Chapter 9: Lithuania

(continued)

MAPPING AND EVALUATION OF OPPORTUNITIES

Preparation and Approval of National Laws and Regulations

Any group of 50,000 citizens is legally entitled to initiate a law or another national legal act. But in practice that never happens. Public participation in different phases of decisionmaking is possible but has rarely been used in practice. Environmental NGOs followed the preparation of the Law on Protected Areas and the Law on Privatization of State Owned Forests. In that process both legal and non-legal instruments of public participation were used. Finally NGOs have had access to relevant information in different phases of decisionmaking and did have some influence on decisions. Following drafts phase by phase is not a process clearly provided by law but in practice there are possibilities to do it, if for example the NGO has a good reputation or personal contacts which could facilitate that.

TABLE 4: Preparation and Approval of National Laws and Regulations
	Initiation of DM (problem/ proposal)	Defining the scope, issues and stakeholders (pre-decision scoping)	Defining the scope of DM (impacts and alternatives)	Evaluation of the alternatives	Selection of the alternative (DM about the selected alternative)	Execution of the selected alternative	Post-decision monitoring & enforcement (feedback/ adjustment)
Phases of Decisionmaking LEVELS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Control of decisionmaking (right to decide)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Decisionmaking power is shared (right to joint decisionmaking)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Comments are seriously taken into account (right to be heard)	1	2	2	2	1	1	2
Adequate notification (right to be informed)	1	2	2	2	2	2	2
Access to information (right to access to information)	1	3	2	2	1	2	2

Preparation and Approval of National Policies, Strategies, Programs and Plans

According to the legislation initiation of national policies, strategies, plans, etc, it is the prerogative of the government, so citizens and NGOs can't initiate the process. In practice representatives of NGOs were sometimes invited to participate in drafting committees of environmental or related policies, strategies, etc. Inside the drafting committees public representatives have the same rights as other members and can vote. Representatives of the Lithuanian Green Movement participated as members in the drafting committee of National Environmental Strategy, the National Strategy on Implementation of Framework Convention on Climate Change, the National Environmental Education Strategy and others. In addition, they were sometimes involved as representatives of NGOs participating as advisers/observers in the preparation process of other policy documents like the National Energy Strategy, etc. Drafting committees have a right to propose alternatives for decisionmaking bodies but have no any right to choose alternatives, since that is the prerogative of government or parliament. Implementation of the strategies/policies also fully belongs to governmental institutions. Notification concerning the preparation/implementation of national strategies/policies is good enough among NGOs participating in the process, but general information for the public is also available in the media.

TABLE 5: Preparation and Approval of National Strategies and Policies
	Initiation of DM (problem/ proposal)	Defining the scope, issues and stakeholders (pre-decision scoping)	Defining the scope of DM (impacts and alternatives)	Evaluation of the alternatives	Selection of the alternative (DM about the selected alternative)	Execution of the selected alternative	Post-decision monitoring & enforcement (feedback/ adjustment)
Phases of Decisionmaking LEVELS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Control of decisionmaking (right to decide)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Decisionmaking power is shared (right to joint decisionmaking)	1	2	2	2	2	1	1
Comments are seriously taken into account (right to be heard)	2	3	3	3	2	2	2
Adequate notification (right to be informed)	1	3	3	3	2	3	3
Access to information (right to access to information)	1	3	3	3	3	3	3

Preparation and Approval of Local Rules and Regulations

Citizens/NGOs cannot directly initiate the process to introduce new local rules and regulations. Direct control of decisionmaking is possible only through elections to the City Council. In some municipalities citizens/NGOs can comment on the drafts of local rules and regulations if they appear in the media, although in practice that happens rarely. The right to select alternatives belongs solely to the city council and the city board, but public representatives can participate as advisors or observers. In practice environmental NGOs in some municipalities participate in environmental protection committees of city councils. The procedure for distributing information in municipalities is laid out in the statutes of city councils and differs from municipality to municipality. Usually it is possible to find actual information about ongoing legal debates in the local media and on advertising boards but society is typically not interested in implementation of the law after the decision has been reached.

TABLE 6: Preparation and Approval of Local Rules and Regulations
	Initiation of DM (problem/ proposal)	Defining the scope, issues and stakeholders (pre-decision scoping)	Defining the scope of DM (impacts and alternatives)	Evaluation of the alternatives	Selection of the alternative (DM about the selected alternative)	Execution of the selected alternative	Post-decision monitoring & enforcement (feedback/ adjustment)
Phases of Decisionmaking LEVELS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Control of decisionmaking (right to decide)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Decisionmaking power is shared (right to joint decisionmaking)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Comments are seriously taken into account (right to be heard)	1	2	2	2	1	1	1
Adequate notification (right to be informed)	1	2	2	2	1	1	1
Access to information (right to access to information)	1	2	2	2	2	2	2

Preparation and Approval of Regional/Local Policies (Strategies)

Initiation of local policies and strategies is the prerogative of the city board; citizens and NGOs can only advise and recommend. In practice, representatives of NGOs participate in preparation of local environmental policies or strategies. Depending on the subject, different drafting groups can be created and public representatives can be involved as advisers or as real members. For example, representatives of the Atgaja community participated in preparation of Local Agenda 21 in Kaunas city and representatives of the environmental club Zvejone participated in preparation of transport policy in Klaipeda. Draft preparation groups have a right to propose alternatives to the city council. Implementation of the strategies/policies is the full responsibility of the city board. Information concerning local environmental strategies/policies usually appears in the local newspapers or on municipality advertising boards.

TABLE 7: Preparation and Approval of Regional/Local Policies (Strategies)
	Initiation of DM (problem/ proposal)	Defining the scope, issues and stakeholders (pre-decision scoping)	Defining the scope of DM (impacts and alternatives)	Evaluation of the alternatives	Selection of the alternative (DM about the selected alternative)	Execution of the selected alternative	Post-decision monitoring & enforcement (feedback/ adjustment)
Phases of Decisionmaking LEVELS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Control of decisionmaking (right to decide)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Decisionmaking power is shared (right to joint decisionmaking)	1	1	2	2	2	1	1
Comments are seriously taken into account (right to be heard)	2	3	3	3	2	2	2
Adequate notification (right to be informed)	4	3	3	3	2	3	3
Access to information (right to access to information)	1	3	3	3	3	3	3

Preparation and Approval of Territorial Plans (Spatial/Local Land-Use Plans)

Initiation of the territorial planning process is the prerogative of the planning organizer, which can be governmental institutions, municipalities or a land owner, depending on territorial planning level. The planning organizers are obliged to inform society in advance about any planned activities. Following the release of primary information concerning the planned activity, society can request more information on the subject. The next phases of decisionmaking are reasonably open and transparent but citizens tend to not be interested. In effect, people cannot have any influence on the execution of selected alternatives and monitoring of decisions but usually they try to do it. In practice, planning organizers advertise meetings/public hearings concerning the definite planned activities but not so many people participate in it. Usually interested or affected parties attend such meetings and try to look for more information or to use their legal rights. Generally the territorial planning process in Lithuania is more or less transparent.

TABLE 8: Preparation and Approval of Territorial Plans (Spatial/Local Land-Use Plans)
	Initiation of DM (problem/ proposal)	Defining the scope, issues and stakeholders (pre-decision scoping)	Defining the scope of DM (impacts and alternatives)	Evaluation of the alternatives	Selection of the alternative (DM about the selected alternative)	Execution of the selected alternative	Post-decision monitoring & enforcement (feedback/ adjustment)
Phases of Decisionmaking LEVELS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Control of decisionmaking (right to decide)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Decisionmaking power is shared (right to joint decisionmaking)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Comments are seriously taken into account (right to be heard)	1	3	4	4	3	1	1
Adequate notification (right to be informed)	3	4	4	4	4	3	3
Access to information (right to access to information)	4	4	4	4	3	3	3

EIA

The environmental impact assessment is quite a new process in Lithuania and even legally the procedure is not completely in place. Public control of decisionmaking of the EIA is not foreseen in the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment and ensuing rules. According to the set procedures citizens/NGOs have a right to influence the EIA process in three phases: At the beginning during selection of site for a planned object, after the definition of scope and content of EIA and at the end of EIA process. Citizens have no right to influence selection of alternatives and execution/control of selected alternatives. The final decision on EIA must be taken by the Ministry of Environmental Protection but all steps of the process should be coordinated with other institutions like hygiene authorities, county administration, municipalities and others. Due to a lack of regulations, the procedure of EIA is not yet clear enough and in practice it is not so easy to get information from the institutions cited here and the process is not so transparent. In practice there have not been many cases of EIA in Lithuania. At the federal level an EIA was conducted for the newly planned motorway section, Via-Baltica. Public hearings were organized and public comments were taken into account but there was no feedback from the process. Some EIA procedures were conducted on a local level for petrol stations or other small objects. On a municipal level people do not care as much about their legal rights but tend to influence the situation through direct actions and even illegal means.

TABLE 9: Environmental Impact Assessment
	Initiation of DM (problem/ proposal)	Defining the scope, issues and stakeholders (pre-decision scoping)	Defining the scope of DM (impacts and alternatives)	Evaluation of the alternatives	Selection of the alternative (DM about the selected alternative)	Execution of the selected alternative	Post-decision monitoring & enforcement (feedback/ adjustment)
Phases of Decisionmaking LEVELS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Control of decisionmaking (right to decide)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Decisionmaking power is shared (right to joint decisionmaking)	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Comments are seriously taken into account (right to be heard)	2	2	2	2	1	1	1
Adequate notification (right to be informed)	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
Access to information (right to access to information)	2	2	2	2	2	2	2

Permitting

There are several types of permitting processes in Lithuania: Permitting for use of natural resources, permitting for emissions to the environment, permitting for construction, permitting for soil excavation, etc. In general the procedure of permitting is the creation of a legal relationship between the customer and the responsible institution, which is not very transparent. According to usual procedures, the final decision can be appealed to the institutions mentioned above and to the court afterwards.

Management of Environmental Funds

It is not foreseen that national legislation will provide any public participation possibilities in the management of environmental funds. Public involvement in the management of environmental funds might be laid out separately in the statutes of foundation.

REC * PUBLICATIONS * DOORS TO DEMOCRACY - CEE * LITHUANIA