who have been instrumental in the preparation of this publication. John Barlow, Tonya Jansen and Darek Urbaniak kept the minutes of the meetings. Robert Atkinson, Adriana Craciun, and Tom Popper edited or reviewed the text. Sylvia Magyar designed the publication, with photographs by Hadley Kincade and the illustration by Laszlo Falvay.

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