On 18 December 2015, a training about EIA legislation and implementations was held in İstanbul by the Turkish ENV.Net Partner TEMA Foundation. The aim of the training was to introduce the commonalities and differences of EIA legislation and implementations between the EU and Turkey, and to develop solutions to improve EIA procedures in Turkey.  There were participants from the universities, CSO’s, ministries, private sector.

This was a one day training with two sessions. During the first sessions three talks were presented by the experts from Turkey and the EU. In the first presentation, Prof. Dr Begüm Özkaynak ( from the Boğaziçi University, in İstanbul) summarized the purpose and methods of the impact assessments in general, including not only EIA but also different methods such as Cost-Benefit Analysis, Risk Analysis and Participatory Multi-Criteria Assesment. The focus of the presentation was more on the theoretical aspects of the impact assessment methods.

After Prof. Ozkaynak, Richard Filcak (European Environmental Bureau) explained the current status, challenges, and the NGO perspectives of the EIA& SEA in the EU, also pointing out some case studies in EU. After Mr. Filcak, the morning session was concluded with the presentation  by Ömer Aykul (The legal consultant of TEMA Foundation, expert in environmental law), about the current EIA legislation in Turkey.
The afternoon session was organized in two parts. In the first part of the session, the participants talked about the
problems they encountered in EIA processes in Turkey, with a round table format. A lively discussion was held between the participants. After the discussion, participants were asked to write up to five problems they
see as most important on post-its with different colors (each representing a particular stakeholder group), and put them on a board containing the legal steps of an EIA in Turkey. The main problems highlighted during the second session were about public participation, expenses of legal actions and the content of the EIA reports.These problems were then grouped into four general topics by the workshop organizers. The participants were then divided into four groups, each discussing a different topic and solutions were developed to improve EIA procedures in Turkey.